Prairieland Talk . . . Tighten Belts, Take Losses By ROMAINE SAUNDERS, Retired, Former Frontier Editor . LINCOLN—Farm price supports — and so .long as such are maintained so long will inflated • prices of everything continue. Not so long ago the family that had an 80-acre farm, four horses, a few cows and a flock of -chickens was satisfied and happy, managed their affairs without help or hindrance from state and federal boards and bureaus and were as independent as a hog on ice. Products of the farms, live stock and fruits and grains are too high. Everything is priced crazy. Salaries and wages are too high and much of life’s ne cessities are priced beyond the ability of many to buy. If the American dollar is ever restored to its true value farmers and wage and salary , earning classes along with all . lines of industry must take a cut Saunders in income which would also mean a cut in out . . go, and $50-an-acre corn lands and $5-an-acre . grass lands get back to just that with town and city property restored to normal values. Have a bunch of babies taken over the cattle raising industry? Imagine Holt county ranchers like Charley Blabon, Sam Elwood, Hay McClure or Riley Brothers going to government officials to bellyache about the ups-and-downs of their business! If one year’s operations spelled a loss they tightened belts, swung the lariat over the horns of a few more and went at it to make a profit the next year. I had an investment or two that were not so good. Maybe Secretary Benson should make up the losses. But as I and others who have been stung from time-to-time took it on the chin, the 1953 cowpunchers should take the losses and build for the future on a lower level of cattle prices. I saw in a store window today “Beef roast 49 cents pound.” This just after learning cattle in Kansas bring nine cents a pound. Maybe the fellow at the meat block should be dealt with. I saw them yesterday, two lille shavers rushing out shouting, "Daddy! Daddy!" as daddy came into the yard after being away all day at work, and the wife and mother stood in the doorway and smiled. Just a glimpse of American family life at its best. • • • Two blocks over from where Prairieland Talker’s typewriter is parked is a flower garden retaining color and fragrance as the season of the fallen leaf marches on. Hoar frost has not yet come to lay its jeweled sheet across the land. Trees are fast becoming bereft of the silken garb of summer and the yellow leaves of autumn are wind-blown along the open way to gather in fence corners or spread a blanket over yard and lawn. Each changing season has charm. Autumn colors and early sunsets that flash to us a goodnight in letters of gold. The south wind blows today, sweeping leaf and fallen twig before it, remindful of the approach of long winter evenings when Godfearing men and women with their children about them see visions of glory in the flickering firelight as they pop corn and eat apples. The past season has not been overly fruitful on prairieland but there is enough and we are grateful. Conservation—the act of preserving from de cay, loss or injury; to conserve. Nebraska, with other states, is divided into what are known as conservation districts. Just what is being accom plished by this setup? It has neither brought fruitful seasons nor prevented the results of drought. Most of the state’s farm lands have been a failure this year so far as crop yield is concern ed. What will next season be? Maybe the conser vationists should provide a few stacks of hay to spread over denuded fields in the event of an other visitation of hot winds. I read much about conservation but not one word to indicate an additional bushel of corn as a fruitage of all the talk. Certainly patriots are not just beating the air. And water-soaked irrigation links up with conservation. If you would rather raise an ear of corn than a calf and must irrigate, put down a well, but as Sam McKelvie says, palsied be the hand that spoils another acre of Nebraska’s God given cow country. We are busy promoting the schemes and plans and programs of men and probably always will be, “But the Lord is in His holy temple: Let all the earth keep silent before Him.” * * * A lordly cottonwood is responsible for a quarrel between neighbors. A householder com plains that the tree on his neighbor's lot clog ged his drains with falling leaves, the roots of the tree caused cracks in his driveway and walls, and goes to court hoping to collect $5. 