Show THE GUNNISON VALLEY NEWS GUNNISON UTAn y' N KDMD tle mnd NATIONAL jCapital v? Carter Field Washington—William Lemke Father Coughlin's candidate for President expects to be the directing force in the next house of representatives of a bloc of not less than 100 members This bloc he believes will hold the - balance of power thus making Coughlin and Lemke the umpires who decide what is to pass and what not That with respect to quesis of course tions where there is a regular party line division between the Democrats and the Republicans All of which is not as weird as it In the first place it will sounds not take very much of a bloc to hold the balance between the Republicans and the Democrats in the tn all next house of representatives human probability Experts agree that there is no likelihood of a large majority for either side Even D Roosevelt runs very well indeed fie will be lucky to carry a majority of more than 50 He is in the house Democrats much mort likely to have less than 20 with a strong probability that he might have a slender Republican majority against him Whereas if Governor Alfred M Landon is elected while the house is almost certain to be Republican in that event there is no probabilIt ity of a fat G 0 P majority would probably be less than 50 There are certain fixed Conditions such as the solid Democratic delegations from the southern states the solid Tammany delegation and the sure Democratic districts in Chicago that foreshadow this For instance New York state now has 28 Democratic members of the house 16 Republicans and one Tammany district vacant The best the Republicans hope for ii the Empire state even if Landon carries it by 200000 is a gain of four seats so that the Democrats would still have 25 So that if Lemke sees any large fraction of the 100 men and women he has endorsed for the house elected they will certainly com pose a bloc which would be the balance of power on any issue which divided the house on strictly party lines Doubtful Elements When Lemke' talks about 100 members in his bloc he counts in two elements 'which he may not be able to control but which on many issues will be in sympathy with One of these is the him Doctor Townsend has not said what he thought about the Lemke candidacy lie may or may not be able to control men who have been elected on the old age but have made pension platform their own campaigns so far as other issues are concerned Lemke also counts the Wisconsin members of the house which will be controlled unless there is an upset by the La Follettfc machine Here again it is true that the Wisconsin members muy be in symobpathy with the but it is also jectives sometimes pretty sure that there will be no dictation to them But even if the Lemke claim is cut down to 40— or for that matter to 25— it will be a considerably if it can be controlled menace Obviously many of the members who will be elected on the Townsend platform cannot be induced to vote for prmting press money Some of them already have been nominated in districts where the election is o mere ratification of the primary They believe m $200 a month pensions for those over sixty and they do not want the purchasing power of this $200 cut by inflation The mere fact that most economists agree that the Townsend route is just ns direct a road to Inflation as the is beside the point The Townsend people do not admit that Must Import Wheat In view of the present drouth situation which will result agricul- tural experts figure in the United States importing wheat this year and in view of the fact that it was necessary to import a very large amount of meat last year — especial- j r " ly pork— some friends of President Roosevelt are urging him to follow out one of his own ideas and atop the "plowing under’’ scheme so dear to Secretary Henry A Wallace’s heart About three years ago though most people have forgotten it the President was very strong for the Pharaoh and Joseph idea of saving up surpluses in good years against the bad years bound to come For instance this idea would have involved buying up the little or more intelligently buying up a big supply of pork products and putting it in cold storage There was no cold storage in the days of the Pharaohs so Joseph simply put wheat in warehouses inf Wheat corn and other grains year before last instead of paying farmers not to grow them Had this own idea of Mr Roose-ve- lt which he talked 'about with men friends and with newspaper three years ago been carried out the government might not only have paid all expenses dn the transbut would have thereby actions saved the taxpayers practically all the money paid out in farm ben efits Putting it another way all the people of the country during the period of AAA taxes could have baved five cents on every pound of bacon they bought and six cents on every pound of ham they bought those being the amounts of processing taxes assessed against these (The pork products particular AAA tax on pork was only two cents a pound but this included the whole hog and many parts of the animal could not for one reason or another stand the tax so the major portion of it had to be assessed against bacon ham pork chops and other attractive elements rather than the hides hoof3 bristles etc which competed with other products not subject to any such tax ) On the Other Haid Also of course there would not have been the deficit frOm outlawed processing taxes which is now to be made up in part at least by the higher rates of the new tax bill This policy it is further pointed at the out would have resulted present moment m (here being on hand in government warehouses plenty of feedstuffs for the animals from the now being removed drouth area Whereas even last year feedstuffs had to be imported The system so far pursued by the government therefore has actually resulted in the taxpayers of the United States being assessed not only to make food cost more in the United States but to buy food from foreign lands Yet had the President carried out the idea he talked about instead of pursuing the Henry Wallace doctrine of scarcity the farmers would have had the satisfaction of having big crops in good years the government would have held up the such as price by big purchases last year for meat