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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 10, 1953)
Prairieland Talk . . . Team Knows It’s Chow Time By ROMAINE SAUNDERS. Retired. Former Frontier Editor LINCOLN—When Dick Kilmurry pulled the rope and the bell began to announce the hour of 6 o’clock an evening in late summer of 1904, Pat Biglin’s team knew it was quitting time and pull ed out from where Pat was loading his wagon down by the North Western railroad track and made it to their barn without a driver. . . Frank Welton had pulled out that morning with a four-horse load of lumber to build him a house .on his 640-acre homestead in Swan precinct. . . Henry Cook • dedicated his newly built gran ary out on the farm by inviting in neighbors for a dance. . . Mr. ° and Mrs. L. G. Gillerpie were happy to arrive safely again im o O’Neill after the experience in a cyclone that ripped through Minneapolis, Minn., where they were visiting. . . Hagensick’s Romalno blacksmith shop turned out a Saunders bus for the Dewey hotel, which then made three such outfits to meet incoming trains and get business for the hotels. . . A son was born to Mr. and Mrs. R. H. Mills on August 25 that year and Master Bryan Hall celebrated his sixth birth • day anniversary. HaerlerA, something of a notable city in Hol land long before our times, was the home of the first printer who was also a city alderman. As the story comes down the centuries, a day in the year 1440 Lawrence Koster while walking abroad to amuse himself peeled bark from a tree from which he carved letters forming the initials of his name. Returning from his rambles he placed the bark letters on a bit of paper outside his dwelling. He retired for the night and next morning made the discovery that brought about the establishment of the first printing business in the world. The dew of night had left an -im pression of the initials on the paper. An idea was born. Koster then cut letters out of wood. These he dipped into a glutinous mixture and pressed them on paper. The result wai he built him a crude printing press, developed type out of metal and opened a printing business in a back room of r.is heme. Others took up with the new discov ery which continues to be a fascination that lures many. I know of a young fellow up the street who, like Koster, has a little printing outfit in his parental home. * * * America is donating 236,000 pounds of but ter for the German people of East Berlin who flock across the line from beyond the iron curtain by the thousands to get their pound of real but ter. Over here oleo has become the popular spread as most householders feel they can’t afford to buy buuer. . . The kids seem to be going to the bad in the City of Brotherly Love. Police have rounded up about a thousand teenagers in Phil adelphia who had turned to the ways of Jesse James and Cactus Kate. And the U.S. narcotics chief thinks the use of drugs on the part of youth shows a decline. . . Bill Pettis of a forgotten generation over in Willowdale and the champion glutton of Holt county when it came to gulping . oysters, was something of a piker compared with a guy at Sydney, Australia, who is said to have slid 312 of the slippery creatures down his neck in 30 mmutes. If I recall it right Bill’s record stood at 180. * * * One holiday—for bankers and office holders —just out of the way and another comes shortly. , Railroad workers, bus drivers, policemen, the household cooks and dishwashers, newspaper guys and printers have no holidays. I opened a door to look out upon the first flush of the late November morning. A piece of the moon, high in the southern sky, seemed to beckon any of the homogenus who might be astir at that hour to take a flight in fancy from this troubled world out there into the realms of light. But a rooster crowed somewhere nearby and we understood solid footing was still under us. To the east the pink glow of dawn inspired the crowing cock to greet another day. At brief in tervals the lusty crowing continued as if to re mind troubled mankind that the community harbored one animated creature that was not worried over taxes and the increased price of bread announced by the bakers the day before. In the back yard later in the morning I found a lordly snow-white rooster that came from some where and was disposed to be friendly. Now it is evening of an otherwise uneventful day and a ribbon of gold stretches the length of the horizon under a dark cloud at the sunset hour. * * * Studebaker laid off five or six thousand workmen some time ago and now Ford is lay ing off hundreds of men. Has the automobile industry rolled over the high peak and will it be on the decline from now on? One longtime auto dealer up the street says 95 percent of the cars rolling the streets are not paid for. I) was a young woman from a Nebraska rural community who scored for honors in Chi cago, 111., last week. Patsy Woodman of Kenesaw, a little village down in Adams county, has made an outstanding record in home improvements and was awarded top honors at the national 4-H club meeting in late November. A young woman who feels the importance of having h'ome conditions the best has taken to a worthwhile field of en deavor. And Miss Woodman went from prairie land to the great city by Lake Michigan with things that are helpful pertaining to that which is fundamental in American life—the home. * * * No Kum Sok, a North Korean who forsook the Red army and flew a