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Show what S jjj -J thinks about: A Texas Front Yard. HOUSTON', TEX. Because Be-cause the Texas rangers merged with.a prosaic highway patrol, thereby losing their entity en-tity as perhaps the finest fighting fight-ing force for law enforcement that America ever knew, they're saying romance has suffered a nVutli blow. Hut I wouldn't go so far as to say that not about Texus. There's romance In her scope; raw drama In her business. Superlatives grow on trees out here and distance lives up to Its name. We may not always full In love with the fat lady In the sideshow, but her size commands respect. re-spect. And sometimes, some-times, as In this case, there's beauty beau-ty along with bulk. Take the famous King ranch the 1 Irvln S. Cobb ; mightiest domain In the hands of a single family In all the world, probably. There la a saying and a true one that It's ninety miles from the front gate to the front yard. Think of trying to shoo the chickens out of that front yard ! Praising Charlei Curtii. TURING his active life, there L-' was a general journalistic tendency ten-dency to deprecate Charles Curtis' larger achievements and laugh at his little vanities. Now that he's gone, the newspapers, without regard re-gard to their politics, are printing tributes to the distinguished career and fine citizenship of this man who went from an Indian lodge to the second highest elective office In our gift Since to criticize our leaders Is an almost universal Instinct, wouldn't It be fine If we reversed the rule about speaking no 111 of the dead and praised a deserving fellow-creature while he could hear what we said but saved up the scoldings until he'd passed on? I could elaborate on this text, but must stop to try think up some small gibe at the expense of some prominent man. The Yellow Peril. 'TpIIEY'VE taken the Japanese war A scare from the old cedar whatnot what-not and shaken the mothballs out ' 01" u uiut"ure waving It in the breeze as a signal to the citizens of Los Angeles to remove the women and children to a place of safety and a warning to the folks In Seattle Se-attle to start building street barricades. bar-ricades. Thus we have the annual revival of a time-honored custom. To be sure, there's a racial difference dif-ference to be reckoned with. We're a breed of opportunists, the Japanese Japa-nese are a breed of fatalists. The American soldier wants to go home when the mess Is over and see If he can get his Job back from the lad that smuggled Into It while he was at the front; the Japanese craves to rejoin his ancestors Instead of his family. So naturally a fellow who'd prefer to go on living Is at a handicap fighting a gentleman who thinks you're doing him a personal favor by killing him. But no matter how acute the peril, per-il, I decline to retreat to the Ozark mountains until they prove to me that Japanese explosives will explode ex-plode when desired, or at all. White rolks' Melodies. LEAVING California, I said: "I'm fed up on the kinds of singing sing-ing that you hear so much of out jiere. No matter what a Mexican song starts out with, It winds up with something about a dove. And the trouble with Hawaiian singers Is that they're always telling you good-by but they never go. Thank goodness, I'll soon be listening to the stuff I was raised on spirituals pouring gloriously forth from velvety vel-vety Afric throats." But I hear now the distressing news that, even here In the deep South, some of the blnck people are getting so self-conscious or something some-thing they want to sing the white folks' comparatively thin and pithless pith-less hymns Instead of their own rich, glowing melodies. Glasses of Eternal Spring. D RETTY much all over the coun- try there seems to be general complaint about the weather. People Peo-ple are saying the trouble with this winter Is that there's so much winter win-ter to It But there's a philosophical way of regarding climatic unpleasantness. unpleasant-ness. My friend, Ed Boreln. the western painter.knew an aged chief on the Crow reservation up In the Northwest who, when the first freeze came, went to the agency and bought a pair of green goggles. gog-gles. There didn't seem to be anything any-thing wrong' with the old Indian's sight he had an eye like a captive hawk so Borein asked questions. "I'm no longer yonng." answered the ancient, "and I don't like the snow and Ice. Now, wherever I look, I see only green things and It makes springtime In my heart." IRVIN S. COBB, e WNU Service, |