o " Praineland Talk . . . Challenge Arouses Bravery By ROMAINE SAUNDERS, Retired, Former Editor The Frontier LINCOLN—Fifty-six years ago an advertise- i ment in a London, England, newspaper read: Men | wanted for hazardous journey, small wages. The advertisement mentioned some of the difficulties, bitter cold, dangers, months in the dark, safe re turn not likely, but honor and fame if successful. It was signed by Ernest Shackleton, explorer of Arc tic regions. It seemed anything but attractive, yet there were many applicants to join the group for the “hazardous journey.” A challenge to courage ever has its appeal. When I was a lad in the long ago in the Wis consin community where we lived, if a kid want ed to pick a fight with another lad he put a chip on his shoulder and dared the lad to knock it off. The dare was always met by the chip being dislodged, accompan t ied by a punch in the snoot of the challenger. There is some thing about a challenge that arouses the bravery of men. Ad venture, hazards, dangers are an incentive to do and dare. Diffi culties, problems, the element of chance brings out the heroic in men. A song writer makes this Romalne appeal: Dare to be a Daniel, dare Saunders to stand alone, dare to have a purpose firm and dare to make it known! * * * Down the highway of time the seasons come and go, the hand that formed the lily has given us the snow\ When it is gone green verdure will adorn the lawn. Bud and blossom and leaf-deck ed tree are pleasant things to see, and waving fields of grain and stacks of new mown hay out where countless herds are feeding all the live long day. Then autumn tints and diamondstud ded dawn too grand to tell. And so it’s nature’s changing scene that inspires this bit of doggerel! w * * Maybe there is a corporal’s guard in and around O’Neill who were here in February, 1903, when P. J. Handley of Spencer returned to his first love and spent a day of two in O'Neill. Clyde King was out from Moline, 111., for a week’s so journ with home folks and friends. C. H. Stowell, postmaster at Francis, Wheeler county, had busi ness in O’Neill J. J. Dishner of Columbus, a broth er of F. J. of O’Neill, put up with Frank overnight. " Charles Cole was in Amelia looking after business and visiting his sister. Judge and Mrs. Dickinson of Omaha spent a few days in O’Neill at the home of their daughter, Mrs. S. J. Weekes. L. C. Chap man and Capt. R. F. Cross were “down from At kinson Monday.” R. R. Dickson said he would pay $5 for the return of his “black and white pointer dog.” A farewell party was held at the Odd Fellows hall for Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Newell, who were leav ing for Seattle, Wash. * * * Out there in Hollywood, Calif., the movie and TV center, surprising things may show up on the screen. Recently at a “queen” doings a woman came into the picture, her head thrown back like a trotting horse tight-reigned and a weight down behind so she could not lower her head. The mas . ° ter-of-ceremonies inquired into her condition and was told she fell last April on the street wnen in Atkinson, injury resulting to her vertebra. She had memories of Atkinson. * * * Industry in Russia, we are told, is now a near approach to our own. So the Muscovites have gone capitalistic, too! Explanations, investigations, ghost hunts and all disclosures considered, still there will be lin gering questions in the minds of any who care a rap about it why John M. Neff, an attorney down at Lexington, should toss $2,500 at a South Dakota senator to add to his “campaign fund.’’ A lawyer has the privilege of ducking behind the shadow of a client. This Mr. Neff has done and assures us the campaign gesture had no bribery significance as related to a bill before the senate. Charitable cit izens trust that is so. Mr. Neff is said to be record ed as a lobbyist at our statehouse in behalf of Tex as oil and gas interests, his client. Politicians are ever ready to make mountains out of mole hills. Lexington, the countyseat of Dawson county, is in the news otherwise. A gifted lady of the com munity, Mrs. Barmore, heads a group of Nebraska women crusading for the elimination of publica tions dealing in smut. * * * A once notable, Thomas E. Dewey, thinks the country is sunk unless Ike can be persuaded to serve a second term. As a nation we are old enough to furnish any number of capable natives to take on the job of president. * * * A husband and father had secured work after weeks of job hunting. The wife and mother of the one little child of the couple were awaiting the ar rival home in the evening of the husband and father to join them at the table loaded with good things that had been made possible when