Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 36, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 May 1904 — A Wail From the Wilderness [ARTICLE]

A Wail From the Wilderness

Mr Editor: Toe Brazen Serpent has beett erected in the wilderness. Another plan of redemption has been provided for the waterlogged, muck bound descendant* of Adam living along the Ircquoi* valley in “dug outa” tenta and bhanties, who have eked oat a bare existence by raising a few bean* and a little sorghum on the sandridges and straggling year by year with fields of corn on watersoaked marshes, whioh do not produoe enough oorn to feed the teams which plow them. Starvation etarea them in the face. The gaunt wolf enters the door in the winter. Sickness comes and uo money to pay the doctor or to purchase medicine. The township trustee is solicited for aid and the dreaded poor farmthreatens to draw them into Unfriendly meshes. Laek of feed causes stock to die and troubles follow eaoh other in rapid succession. Tans ennui is contracted and the poor farmer together with his faithful spouse discuss suioide, Kansas and Klondike. Like one of old he is admoniabod in the midst of bis calamities to “curse God and die.” Yet while there is life there is hope, and for the seoond time in the last deoade * ’mammoth pole has been raised in our midst on which in brazen letters is the following inscription: The Ircquois Improvement.

When the rally call was heard some ten years ago some refused to look and live. Consequently they died. Not a temporal death, neither a spiritual death, but a financial death. We were surprised at onr assessment at the Auditor’s office, whioh amounts to about seven dollars an aore on the low land, but on closer examination and a little pencil work we find that we oonld pay twenty*five dollars an aore and still make a good investment. Therefore we are in favor of the t improvement first, last and all the time. A-jd so it is with onr neighbors so far as we have heard from them.

Now let us all with one acoord, rally round this standard of deliverance and stand by the ropes till the Ircquoie beoomes a living stream of pure water instead of a stagnant quagmire of floating sod spanned by floating bridges, and contaminated by miasmatic malaria until oft times the foul gases beoome so dense that great clouds ‘dike a pillar of fire by night" under the names of Will-o-the-wispe and Jaokolanterns chase eaoh other across the | marsh for midnight amusement. If this improvement is • dilemma let us take it by the horns, if it is a 'financial or physioil blessing let us embrace it. Respectfully submitted by-

A. WELL WISHER.