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Show Howe About: Optimist to Pessimist Lack of New Buildings High Speed "5. 1033. B' U Syndicate. WNU Service. By ED HOWE T WAS once an Optimist who smiled more or less constantly," constant-ly," a man wrote me. "Then some one I was very fond of, and had great confidence In, hit me over the head with a blackjack, and converted con-verted me Into a Pessimist." . A lot of Argument, Indignation goes with this. The reader may supply it ; my Indignation Book Is full for a year ahead. Besides, I'm rather quitting Indignation, Surprise Sur-prise and Argument, as I can't see they do any good. I have traveled a good deal through the South, and always been Impressed with the absence of new buildings, of fresli paint. ... I lately traveled twelve hundred miles by automobile: from the Missouri Mis-souri river at Atchison, Kan., by way of Hannibal, Mo., and Springfield, 111., to Chicago, and returning by another route; Chicago to Rock Island, Is-land, 111., and thence to Des Moines, capital of Iowa, and southwest south-west to my home. So far as I know, there is no better section of the north, east or west than that I traveled through, every foot of the way paved with the best concrete. con-crete. During the entire trip t did not see a new building being erected, or a house of any kind being be-ing painted. . . . The South has at last got even with Its old enemy en-emy the North. ... By the way, how I enjoyed getting out of Chicago, Chi-cago, and into the country ! (I do not like impudent big towns, or impudent im-pudent big men). I started being frightened at the terrific speed of the automobile at twenty miles an hour. Gradually my timidity disappeared, and I submitted sub-mitted to thirty and forty ; occasionally, occa-sionally, and very briefly, to fifty. Lately I made a trip over good roads In a new machine, and the driver soon won my confidence. At first I noted the speed was regularly regular-ly about fifty, when conditions warranted, war-ranted, and it did not seem very fast or unsafe. Within a few hours the driver's regular touring speed was sixty, with occasional short bursts when the needle nearly touched seventy. And still it seemed not alarmingly alarming-ly fast; I sat beside the driver, and was thoroughly comfortable. In the afternoon the driver became sleepy, and a capable woman took his place. Her running speed, when all conditions were favorable, was fifty miles an hour, and I thought her a little slow and old fashioned. On the trip I heard something new ; that all automobile makers purposely deceive with their speed dials ; that when the driver is apparently ap-parently rushing along at sixty miles an hour, he Is actually going fifty. The story goes that this is one of the secrets of automobile builders, and long kept from buyers, buy-ers, always disposed 1 0 drive too fast. I hope It is true. Everywhere we encountered railroad rail-road tracks, but almost no trains. One day a passenger train went by (a very short one), and the driver said to his little daughter: "Baby, that Is one of the old-time railroad trains you may have read about." In passing through the towns we noted that the railroad stations looked shabby and neglected ; when we crossed a track, the rails looked rusty. I can remember the day when even a section foreman was a big man. His tracks are now weedy, and he rarely has, more than one hobo under him to cuss at and oppress. op-press. ' A tepee Indian from the plains has as much education as I had when I began caring for myself, at the age of twelve or fourteen ; I knew no more about making my own way than a young wolf knoffs when pushed out of the den In which It was born. . . . That was sixty-six years ago, and I have come to believe in every really good teaching taught by anybody. I have accepted all such rules because be-cause they have turned out to be to my physical advantage and profit. My old savage streak remains re-mains at eighty, but convenience and necessity have tamed me; the moral teaching I so much objected to as a young savage proved, In practical experience, to be really for my own good, as the fussy old people say. I have the natural human disposition dispo-sition to hover around the mysterious, mysteri-ous, the new. the unknown, but, In considering them during a long life, have learned caution, and wonder won-der others have not. . I have been unable to decide on the best man I have ever known. Sometimes I think he is a noted publisher of magazines I have associated asso-ciated with Intimately At other times I think he may be a colored col-ored man who works about my yard. Again I consider an eminent physician I have long known; at other times I consider a carrier who delivers my mail, and a grocer who sells me supplies. |