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Show Our Names Can Be There, Too Just two centuries ago Printer Benjamin Franklin wanted some jealous colonies to team up to save their scalps and chop a future fu-ture out of the forest. Since then the cooperation idea has blossomed blossom-ed until it is world-wide. Cooperation is only one of the I instruments and tools that make the human race stronger than it used to be. Atomic energy is another, an-other, which will make cooperation coopera-tion a thousands times as effec- Kive as before. Ezra Taft Benson said recently that it may touch off agriculture's "most revolutionary revolution-ary development of all time," through mutations and other livestock live-stock breeding advances, increase and speed up crop yields, improved im-proved marketing and preservation. preserva-tion. America's greatest cooperative coopera-tive the land-grant colleges in partnership with the farmer can make such dreams realities through research and extension. So, with the New Year throw ing a challenge at us, we can t help but ask ourselves, "Are we making the most out of our advantages? ad-vantages? Are we making as much of them as the pioneers would have done?" Not so long ago the noted architect ar-chitect and planner Neuttra praised prais-ed the creative vigor, the spiritual spirit-ual force of our forefathers. But he thinks we seem inclined to recline on their laurels. He may be about 51 per cent right. There's a definite feeling that those pioneers were some sort of supermen, or that they had virgin opportunities that handed hand-ed them a long headstart. In either case we often find a comforting com-forting excuse for not doing as much as they did although we have a thousand times as much "muscle" to do it with, in a mechanical me-chanical sense at least. Have we got soft or sluggish, or is there the "spiritual vacuum" that Toyn-bee Toyn-bee said was our modern disease? To hear some people talk, you'd think we are all tired old folks in a tired old land. Actually we are still in the pioneer period. In many ways we have just scratched the surface. The swift rise of .the steel and manufacturing industries and the uranium boom are portents of things to come. Many folks gaze fondly at the 47'ers and envy their) lustrous names. But if we can bestir ourselves our-selves rouse our creative energies ener-gies we ' ought to outdo them a dozen ways, because we have far better tools in our hands. There's not a doubt in the world of this: The Westener of 2000 A. n will look back on us as pio neers. That is, he will if we handle ourselves right. In the year 2000, some tall proud peaks will loom out of the mellow haze that will lie on this epoch. They will be the men who had the visions vis-ions and the git-up-and-git to do something for themselves and their neighbors with the tools science has put in their hands. EDITOR'S NOTE "I felt so good this morning," an old-timer wrote in his journal, "I felt like I could kick the mountains around like footballs." He just felt that way. But we are getting ourselves into a position po-sition to that we actually can move mountains if we can have the spirit that he had. Pres. Eisenhower has udged a spiritual rebirth. Why don't we start right now to make sure that ours are the names inscribed in letters of gold on the roll of the real builders? Utah and humanity will be all the better for our efforts. ef-forts. Contributed by Prof. Carlton Carl-ton Culmse, Journalish Deptment, Utah State Agricultural College. |