Russian built fighter plane to allied lines and sought refuge, has been handed the $100,000 offered for the first arrival from the zone of the enemy in the late Korean unpleasantness. No Kum Sok asked that the money be placed in trust for his education in the United States and to provide for his mother. A son who thus thinks of his mother couldn’t perma nently remain in the camp of the reds. Should he become an American citizen he will probably want to Yankeeize his name. * * * Ran into a gent yesterday who is growing a face adornment in the form of a full beard. Let us hope, fellows, that he has started some thing that will become popular. Anything to do away with the drudgery of the morning shave. And I heard a lady say once that a kiss with out the mustache on Lochinvar's loving lip was like strawberries without cream. * « * Andy Vishky, otherwise Andrei Vishinsky, representing the Kremlin in the United Nations setup, has moved into a 20-room mansion in the millionaire residence district of New York City for which the Russian government at Moscow forked over $150,000. This representative of the Muscovite enemies of capitalists is thus placed in bad company. But apparently these red bosses have just been putting up a false front with re spect to filthy lucre. Look out, Andy, or Wall street will get you! Editorial . . . Don Hanson Blasts Supports Those members of the Nebraska Stock Grow ers’ association who managed to be here for the regional meeting last Thursday heard a sobering, biting talk from Dan Hanson, Hat Creek, Wyo., ranches, whose chief target was government price supports. By coincidence, Hanson was speaking in his mother’s hometown. Her maiden name was Kath erine Burke and her family homesteaded south of O’Neill. " Mr. Hanson is a former member of the Wy oming state legislature and currently is a mem * ber of ti e executive committee of the Wyoming Stock Growers’ association. He operates a large ranch about 20 miles from Hat Creek, near Salt Creek; also a ranch in South Dakota. He is 45 years-old, has a wife, three sons and one daughter. “Sooner than some of us think the American public is going to rebel against the ridiculous farce of subsidizing so that food costs will be arti ficially high,” Mr. Hanson said. “Uui acceptance of all these temporary and illusive benefits by no means constitutes approv al of thnm. All of us will salvage all we can from fire or flood without being accused of approving such calamities. “In the same way we feel justified in sal vaging all we can from the great national dis aster of socialism which is engulfing us and which we abhor and condemn,” said Mr. Hanson. He cited failures throughout history of gov ernment wage and price controls and said the “cattle industry is in a position where it cannot afford to risk public disapproval by pursuit of greedy or shortsighted policies such as are char acteristic of boss-ridden labor unions or govern ment agencies. “No government can give society anything unless it takes a greater amount away,” he said. During his brief stay here, Mr Hanson visit ed with his cousins, Evelyn Stannard, Laura Burks, Jack Arbuthnot, and his aunt, Mrs. D. Stannard. Honest Folks Will Be Stung (Guest editorial by Jack Lough frcm The Albion News) Gov. Bob Crosby has picked up a lot of wish ful-thinking support on his plan to educate, ca jole and force personal property onto the tax rolls. I'm cynical enough to believe that honest folks are still going to get stung to the profit of the disiionest property owner . . . and here’s why. The governor is betting that local assessing machinery is somehow miraculously going to be come educated and conscientious to the point , that it will immediately do a thorough job that it has never done thoroughly before. I predict that honest folks in great numbers will turn in property that never saw the light of the assessor’s office before, and I’ll wager, too, that many un scrupulous folks will go right on evading the tax rolls just as they always have . . . and they’ll get away with it, too. Let’s remember that we’re depending upon the same archaic assessing ma . ohinery to do this rejuvenated job. machinery that sipce the beginning of property taxation in Nebraska has consistently done a bad job. 9 The governor has dismissed the real estate property assessment problem as being solved, evidently. Nobody in Boone county can possibly share his complacency in this matter. As of right this minute the same real estate evaluations and inequalities exist on the assessor’s records as ex isted late in July when the state board of equal ization “equalized” county evaluations through out the state. But not a single piece of property has been equalized within the county. I utterly endorse the governor’s position that the laws of the state should be enforced. But I know Mr. Crosby acknowledges that the present law needs a drastic overhauling. Therefore, I be lieve it is folly at this time or any other time for the executive department of the state to talk only of enforcement when it knows full well that realistic tax reform is needed. County after county in Nebraska at this time is hiring commercial firms or local committees to do the job of equalizing what was supposed to have been done by the county assessors. I be lieve this truly remarkable situation is the very best evidence that drastic tax reform is needed. The regular session of the unicameral, more than a year hence, may get around to tax reform. But