Vagabond Editorials

By Jack Dionne

Let's talk about something very pleasant, just for a starter. Let's talk about dogs. For someone sent me the other day the very beautiful epitaph which Byron wrote for the grave of his Newfoundland dog which had gone to the dogs'heaven. It should be in the scrap book of every lover of animals. Byron wrote: "Near this spot are deposited the remains of one Who possessed Beauty without Vanity, Strength without Insolence, Courage without Ferocity, And all the virtues of man-without his vices."

Few men ever die concerning whom that same thing could truthfully be said. It might have been said of Will Rogers. He wasn't exactly "beautiful" but he had a grin that made people want to hug him, and he was so free from vanity, and the other little silly vices. When he remarked once that "A man with a brown suit and a blue suit can dress to go anywhere," he made his biggest hit with me'

George Gresham Vest's "Eulogy of a Dog" is the dog sermon most frequently quoted. Its closing words are: "If fortime drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies, and when the last scene of all comes, and when Death takes the master in his embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all the other friends pursue their way, there by the grave-side will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad but open, in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death." This has probably been quoted more times than Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

What a marvelous creation of Providence is a good dog. A woman I know lost her pet dog more than a year ago. She is very richly endowed with this world's goods. Yet such is her grief and regret at the passing of that furry friend that when I heard her remark the other day that she would give every dime she had on earth to have that dog back, I am convinced she spoke the truth. She would.

Lincoln said that God must love the common people, He made so many of them. He must love dogs, too, He made sc many of them, and blessed them so generously. A friend of mine has a rnost wonderful cocker spaniel. An accident partly paralyzed one of the front legs of that kindly creature, so that when he walks on it, it turns under with his weight, and he actually walks on what was the top of the foot, rather than the bottom. And do you know that Mother Nature has made that top-foot on which he walks to look just like the bottom used to, and the underpart on which he used to walk is now covered with long silky hair? Yes, sir, the top and bottom of that foot have just reversed, and there are heavy black callouses now on the top, just like there used to be underneath. i<**

Dropping rapidly O"rn an" ,,lr,rr," to the human (and Oh what a difference there is) someone sent me an alleged exact copy of a plea for divorce filed by a man who prayed the court to rid him of a virago of a wife. The plea closes with the following rhymed petition to the Judge: "Cursed be the man, the poorest wretch in life, The crouching vassal of a tyrant wife; Who has no will but by her high permission; Who has no dime but that in her possession; Who must to her his dear friends secrets tell; Who dreads a curtain lecture worse than Hell; Were such a wife to fall to your honor's part, You'd break her spirit, or you'd break her heart."

My recent Vagabonding in these columns about Trees and Men, in which I sought to show by the way Pine trees grow in the forest that there is no socialism in Mother Nature, and that in inanimate things, as well as in men, competition makes for strength, quality, and usefulnesshas been already many times reprinted and copied. Swell. 'We can learn a lot from trees-and dogs. ,i rN( *

Likewise, some of the remarks in these columns about the labor situation have been variously copied and put to further use. And thinking along that line (and it's difficult for anyone interested in business today to get his mind off of that subject) I am reminded of a man I have known for a long time, an employer of many men, and a very kindly and friendly person. During the deep years of the depression, '31,'32 and '33, he went through Hell and high water, to keep his business in operation. He lost money every time he turned a wheel, and it would have been infinitely better for him had he closed down the business and gone fishing. He went deeper and deeper in the red, borrowed and borrowed, and borrowed some more. Why? To keep his men employed, so that they could eat. He had no other motive for running. There was none. He knew if he turned the men loose there were no jobs they could get.

Not long ago there *"1 "*"..luen change. As he himself put it, "Men who have worked for me a generation and have always been my friends, suddenly discovered that I was 'unfair."' So he accepted their terms, and now they are working under a new rule. But a high fence has grown up between him and his men. The mutual interest that used to be manifest, has disappeared. But the question that looms large in my mind in considering that case and others like it (and there were countless thousands of same) is, when the next business slump comes along (and who is there that doubts that they will come?) how long is that employer going in the "red" to keep that plant operating?

Addressing a national lumber convention in Chicago, General Hugh Johnson, of NRA fame, used all the vitriol in his dynamic vocabulary concerning the Supreme Court appointment of Senator Black. Nothing like it has been uttered. One cf his slashing remarks was that when President Roosevelt appointed Black to the Court he was following the example of the bad little boys throwing a dead cat on the neighbor's front porch.

A few days ago was Co,nstitution Day. And it was observed throughout this land much more definitely and deliberately than ever before since that famous document was written. One great and good return the turmoil of today is bringing us. Thinking people are rallying round the Constitution and thinking about the Constitution much more emphatically than ever before. It's an ill wind that blows no good'

Yes, friends, there was never a time in our history when that Constitution needed the intelligent and courageous defense of every thinking man like it does today. For radicalism rears its ugly head on every side in this land of curs, and is countenanced in a manner few of us would have thought possible. All this talk of Communism and Fascism, and Nazism in this country is but a bit of smoke to mark a growing confagration.

Just the other day tnolrular*of Germans listened to a pro-German program in a Western city of this land, and at the mention of the name of Hitler they raised their hands in the Hitler-Nazi saldte and thundered their acclamation of Hitler-the-Headsman, or Adolph-the-Axman, whichever it is.

You have read, of course, that in Nazi Germany today the line in the ofEcial funeral ceremony which used to read,

"He died in the faith of God," has now been changed to read, "He died in the faith of Adolph Hitler." No God any more. Just Hitler. And in Russia God and religion has become a mark of Cain on any brow, a dangerous mark to carry.

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The only wall of defense that stands between the people of American and the people of other lands who are now being ground down under the heel of the tyrant, is that Constitution. It is the first one of its kind that was ever written, the most momentous political document ever penned. It is the guarantee of freedorn to mankind that has done much to re-make the world. As the gospel hymn goes, "It's the word that makes us free."

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And of itself, the Constitution is speechelss, impotent. Its principles only become living laws when administered by that guardian of the Constitution created by the Fathers -the Supreme Court. So we must depend upon the high character and faultless devotion of that Court to protect our rights under the Constitution. Otherwise they will be lost.

Therefore Constitution ;J Jt from henceforth become a great day in the history of this nation. fn our previous history we have always looked upon the Constitution as