and this year for wheat if necessary at a profit In short the farmers would have been just as well off as by receiving AAA checks for not growwould ing crops the consumers have paid more— perhaps a little less— and the taxpayers would have saved half a billion dollars a year Half a billion is cited because this is the amount the AAA “plow under” campaign cost a year— the amount of AAA processing taxes a amount and the that must year— now be raised to obtain crop reduction under the camouflage of soil erosion prevention Sighs of Relief Nobody will admit it officially but there were plenty of sighs of relief around Charley Michelson’s office not to mention Steve Early’s White House sanctum when Mrs D Franklin Roosevelt announced the other day that she would have ho more press conferences until after the summer "After the election” is the way her statement was construed The answer to the relief lies not nearly so much in anything Mrs Roosevelt has said or done as in the constant fear of what she might say Or do The First Lady is a forthright person She acts on impulses Those who know her regardless of their opinion of her views on economic and social questions like her treShe has real charm mendously She has m addition a quality all too lacking in so many wives of prominent men— the ability to give the impression to any one talking to her that she is enormously interested in what they are saying— that it is a new thought to her— and that the whole course of her activities is going to be swayed by it from now onl This sounds like absurd overstatement Actually it falls far short of accurate nppraisal of this extraordinary quality But— this is not the picture of Mrs Roosevelt that the country as a whole enjoys The average man or woman out in the country chuckles at jokes on Mrs Roosevelt’s constant traveling never being at the White House Use Mrs Roosevelt Some of the cntics of the administration especially In the South say that Jim Farley Charley and the whole political wing of the New Deal (this element having no connection and no inter-with the Brtiin locking directorate Trust wing whatever) have been using Mrs Roosevelt to make sure that the negro vote in Harlem and Chicago would be kept in line for Roosevelt They were especially indignant when she said she had authorized the taking of some phowhich createdsome tographs in publicly expressed annoyance Georgia The factis that Mrs Roosevelt’s counsellor and political guide friend is no longer at Jicr elbow When Louis Howe was alive he was the one person on whose judgment she placed unquestioning re“Louis" could talk to her liance and did with some frequence as no one else would dare Bell tjrndlcato— WNU Sorvlt azer eitas BYELMO SCOTT WATSON trPr Ji v a of Madison county prairies Illinois was horn a little hoy who was destined -- tb become one' of the trul'y gfeat 'citizens of Texas even though unlike some of her traditional heroes he is hut little known outside the borders of the Ione Star state But few of those heroes had a more interesting career than did Charles Goodnight "He rode bareback from Illinois to Texas when he was nine years old He was hunting with the Caddo Indians beyond the frontier at thirteen launching into the cattle business at twenty guiding Texas Rangers at twenty-fou- r blazing cattle trails two thousand miles in length at thirty establishing a ranch three hundred miles beyond the frontier at forty and at dominating nearly twenty million acres of range country in At sixty the interests of order as possibly he was "recognized the greatest scientific breeder of range cattle in the West and at ninety he was an active international authority on the economics of the range industry "He always rode beyond the borderlands upon ranges of unspoiled grass He knew the West of Jim Bridger Kit Carson Dick Wootton St Vrain and Lucien He ranged a country Maxwell He as vast as Bridger ranged rode with the boldness of Fren mont guided by the craft of The vast and changing moved over he which country the fertility of a mind that quickly grasped the significance of climate and topography the inexhaustible energy of his mind and body and the long period of time through which he constantly applied himself to the Western World operated to produce in this man an ample nature surpassing many of the more famous characters of frontier hisNow a hundred years tory after his birth his massive frame looms strong among the horsemen of the storied West” So writes J Evetts Haley in the book “Charles Goodnight-Cowand Plainsman” pub- - MARY DYER ests miniatured in the agate of the Rockies and buffaloes and horses racing upside down through the mirages of the Staked Plains lie found time to turn back from the lead of two thousand Texas longhorns to see dove’s nests passed over by thousands of hoofs and left with eggs untouched lie allowed a Texas cow that escaped from his herd on the Pecos and d through four hundred miles of desert and wilderness to die of old age upon the Keechi range she loved He cursed the fool who cut down a lone chittam tree at the head of Dry Creek on the JA ranch a fine useful landmark in a country devoid of timber lie carried one of the little Sonoran deer fifty miles across his saddle in front of him to add to his studies of wild life In the Panhandle It was these studies which gave him what fame he had insufficient though it was outside the borders of his state For to anyone at all familiar with the history of the West the name of Goodnight is inseparably linked with the name of those great creatures which once shaggy roamed the plains by the millions— the buffalo His interest in these animals began more than 60 years ago at a time when they were threatened with extinction He roped a little bull calf which he named "Old Sikes" and carried ’him home to his ranch for his devoted wife Mary Dyer Goodnight to "bring up” Later he rounded up some more buffalo calves and started GOODNIGHT lished recently by the Jioughton Mifflin company and this book by a native of the range country of west Texas who is a member of the department of history at the University of Texas not only is one of the most important Western biographies of recent years but it is an inspiring account of an American frontiersman