Show THE DEAD ONES I 1 RODE not long ago through the village near which I 1 lived when I 1 was a bo boy y and interested myself in seeing how much was yet familiar to me As I 1 came into the town it was easy still to decipher the old familiar legends the lie last word in advertising in the early days painted crudely upon the fences bordering the highway snyder sells shoes visit ow owens e n r store for bargains I 1 lo 10 dry goods sale pays highest prices for country products the signs too which still hung over the entrances to the business houses recalled old names and old memories C L boon farm loans and insurance sally shepard millinery and so on as I 1 went slowly down the street but they were viere names only not one of the men or women had for years had any part in the business or social life of the town charlie boon had been dead for twenty years sally shepard had married and moved to kansas long ago they were all lead dead ones so far as the life of the town was concerned no one had bad had the energy or the interest to paint out the legends or take down the signs but this carrying along of useless or dead members Is not confined to roy my native dative town I 1 read the obituary notice last week of a man in middle life and among other things mentioned was the fact that he was a member of the presbyterian church though he probably had not attended a church service for ten years so far as the church was concerned he had been a dead ott oie for a decade it Is true of all organizations and in church social civic and business organizations there aro are names carried on the rolls that are nothing more than names the men hearing bearing them have had bad nothing to do for years with the progress and development and life of the organization they are arc as dead as if they were mere lying under the ground in the cemetery no community or organization Is 3 free front from these bandi handicaps caps only it small percentage of men Is alive to tg the lie responsibilities responsibly I 1 ties of the group or the organization to which they are arc allied their influence Is seldom it ever vital in n any way their absence would not be e Ilot noticed iced they are simply imply dead ones |