there will be a lot of water under the bridge by that time. It is hard to understand why some people fear death, and it is not hard to understand why others fear it. The truth is merciless in killing pet theories and prejudices; that is why it is very often un popular. Bamum was not the only American to appre ciate the fact that the people will swallow any thing. People continue to tell us they are surprised by results of advertising in The Frontier. It’s smart to listen to most advice and equal ly smart not to follow it. MlP FronITEr CARROLL W. STEWART, Editor and Publisher Editorial & Business Offices: 122 South Fourth Si. Address correspondence: Box 330, O’Neill, NeLr 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, 1953V Out of Old Nebraska. . . Indians Attracted to Dawes County Pine Ridge Stage for Great Struggle Dawes county, in the scenic Pine Ridge country of northeast Nebraska, can trace its colorful history far beyond the relatively short period of white occupation. An abundance of water, wood and shelter made the land attractive to the Indians and before the white man came, the region was the home of the Oglala and Brule Sioux. The Pine Ridge remained Indian country longer than any other part of Nebraska, and as such was the stage for the last act in the great struggle between the red man and the white. The first white men in the re gion were traders, among them Chadrone, who had a post on Chad on creek about 9 miles south of the present city of Chad ron, and Bordeaux and Bisson ette, located on Big Bordeaux creek east of Chadron. Activity which developed into permanent settlement followed completion of the survey of the Nebraska South Dakota line in 1874 and the removal of the Indians into South Dakota. There were still difficulties with the Indians. Fort Robinson was established in 1874 to deal with those difficulties. In a few years the ranchers be gan to come into the Pine Ridge country and in 1878 the first cat tle ranches were established in what is now Dawes County—one bv Edgar Beecher Bronson on Deadman’s creek, another by Captan Powers on the Big Bor deaux. Others followed quickly, and soon thousands of cattle were grazing on the hills of the Pine Ridge. Government beef buyers from the Indian agencies on the line in South Dakota provided an easily accessible market. Rail roads building west provided ac cess to the markets in the east. mu me railroads also Drought homesteaders to the Pine Ridge country and by the spring of 1835, when the Chicago and Northwest ern reached Chadron, most of the big herds already had been mov ed to Wyoming and Montana. Chadron was started in 1884. The site, though, was about 6 miles northwest of the present town. The town was moved to its present site on the railroad in the spring of 1885. Dawes county was organized in 1885. Earlier it had been part of Sioux county organized in 1867 to include virtually all of north west Nebraska. For a while Sioux county was attached to Cheyenne county on the south—another om nibus county—for judicial and administrative purposes. Dawes county was named in honor of James W. Dawes, governor of Nebraska at the time the county was organized. The hard times of the 90s took their toll in Dawes county. Many of the settlers learned then that the traditional quarter - section homestead was not sufficient to subsist a family in the Pine Ridge country. The present agricultural pattern is one wide diversifica tion with considerable emphasis on stockraising. Dawes county can boast one of Nebraska’s most beautiful parks —Chadron State Park, an 800 acre park south of the city of Chadron. I In 1890 Dawes county return j ed a population of 9,722. Even allowing for the generally inacur ate census figures of that year, the returns show that initial set tlement was rapid. In 1900 the population had dropped to 6,215. i It rose gradually to the high-wat | er mark of 11,493 in 1930. In 1950 the population was 9,708. Couple Returns from Trieste Page Serviceman in Trouble Spot PAGE—Pfc. and Mrs. Jerry Asher returned to Page Wednes day evening from Trieste, FTT. Private Asher had spent over 11 months there and Mrs. Asher seven months. Private Asher has a 30-day furlough and will report to Ft. Belvoir, Va. They are visiting their parentr, Mr. and Mrs. Neil Asher and Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd Fussleman, and other relatives. Richard Asher ard Lloyd Fussle man drove to Omaha to bring i them to Page. Trieste is regarded in interna tional affairs as one of the prime tension spots in the world be cause of its proximity to Yugo slavia, Russia, Italy, and Balkan states. Other Page News Mr. and Mrs. Richard Asher | and family of Powell, Wyo., spent Saturday afternoon and were sup er guests of Mr. and Mrs. Neil Asher. Mr. and Mrs. Vem Wrede of Inman visited Sunday afternoon at the Melvin Smith home. Sunday dinner guests at the Neil Asher home were Mr. and Mrs. Bob Asher and family of O’Neill, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Ash er and son and Pfc. and Mrs. Jerry Asher. Mr. and Mrs. O. J. Hoffman and family of Clearwater visited Sunday with her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Gailord Albright. Mr. and Mrs. Allen Hayne and Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Dob bins were Sunday dinner guests of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Snyder. Rev. and Mrs. Lisle Mewmaw and son were afternoon callers. Mrs. Evelyn Gray left Wednes day