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Show 'Knockers' Make 'River of Doufct' Seem Local Stream. liy '"Observer." Tlie other day 1 saw a map showing Colonel Roosevelt's '"River of Doubt '' It was considei ahie relief to me to learn that it is definitely located in South Amerk-a. for until I saw it on tne map 1 w as inclined to think it ran right through the middle of Gunnison Gun-nison as weli as through a number of other places not far away that I could mention. Of course I don't say that everybody here is in the habit of taking daily dips in it, but most of U3 are inclined to yield to the temptation tempta-tion now and then. Gunnison, like every other place, has a few fellows that are always 'agin" every improvement that is proposed, no matter how beneiicial it is. They are sure to say '"It can't be done." They are suspicious of anybody any-body that reallv wants to do anvthinir for the public good, and if they can't find any other objection, they spread the report that somebody is "getting something out of it." They have no faith in anybody or anything and are proud of it. That seems to be what makes life worth living for them. If one of these fellows should wake up some morning accidentally believing in something, he would sink back onto on-to his pillow in a fright and send for a doctor. And such an unusual experience ex-perience might really make him sick. Probably nobody would weep if it did. What we need here, no matter how much of it we really have, is more confidence in ourselves and our opportunities oppor-tunities more "punch," to put it in slang. The croakers don't do us any good. You might think that in time they would get tired of bracing themselves them-selves on their mulish toes, pulling on the coattails of progress and being dragged forward in spite of themselves, them-selves, but they don't seem to. No matter how, far ahead you move them they want to stick right there, in spite of the fact that they fought with all their might against being put there at all. The very people that make the town what it is they call dreamers and do, everything in their power to hamper them. Their favorite prophecy, "'impossible," and their principal occupation is making their prediction come true, Tney seem to have wallowed around in the River of Doubt until they are soaked full of it. If they could drown in it, I might think the stream of some real use. The live citizen has to pull his own share of the load and those of the doubters besides. But of course they don't allow him any credit for it. No, they blame him for trying to do anything whether he succeeds or fails, no matter how much benefit they get out of his effort themselves. "When they think any good thin j has been killed they are happy, especially if they had a hand in the supposed killing, as they usually have. They never get wise that a good thing can't be killed. We have some bad cases of this here. The only thing to be done about it, that I can think of, is for the rest of us to be as little like them as possible. Most of us might be a little more hopeful and public spirited spir-ited than we are. Let the dmibiers splash around in tneir m,uddy old river and be. happy. |