Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one” - A.J. Liebling
My father Bob Wilson took this to heart, and bought one and started his own newspaper, the Prairie Post of Maroa, Illinois in 1958, and ran it until he died in 1972. It never had a circulation of more than 2500 or so, but every week, he would fire off editorials at everyone and everything from local events to the actions of the nations of the world.
He may have been a Quaker peace activist in a Republican district, but his love and support of the farming communities garnered him enough respect that he eventually ran for the U.S. House of Representatives in 1962, though he lost. (He might have tried again, had he not died of an accident while only 49.) Many of his views ring true today. And he might have been willing to change the ones that fell behind the times. Although raised in the casual racism of the 1920s and 1930s, at the age of 15 he took stock of what he was being taught and discarded much of it as being wrong, and lived his life with respect for all.
I decided to transcribe his old editorials (I may make a book for some of my relatives) and every once in a while I will repost one here, as a view of how the world has changed wildly, or remained stubbornly the same.
August 22, 1963
THREE TO HELP
A late-model car was stopped by the roadside, and a scholarly-looking Negro gentleman was standing beside it surrounded by his wife and small children.
The exhaust pipe had corroded through, as they do so rapidly on late-model cars, and had fallen to the ground. The travelers, dressed perhaps for a funeral, were examining it in some puzzlement.
We're not looking for thank-you's because we stopped; we had tools, and we cannot recall having had car trouble along the road but what someone stopped for us.
The three of us had it fixed in no time at all, the strangers were on their way again. We said three of us; the twelve-year-son of a nearby farmer had bicycled down the lane to help out.
Not all our boys will be playing “chicken” with the family car at eighteen, swilling beer in alleys, or loafing on street corners exchanging monotonously vile conversation. These jobless youths who have become a problem in the cities need never appear in our villages, and certainly not in the countryside.
Boys like our young friend have chores to do, they take pride in the growth of their own livestock, they have a place in life. They have learned from their parents that one of the traditions of our people is that no-one in need of help should go without it.
The color of the people's skin, like the color of the car they drive, has nothing to do with the case.
ON FUDGESICLES
At forty one has seen empires rise and fall, currencies devaluated, philosophies discredited and ships sunk. We have even spanned the life history of the fudgesicle, which has run its course and bids fair to become extinct.
When we were young, a nickle purchased an enormous vanilla ice cream cone, spangled with multi-colored frosting, melting sweetly upon fingers and shirt-front before a small boy could eat it all.
Now, a dime may purchase an absolutely minimal cone, lightly filled with ice milk. Or a fudgesicle.
The fudgesicle, in its beginnings, was a noble concept; a rectangular frozen slab of chocolaty goodness, a fit adversary for the hungriest four-year-old.
Time passed, and with it the old-fashioned standard of a nickel's worth for a nickle. Manufacturers began to sell ideas rather than substance, and all that bulk was obviously unnecessary to the idea of a fudgesicle. The unwieldy rectangle was pared down to a graceful tip. No doubt, with people becoming less and less able to do things for themselves, this made it easier for the consumer to get into his mouth.
But now – O Wonders of Science! - some happy Junior Executive must have won a triple bonus when he emerged from some great dairy concern's research department and displayed a new, streamlined shape for fudgesicles.
What with diet-consciousness and all that, he has done us all a favor by creating a fluted cross-section whose fluting almost meet in the center.
Consider the tonnage of mix that is saved, and the further saving in handling cost because they pack closer and weigh less.
There was one other change, too. Somewhere along the line they have raised from a nickel to a dime.
Since now they are down to the bare bones of the idea, the only further step can be an empty wrapper. Therefore, before they disappear altogether, we dedicate this eulogy to the memory of fudgesicles as they once were.