morning, December 2, to visit her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Gene Baber and family at Plain view. Mrs. Baber brought her home Saturday. Mr. and Mrs. Kenneth Ashei and family, Mr. and Mrs. Ben Asher and family, Mr. and Mrs. Harold Asher and son visited Friday evening with Mr. and Mrs. Neil Asher and with Pfc. and Mrs. Jerry Asher who had just returned from Trieste, FTT. The King’s Daughters met Tuesday evening, December 1, at the home of Mrs. Ralph Bros trum with seventeen members present. Mrs. Frank Beeleart led the devotions. It was voted for each member to give a dollar to the City Mission of Omaha. There was an exchange of Christmas gifts. Refreshments were served. The Help U club met Wednes day, December 2, for an all-day session with Mrs. William Buxton. A no-host dinner was served. Nine members were present and one guest, Mrs. F. A. Gehrke of Big Springs. The ladies did needlework for the hostess. Mrs. Kenneth Waring had charge of ' the entertainment with Mrs. Vince Jackson winning the prize. Mrs. Gerald Waring received the prize for having the lucky cup. Their next meeting will be Wed nesday, December 16, at the home of Mrs. Otto Matschullat. It will be their Christmas party with exchange of gifts. The losers in an attendance contest will enter tain the winners. Cronin io Preside— at Tax Institutes— The Nebraska State Bar assoc iation announced this week the program for its 11th annual in stitute on federal tax law which will be held at Scottstoluff on December 14-15. Kearney Dec ember 16-17 and Omaha Decem ber 18-19. The institute is a part of the association’s program of contin uing legal education and is pre sented without charge to mem bers of the State Bar association to insure that all of its members are adequately prepared to pro perly represent clients in federal taxation cases. The speakers will be James N. Ackerman of Lincoln: James W. R. Brown of Omaha; Hale Mc Cown of Beatrice; Flavel A. Wright of Lincoln; Vance Lein inger of Columbus; Laurens Wil liams of Omaha; Louis D. Klein of Omaha and Thomas O. Shel ton, jr., of Dallas, Tex. Mr. Klein is group chief, audit division, office of director of in ternal revenue, district of Ne braska. Mr. Shelton is an expert on oil | and gas tax problems, serving on tax committees for the Texas Bar association, Southwestern o Legal Foundation and the Amer ican Bar association. The meeting will be presided over by Julius D. Cronin of O’ Neill, president of the Nebraska Bar association. Mr. and Mrs. John Osenbaugh and family of Burwell were here last week visiting with their parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Osen baugh, sr., and Mr. and Mrs. Earl Ralya. Jim Crowley of Sun Valley, Ida., is here visiting relatives and friends. W. F. FINLEY, M.D. O’NEILL First National Bank Bldg. OFFICE PHONE: 28 DR. DONALD E. DAVID I OPTOMETRIST Eyes Examined Glasses Fitted { Phone 2101, Spencer^ Nebr j i \ •! ! I I I MILLER THEATER — Atkinson — Fri.-Sat. Dec. 11-12 i __ _ also — _ Sun.-Mon.-Tues. Dec. 13-14-15 ■R--_««*>■ uum cmti soma1 Wed.-Thurs. Dec. 16-17 « ENTERTAINMENT ... &W& That's right! Santa, himself, finds it hard to pass up playing with the realistic, pint-size toy John Deere Farm Implements. See them and you'll understand why youngsters, too, like them so well. There's a complete line for the young farmer—a plow that raises or lowers for transporting or plowing; a rubber-tired wagon that handles a big load of play grain; a toy manure spreader that actually spreads sand and sawdust; a disk harrow that angles and straightens; and, of course, a sturdy, toy tractor that will be your youngster's prize posses sion. Boys and girls, alike, get a big thrill out of being farmers just like Dad. This Christmas, set them up in farming with these wonderful, small-scale implements. See us now while there's still a good supply. HARRY R. SMITH IMPLS. “Your JOHN DEERE Dealer” Phone 562 O’Neill —~^RAP.T-—i■ WAG°"S_ PLOWS Leaking for a real deal ? __ vim* fovs the time *° save , WE feature the delivered price of the Buick pictured here to make a point about the big trade-in allow ances were giving today. The price you pay for the car itself — the local delivered price —is the first thing to look for when you’re bargain hunting. It’s this figure less what you get on your trade-in that determines your real cost—the dollar difference you pay. That means — keep your eye on the dollar difference. The more car it buys, the better deal you make. So with our low delivered price and i the high trade-in allowances we’re giving right now—we think we have a whale of a buy for you. And when you check into things, we believe you’ll discover this: You get more room and power for your money in this Buick than in any other car on the market. You get hundreds of pounds more automobile here — more strength in the brawnier frame, more durability in the heavier chassis, more safety in the thicker structural members—than in a long list of cars at this Buick's price or higher. --—-1 You also get a lot more in a Buick that the specifications don't show — more fun, more thrill, more comfort, more pride and pleasure. But why waste another day—with time growing shorter, winter coming closer, and your present car getting older? If you’re looking for a real automobile at a real buy in a real deal come look at Buick right now, THE GREATEST BUICK s , —--WHEN BETTER AUTOMOBILES ARE BUILT BUICK WILL BUILD THEM-■ ————— A. MARCELLUS Phone 370 - _,_O’Neill