000 damages. » * * Mr. and Mrs. Arthur F. Mullen, newlyweds, arrived on Saturday night’s train a date in July 50 years ago. Mr. Mullen at that time was serving as county attorney of Holt county, but he got his bride in eastern Iowa. He had bought one of the Kinch properties on what is now North First street just north of Douglas and he and his bride established a home there. . . A day in July that year Glen Nap, 9-years-old, met up with and killed a wolf single - handed near the parental home about five miles northeast of O’Neill. If a kid did that now he would be given a free trip to Paris and back. . . Mr. and Mrs. Henry Zim merman became grandparents that year when a daughter was born to Mr. and Mrs. Sturdevant of Spencer, Mrs. Sturdevant being their daughter, Clara. . . And J. J. McCafferty came over from Spencer (where he had started a hardware store) to celebrate the Fourth with others in the com munity that claimed his first love. ♦ * * Our neighboring state to the south has suf fered more than once because of rainless days during the growing season and again they suffer on Kansas soil because of a dry summer. Re sponding to the question as to what the past sea son has produced agriculturally in the section of that state where he makes his home, the one ad dressed replied, “Nothing.” Cornfields are nude so far as an ear of corn is involved and the stalks have been cut and gathered for fodder. Farmers are selling their cattle and ranchers are broke, cattle selling at nine cents a pound. Wells have given out in some communities and it has be come necessary to haul in water to supply certain towns with a little to keep them going. * * * Twelve miles out from Washington, D.C., the government carries on its biggest agricul tural experiments on a farm of 11,030 acres, 956 buildings and 2,000 husky "farmers." Editorial . . . Miller Says He Didn ’t Say It Fourth District Congressman A. L. Miller (R-Nebr.) was widely - quoted in the press last week as joining in the clamor for Secretary of Agriculture Ezra T. Benson’s scalp. The dis patches emanated from Washington and in these columns it also was stated that Miller thought Benson should quit. Congressman Miller, visiting in O’Neill over the weekend, insisted in clinics he was conduct ing and in an interview with The Frontier that the Washington dispatches had erroneously quot ed him from a television program on which he had appeared. “I think Secretary Benson is doing a good job,” said Doctor Miller, the Kimball physician who is now a veteran congressman representing Nebraska’s sprawling Big Fourth. “I think it is rather unfortunate that several of the press clip pings have said I’ve asked for his resignation. I never did. “I was on a TV program and I did say that I thought the opposition had labelled Benson as a symbol of lost confidence among the farmers and that he (Benson) might have to resign. I in dicated that Benson’s staying would depend up on the president’s success in reassuring the farm er and the cattleman as to the administration’s in terest in their welfare and the administration’s intentions to preserve it. I never did ask that he resign. “I think Mr. Benson is a fine Christian man doing a good job. The present farm program is the same as we’ve had in the last two or three years —support prices of 90 percent on corn, cotton, rice, peanuts, wheat, and tobacco. I think the cattlemen who descended on Washington Monday were making a mistake to ask for price supports —because if they get price supports they will get controls, too. 1 m holding clinics in 38 courthouses around the Fourth district. I find about 25 percent of the farmers and ranchers I talk to want supports, but they don’t know just how they want it — what grade, cows, calves or steers. The agriculture com mittee is out now listening to grassroots opinion and I think they’ll have a pretty good idea what supports are wanted when they finish up and go back to Washington. Certainly the administration is not going to let them down—and not Ezra Taft Benson. “I think that while Benson may have to re sign, because the opposition has been able to smear him, he is sort of a lost confidence symbol, put he is still doing the best job he can under the circumstances. “I think the politicians are more worried about it than the farmer himself. Some of the Farmers Union groups are the main ones who are finding considerable fault with the administra ■ tion’s program, including many new dealers who are on the outside looking in. “If things go on the way they’ve been going, Mr. Eisenhower after the next election may very well have a democratic congress.” In addition to the popular Benson subject, Congressman Miller offered his views to The Frontier on the prospects of Niobrara river basin development. (Doctor Miller is chairman of the house interior and insular affairs committee which passes on reclamation bureau activities.) “The reclamation bureau’s final report is in Washington now. I’m rather discouraged in the budget bureau’s attitude to get these projects ap proved. Such a project needs not only the interior department’s approval but also the budget bureau’s approval. The budget bureau is pretty stubborn about approving seven or eight projects in the 17 Western states—projects that I think ought to be approved. I'm going to see them (budget bureau) again in mid-November. I’m going to try to con vince them we have some projects the people want, they’re willing to pay back the cost of the project, and if it is feasible we ought to go ahead and have them.” The student county government program, sponsored by the American Legion, appears to gain more-and-more enthusiasm and interest each year. There are a good many