the first pay check came in. A messenger came to that home to tell the waiting wife that her husband fallen from a high point on a building where he was working and had been killed. A Nebraska farm wife and mother went to the bam to call her teen age son who had gone out to fix something under neath the car. She found her son under the car crushed to death, the jack having failed to hold. Why the sting of crushing sorrow lurking every wh ~e? * * * Two young fellows who had tasted the fruits plucked from the forbidden walks of life and were serving time in the state prison for a none-too serious offense against ordered society, while en joying the confidence of prison guards as “trusties” walked away, added another crime to their life’s record, tasted the sweet morsel of freedom, shackled by the fear of being seen, for one night. In the morning of what they planned that the sun would rise on a day of liberty, police officers at St. Joseph, Mo., caught one hiding on the roof of a building, the other huddled in a truck. A lengthened term now begins behind prairieland prison bars. * * * If you have lived to be the last of the family tree, and now at 83 are heart-whole and fancy free; so, when you have died, earth’s smiles and tears end for your tribe. * * * Roy Cochran, 13 years at a government desk in Washington, D.C., at one time our governor and before that as a highway engineer “chewing the rag” with Supervisor Jesse James over the Holt county end of highway 11 from Burwell to Atkin son, is back in Lincoln. Pat Kennedy, after basking in Arizona and California sunshine for some months, is back in Amelia. Farmers seem to be satisfied with their “deplorable condition.” A prai rieland patriot just acquired an 80-acre farm down in Burt county at $300 an acre. No place quite equal to Nebraska. f ° Editorial .... Will There Be Another Mitchell? * ■!> o “The Court Martial of Billy Mitchell,” the story of a martyr for the cause of air power, grip ped hundreds of theater-goes here this week. The film play, although not historically accurate in every detail, unmercifully chided army and navy brass for beating down their infant air arm while trying to protect appropriations and prestige of their own services. The Royal theater’s film play was high drama most of the way, pointing up the frugal existence of the army’s “air corps” in those years following World War I during which our victorious armies were hastily demobilized and, in “friendly aciton,” we sank much of our navy. The war had been fought to end all wars. Mitchell, a son of a New York senator, an air hero in France, and a professional soldier, put his career on the line to tell his countrymen about the complacency in the army and navy department high commands. He clearly violated military law to spread the story. He was ridiculed in the court martial by telling the court that aircraft in the “foreseeable future” would fly faster than sound and would be carrying bombs, passengers and car goes across the continents and across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans in a matter of hours. Mitchell was found guilty and he was stripped of rank and uniform. President Calvin Coolidge later intervened and suspended the sentence. Mitchell, an unrelenting exponent of air power, made the headlines for months. He died in 1936 on his Virginia farm w'here he raised livestock and potatoes. Unification of the services is said to have taken place about 10 years ago. But one wonders if' the die-hard professionals of the Billy Mitchell era have changed much. We know there are co ; lossal expenditures in research, purchasing, etc., conducted separately by the services in this jet and hydrogen age. And we wonder if another martyr like Mitchell must come along before there is final and pure unification. 15 Ways to Ruin Your Town j 1. Don’t say anything good about your town. Be the first to point up its shortcomings. 2. Refuse to work on any committee. Tell them “I’m too busy.” Anyway, it’s easier to criticize than to help do things. 3. Squawk about your taxes, then fuss because the streets are not kept up. 4. Talk cooperation, but don’t do any work for your town unless you get paid for it. 5. Look at every proposition in a selfish way. Never consider what it will do for the town as a whole. 6. Don’t support your local retail stores and industries. Claim the prices and services of other towns are better. 7. Don’t do anything for the youth of your town. Think of them as potential delinquents. En courage them to move away when they grow up. 8. Write unsigned letters to The Frontier ed itor, demanding more for your money from the city council, school board, or county commission ers, instead of attending their meetings. 