ustxtxb_obs_1955_12_14_50_00003-00000_000.pdf

Blossom Time eo By Etta Hahne for The Toren Observer WHY FARMERS SHOULD GET LOST DON’T RUSH ME Too Much HOLTSTON -Something has been wrong with the front end of my car lately, and I have been forced .tO hold it down to -80 miles an hour, the legal speed limit, on a couple of long trips .across the state. The experience is a strange one. The average driver hasn’t the faintest idea what it means to hold a car down to -si.\\-ty miles an hour on a long trip. He’s never tried .it. Your whole perspective changes. You begin to gaze upon the law, in the form of highway cops, without suspicion, without fear, without dislike. You even begin feeling friendly toward them in their relentless pursuit of “other” speeders. I have always maintained that being on a friendly basis with cops is bad. I like the Latin attitudeevery cop is a potential enemy. But while you are beginning to like the highway cop, you, begin to intensely dislike the speed demon who whips past you at the same speed you usually achieve when your car is in shape. I do not consider myself a fast or reckless driver. In more than 30 years of driving on the Texas highways and in the towns and cities I have never had an accident. I have never paid a fine for speedingand I haven’t wangled out of them, either. I’ve never been . charged with anything more serious than failing to make a full stop at a stop signand that only once. So I consider myself a safe, _sane, reasonable driver. , T UEN WHY do I exceed the speed limit ? The answer is simple to keep from getting run over from behind. The motorist I am afraid of is the one behind me, not the one in front of me. So all I do is keep up with the stream of traffic so -there won’t be a parade of cars overtaking me. If you drive the highways of Texas, you will know that the average cruising speed on fairly good highways is 70 miles an hour, which is what I usually drive. In fact, it seems to me the cops expect and accept that. At least I have on several occasions, pulled up behind highway cops going around 60 and have merrily overtaken them and gone on at a shade under my usual 70-mile-an-hour cruising speed. Took off three miles as a gesture to the law. In cities it’s the same. If the speed limit-is 30, traffic moves at 35. Drive 30 and people behind you will honk at you. You’re holding up traffic. If the speed limit is forty, drive 48. Just don’t get over 50 and you’re safe. The cops expect you to go from five to eight miles above the limit if it’s 40. You WONDER then why’ the Legislature, fully aware of this situation, doesn’t change the law. Why not move the speed limit on up to 70 on the highways ? \(They did last sesThe reason is obvious. Move the speed limit up to 70 and the stream of traffic will move on up to 80. The American motorist is going to drive faster than the legal speed limit or die in the attemptwhich he occasionally does. It hurts his pride to be hedged in by the law. Maybe he will drive only 62maybe only 61. But hell violate that legal speed limit. I understand and appreciate the logic of his ways. HART STILWELL Good Honest Stories_ To the Editor : We of Division 694 like your paper very -much and we get a great deal of good, hone st stories on so many matters that are so vital to the people of all walks of fife, something that is next to impossible to get out of local papers…. A. H. GABRIELSON San Antonio ,\(Mr. Gabrielson is president, Division 694, Street, Electric Railway, and Motor Coach Employes, A.F.L. Allred Suggested To the Editor: The proposal by Mr. Franklin Jones that the Democratic Party in Texas needs reorientation is certainly true. Not that DemOcratic principles are any different now than they were 25 or 100 years ago, but the members of the Democratic Party in Texas need to be reminded of these principles. many former members of the Democratic Party in Texas were enticed into straying from the fold including,. for example, many farmers and ranchers, who were sold a bill of goods by the present Republican administration; and many of these are now waking up to the fact that they were suckered into the Eisenhower camp. I would like to nominate one individual who, in my opinion, is best qualified to act in advisory capacity with others in drafting a restatement of the real principles of the Democratic Party. I would nominate judge James V. Allred, a Texan and a Democrat without peer. LEWIS B. WALKER 618 W. Powell Lane, Austin Around Him To the Editor: As I am an East Texan living in Rusk County, a