adults in this world who haven’t a clue as to the machinery, prob lems and principles of government at any level. The Legion and cooperating county officials are to be congratulated for taking youthful minds behind the scenes and exposing them to county government in a very practical—although very brief—way. The Otto Knoells, who lost their farm home by fire of unknown origin, are up against it. Cer tainly neighbors and friends will come to their aid in this time of need. Mr. and Mrs. Knoell and their two small children are a worthy young farm family trying to get established and the fire loss places them in a difficult position. Happiness is the greatest paradox of nature. It can grow in any soil, live under any conditions. It defies environment. It comes from within. Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is the warm : glow of a heart at peace with itself.—Contributed. Except for a shortage of cement the paving contractors here say the eight blocks of new pav ing now under construction, adjoining the main business district, would have been completed about three weeks ago. Despite so much drought we’ve heard about there still seems to be an abundance of corn be ing harvested. Best news of the year is that the cattle prices have taken an upturn these past few days. Ever notice the number of television antennas to be counted in O’Neill nowadays? Frontier CARROLL W. STEWART, Editor and Publisher Editorial & Business Offices: 122 South Fourth St, Address correspondence: Box 330, O’Neill, Nebr Established in 1880—Published Each Thursday Entered at the postoffice in O’Neill, Holt county, Nebraska, as second-class mail matter under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. This newspaper is a member of the Nebraska Press Association, National Editorial Association and the Audit Bureau of Circulations. Terms of Subscription: In Nebraska, $2.50 per year; elsewhere in the United States, $3 per year; rates abroad, provided on request. All sub scriptions are paid-in-advance. Audited (ABC) Circulation—2,200 (Mar. 31, 1953). Company Commander Capt. Roy L. Dickerson of Atkinson (above) recently was assigned as commander of the 33d field artillery battalion’s battery A in Germany. Capt tain Dickerson, son of Mr. and Mrs. I. R. Pickerson of Atkin son, formerly served with the first infantry division’s artil lery headquarters in Erlan gen, Germany. He entered the army on his present tour of duty in October. 1950, and wears the bronze star medal and the army of occupation medal for service in Ger many. Dickerson, whose wife, Mildred, lives at 1511 Lake ave., Lawton, Okla.. arrived overseas last May. He is a 1942 graduate of the Univer sity of Nebraska.—U.S. army Photo. Visiting Here— Mrs. Echo Hanna of Wood Lake arrived Friday for a visit with her brother and sister-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. Earl Ralya, and family WM WITH PURCHASE OF 50 SQUARES OF STEEL PAINT BARN Corrugated, Unpainted ROOFING AND SIDING 26" Wide x 27/30 Cauge BROWN-STRAUSS'S SPECIAL LOW PRICE IWr 100 FT. Pool your orders with your friends and neighbors for your free paint. ; 6 FT. LENCTHS . . 75e SHEET 5 7 FT. LENCTHS . . 88c SHEET 8 FT. LENCTHS . 1.00 SHEET 10 FT. LENCTHS , 1.25 SHEET 12 FT. LENCTHS . 1.50 SHEET , RED BARN £005 ALUMINUM SISST PAINT—Gal. A . BARN PAINT*lefll Mo. and Kansas residents add 2% Sales Tax .. _.... •_ Lynch News Maxine Jehorek of Omaha spent last weekend at the parent al Martin Jehorek home. She re turned to her work Monday via O’Neill railroad. Robert Maly left Monday morn ing, October 19, for the army. Mrs. Josefa Sedivy of Spencer spent 'Sunday. October 18, at the Vac Jedlicka home. Mrs. Ethel Mulhair spent last weekend at the Dale Mulhair home in Sioux City. George Kalkowski .was a busi ness visitor in Crofton Monday. Mr. and Mrs. Emil Dryak and family and Mr. and Mrs. William Veseley and family all of Pishel ville were Lynch visitors Sunday. October 18. Mrs. Tillie Novak and son, Louis, spent Sunday, October d8, visiting Grandmotner Cerny at Niobrara. Mrs. Hattie Me Callister, a for mer Lynchite, now of Estes Park, Colo., spent last week visiting old time friends here. She left for Omaha on Friday where she will visit this week. Mrs. Gradys Spencer and Mrs. Lloyd Spencer spent Thursday in Spencer on business. The Wayne Christensen family moved into the Hewitson lesi- j dence which they recently pur chased and remodeled. Mrs. Albert McDonald and fam ily were Sunday dinner guests at the Frank McDonald home in Holt county. Mr. and Mrs. Ross Bernard and son, Lloyd, and wife all of Hart ington, spent Tuesday, October 20, at the Wallace Courtney home. Mr. and Mrs. Jerly Sixta spent Sunday, October 18, at the Allen Koscan home in Butte. Mr. and Mrs. Emmet Hickey and Miss Hazel McDonald, all of Los Angeles, Calif., visited at the Albert McDonald home here last week. Gerald Mills and family came Saturday, October 24, from Riv erton, Wyo., for a visit at the Lloyd Mills and Guy Norwood homes. Mr. and Mrs. Harold Anderson and family of Niobrara were Lynch visitors Sunday, October 18. DRS. BROWN