9. Demand special treatment from your police department. Raise cain if anybody expects you to obey traffic and parkling laws. 10. Accuse anybody who serves in an elected office of being a publicity seeker (or a crook). 11. Never attend any meetings called for the O good of the town. If you do, don’t have anything to say, then find fault afterward with everything that was done. 12. Don’t attend your church regularly. Your contributions at Christmas and Easter will support it easily. 13. Don’t take time to vote in local elections. Howl because the town is run by a clique. 14. If you have good town leaders, don’t com mend them for the things they do. Take a jealous attitude and say nothing. 15. Don’t do any more than you have to to support your civic clubs, Parent-Teachers’ associa tion, Boy Scouts, firemen, etc. Others will willing ly and unselfishly give their time and money to make your town a better place in which to work and live. In this great land of ours an almost anony mous small-town Nebraska attorney can become a national figure overnight. We refer, of course, to John Neff’s appearance in the capitol before the senate committee and the source of the 25 one hundred-dollar bills bestowed upon South Dakota’s Senator Case. This prince is giving out statements about what Grace Kelly will and won’t do after they get married, and in this town there have been a lot of wedding presents that had to be send back just on account of stuff like that. A magazine article claims that a man who doesn’t smoke, drink, keep late hours, steal glances at pretty girls or overeat, can look forward to a long life. But why? The upcoming O’Neill and Atkinson basket ball tournaments for high school teams, class B and C, respectively, signal that spring is not far behind. Come now some teenage boys wearing bleach in their hair. One blond school kid, we under stand, intends to transform his thatch into red. An outstate paper remarks how good the two flies aboard Noah’s Ark had it. They had a horse apiece. CARROLL W. STEWART, Editor and Publisher Entered at the postoffice in O'Neill, Holt coun ty, Nebraska, as second-class mail matter under the Act of Congress of March 3, 1879. This news paper is a member of the Nebraska Press Associa tion, 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 subscriptions are paid in advance. Audited" (ABC) Circulation—2,530 (Sept. 30, 1955) Out-of-School Class in Progress Handicraft classes are one of the many phases of the Nebraska school for community living now in progress for out-of-school youth at the University of Nebraska. Projects include everything from ceramics to leather tooling. Hard at work (left-to-right) are: Shir ley Ross of O’Neill, Mrs. Tom Sheffrey of the university extension division, Donnar Mailer of Oakland, LaVerne Speckman of Elk Creek and Tom Straka of Lexington.—U of N Photo. When You and I Were Young . . . R. A. Haskins Plans Stuart Newspaper Publication Will Be Called Advocate 50 Years Ago R. A. Haskins has made ar rangements to start a newspaper at Stuart, to be known as the Stu art Advocate. Haskins is a Stuart boy but has been in Boyd county a few years. . . Mike Flannigan was called to Iowa by a telegram informing him of the illness of his wife, who went to Des Moines to visit her parents. . . Mrs. Nels E. Cain, 39, died at her home. She was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. E. H. Thompson, who were among the earliest settlers along the Eikhorn river east of O’Neill. . . . Miss Sadie Skirving went to Lincoln to complete her steno graphical education. . . The mem bers of the Presbyterian church, assisted by some of the best mu sical talent in O’Neill, will give a musical entertainment at the Op era house for the benefit of the church. I 20 Years Ago Another blizzard reached here, making all roads impassible. . . i While coming to work, Dean Streeter froze the fingers on both hands badly, which will cause him to refrain from attending to his duties in his barbershop. . . William Murray of O'Neill and Yvonne Breiner were married at Emmet. . . George Geary, one of the pioneer residents of Inman township, died at his home six miles south of Inman. . . Mrs. F. M. Meyer entertamed the ETO club at her home with bridge and a luncheon. . . The fire alarm shrieked its warning about 6:10 a.m., with the temperature well below zero. Some ashes dumped near some boards in the furnace room of the Golden hotel caused a small fire. 107 Years Ago Mr. and Mrs. Darrell Gillette are rejoicing over the arrival of a baby son. . . The Eagle Creex ** *rf,witk / ^ light o-j . 1 • ,ye,!'fc, / 1 *«Pes •"‘•■fcrdb•*, / zzizszr: phone*. *h* ;for io day home trial I