friend in Denton Or, Secretary Benson’s Reverse Malthusianism ers are a nettlesome bunch. Not taking the hint, they produce more of sonic money crop likecotton, or irrigate when production goes down ; or the seed growers raise a new hybrid seed that produces more,`or a weatherproof variety. This is very vexing to Sec:re tat -v . Benson, so he lowers the acreage again. Thwarted at raising a surplus of cotton, these hick problem children raise, a surplus of something else, corn, maize, rice, flax, or even broomcorn, like Hydra, the nine headed water serpent of Lerna, which grew two heads as fast as one was cut off. Benson wants to be like Heracles, who slew Hydra by preventing the heads’ . regrowth with’a firebrand, but it looks like the poor fellow is only burning his fingers. He tries to cut off one surplus and gets two. His problem is being solved in one instance. With the cotton allotments becoming smaller, the quantity small farmers can plantbecomes so minute that it is no longer worthwhile,. This solves the tenant problem on small farms. Laborers can no longer make a living ; so they have to get off, and machines replace them. They eventually replace the small farmer, too, when the price squeeze between farm commodities and farm expense approaches the point where he cannot make a living without more acreage. One consolation is that the small wrote and asked for details on the “terrorism” here. It seemed a strong word, for I hadn’t even heard of what could be termed an “incident.” I live near Henderson and my wife and I diligently scanned the inane Henderson Daily News for several days, found nothing, and asked the friend in Denton what in the dickens he was talking about. In reply he simply mailed three recent editions of The Texas Observer. farmer cannot lose as much as the large farmer, because he doesn’t have as much, but by the same process, the squeeze, large farthers become small. ones. In order for the farmers to be more appreciative of their benefactor, they should understand that they have created another problem for him. A couple of years ago, the cattlemen were screaming about the low price for cattle. Benson decreedlet everyone eat beef. Campaigns were inaugurated to increase beef consumption, for the government to buy it, for the people to eat it. They ate it. Now the hog men, with a hog’s natural lack of consideration, have been complaining about consumers not being bullish about hogs. They grunt about surplus hogs and the lowest pork price in 14 years, eleven cents a pound. Some farmers even have had the au d a c i t y, speaking in reference to President Eisenhower’s remark to Benson, “If you quit, I quit too,’.’ to suggest that it would be perfectly all right with them. It is time for the nation’s horticultural brigands to get their comeupancefor Benson to get his exoneration. The present farm problem is the fault of the previous administration, any he has said so. The farmer should stop bothering Secretary Benson and open a bicycle shop, get in the movies, become a playwright, or just get lost. DAN STRAWN Please find enclosed four dollars for a subscription to The Texas Observer. Being a stock-farmer in East Texas I can hardly aspire to being termed an egghead, but a subscription to your paper is apparently a necessity of being informed of what is happening around me. FRED T. ROGERS Route 1, Henderson AUSTIN My hero, Ezra Taft Benson, bless his agronomical bones, has figured out away to save the farmer from himself. In his horticultural omniscience, he has concluded that there are too many farmers. They have been tilling the soil and indulging in Malthusian improprieties long enough! Only these ,rural scoundrels have :been Malthus in reverse-. They have been out-Malthusianing Malthuswho, as you will remember, warned that population, if unchecked by war, pestilence, or uncommon restraint, would increase faster than the means of support. Benson, conversely, concludes that the means of support is increasing faster than the population, and that the means of support should be curbed. Of course these ungrateful wretches will be better offthe ones that are left. They won’t have to work so. hard. If the farmer did nothing, he would work the minimuniof hours, create the minimum of surplus, cause the least trouble to the present administration, and eliminate himself quite painlessly from the political scene \(as What are the farmers’ doing to show their appreciation to Benson ? Benson helps them out of their quandary by cutting their allotments. \(The