Show the old settler written from salt lake city my dear san Jua ners it is a mighty strange thing that every progressive move proposed for any nation state stale county or town be debated ani and opposed but the way of it men insist that they have a right to their own opinion and because that is true they go on to contend that they are just as likely 0 to o be right as anyone else but their chances of being right depends on where they get their information how they think and how bow competent they are to evaluate what they see and hear we look back in wonder and disgust at the apparently intelligent men who howled their heads oft off in opposition to the safest and sanest institutions institution 3 of our free government they even opposed i the le constitution which is accepted by a hundred million people as the great standard of liberty samuel F B morse went to th senite senate of the united states and asked for an appropriation to build his newly invented telegraph line lifie from froin washington to now york an ano they called him a luna it il 2 making galung a mock prodo propos 1 to grant his appropriation and then another to build a road to the moon they had a right to their opinion but it was based on prejudice and ignorance and the demonstration on covered them with shame daniel webster was a wise statesman but when he declared this mountain region was fit only for indians and prairie dogs he be was wrong and it was only a matter of time till everybody knew it in the growth of san juan county for the last sixty years the suggestion of every progressive step ha has s met with opposition suc such h advancement as the county has made has been made in spite of it and could have been aab achieved eved sooner and to better advantage but bat for this never failing source of hindrance if these op posers had taken pains to think more deeply to discard their foolish prejudices and get reliable information instead of pitting themselves blindly and stupidly against the generous efforts of people who knew what they were talking about the county would have made much greater progress when it was proposed to change the county road from the precipitous I 1 walls of lower devil canyon to where it is now the opposition and it is distressing to remember who they were declared that it be that the upper road would be no better and no shorter horter 3 than the lower and that it would be impassable because of snow three months out of the year the move to make a town on white mesa met with a perfect storm of ridicule but it is there it has been there thirty five years and its eleven hundred people have disproved the silly arguments urged against the project when it was first proposed I 1 was one of a committee appointed to get doctor service and a nurse for san juan county and it is hardly believable the number of seemingly sane people who opposed it tooth and nail what has been done since then has shot their arguments into intha a cocked hat the making of every ditch every road every telephone line every water system power plant or school house has had to fight its way through this inevitable tide of adversity and sometimes it has come out pretty much reduced from rough usage many a good proposition that would have been a blessing to the people has failed to make the fight yours for the good of san juan ALBERT R LYMAN |