who was unique among his kind In contrast to so many men of the border breed whose chief claim to distinction seems to have been their spectacular career of destruction Goodnight was a constructive force in the country in which he pioneered True he had occasion now and then to kill but the men whom he of— rustlers disposed mostly — were the kind of citizens which the community could spare On the whole easily enough what he did almost always served the best interests of the region where he lived and at the same time it advanced his own interests But that was a consideration with secondary him Again in contrast to so many other men of the frontier who were noted for only one thing his was an extraordinarily versatile and d personality Again quoting his biographer: He was filled with vigorous test for life His Observations upon nature ranged with remarkable freshness from the prairie dogs of the Palo Dnro Plains ‘to the Buffalo of the Northwest from ‘ the ‘ grassea of the Brazos Valley to the conifers of tho Greenhorns He saw sheep " grazing with the Navajo flocks along the Pecos Nature's own n photograph of a giant bear on the mineral bluffs of the Plfketwlre great for- 11 iOYA S5T j MARCH 2 1836 the Republic of Texas came into existence in the little town of Washington on the Brazos 0 Three days tater in a farm home on the N Leader of “OLD BUTE” Goodnight Trail Herd the herd of bison on the Polo Duro range whose fame became widespread in this country Mr Haley says that Goodnight whom he calls the of the Open Ranges” first tried the experiment of crossing the buffalo with Galloway cattle and shows that he rather than the renowned “Buffalo" Jones deserves credit for that feat He is also credited with being the inventor of that essential piece of equipment (certainly essen-tlto and hungry of the open range cowpunchers) — theehuckwagon - But more important than either of these' achievements is the remarkable on the JA ranch experiments which brought him recognition i v i as the greatest scientific breeder of range cattle in the world Even if Goodnight had not achieved renown as a cowman his career as a would have been enough to give him enduring fame In reality that career started in 1845— the year Texas became a state— when his mother and stepfather his older brother and two sisters left Illinois and started for Texas in two covered wagons In Texas the boy thrived amid the hardships of pioneer his elder brother support the family by working for neighboring ranchers hunting and fishing for food bringing up a captured wild colt on a bottle and thus getting his first mount By the time he was nineteen he decided that he knew Texas pretty well and was about ready to move farther west to a newer With a country — California and an ox young companion team and a few horses they started on the long trek west But by the time they had gone a few hundred miles into West Texas they decided that the state was large enough for them So Goodnight went back to Palo Pinto county where he ranched and supported his widowed mother During the Civil war he served with the Texas Rangers Mexifighting mostly Indians cans and cattle thieves After the war there was no cattle The market plains swarmed with herds and cattle could be bought on credit Goodnight saw the necessity of findSo did ing a western market some others but the young then thirty differed plainsman from the rest in that he determined to find it There was already one up at Abilene Kas where many of the cattlemen took their herds to sell but Goodnight saw a greater opportunity up in New Mexico Colorado and Wyoming The drawback in the scheme was that between the Panhandle and this promising territory lay a great expanse of desert and" territory inhabited by Comanche Indians ready to pounce upon invaders and drive off the cattle Without heavy protection no herd could get through So when Goodnight laid his plan before some of his neighbors they saw only the danger connected with the venture and declined to have anything to do with it But young Goodnight xouno r partner He was Oliver Loving one of the most experienced cowmen in Texas at that time The story of how“ these "two men blo2cd the Goodnight Loving Trail across West Texas and up into New Mexico to Fort Sumner how Oliver Loving lost his life in the venture and how Goodnight brought the body of his partner back to his native Texas is one of the epics of the West “Though Goodnight was then thirty-on- e years of age f i AU from Hairy' iflctnre “Chari and Plalnamaa" Goodnight — Cowman court?? Hooghtoa Mr Tllo Company until his death nearly later he years spoke most of Loving except never in j tenderness” says his biog- j rapher “and his vibrant voice! mellowed with reverence as he f would slowly s&y 'my qld partner’s and raise his eyes to the picture that hung on the wall” Later the Goodnight-Lovintrail was extended into Colorado and Wyoming and 300000 cattle The passed over it in six years OLIVER second blazed dnight LOVING trails which he as the new Gootrail ran from Fort Sumof the known ner in New Mexico to Granada Colo and several years later he laid off his third— from the JA ranch to Dodge City Kan It was 250 miles In length and e known as the Palo City trail Almost as romantic as the is the g story of his story of his association with the Irishman John George Adair in the development of the famous JA ranch the first in th Texas Panhandle During hi eleven years on this ranch be handled more than 300000 cattle with a total loss during the time of only 1000 head and the prop of erty paid an annual profit 75 per cent on the capital vested He died in 1929 at the age of ninety-thre- e still active vigor ous and dynamic in both brain and body '“Ilia d JA cowboys lowered his massive casket Into the grave and with tears streaming down their leathery faces' shoveled in the dirt th covered him up And there in the graveyard at Goodnight Texas came to rest at last this dominant driving restless plaint b man More appropriately should lie at the edge of the Pa Duro canyon splashed which with the enduring colors of age verdant with grass that wJj never be plowed carves out o the staked plains an everlasting memorial to the pioneering fpif of Charles Goodnight" C Wtr Npir I’niun |