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dozing by the kitchen fire, — or puttering around in the feed lot
 

      Therefore, pay heed to the opportunity which is now knocking at your door. Don’t let it find you dozing by the kitchen fire, — or puttering around in the feed lot, deaf to the plea which thousands of your fellow farmers are making to you at this hour. Plan your next season’s crop carefully — but remember that rain, sunshine and hard work alone will never “pull you out.”

ex cover page editorial, “That Mortgage of Yours” (“by the author of After-Thoughts”) —
encouraging farmers to band together in the Farm Club movement, against the predations of banks (“industrial thieves”) —
in The Missouri Farmer (“Columbia, Mo.; The home of Missouri’s great agricultural college and the Missouri Experimental Station”) 9:1 (January 1, 1917) : 1 : link

—

in same number, in a report on “The Big Sedalia Convention” —

      On August 27th — the day before the Convention was to open — several of the above men again climbed off an M. K. & T. train and immediately hied themselves over to the Live Stock Pavilion on the State Fair Grounds where the meeting was to be held in order that they might see what preparations had been made for the delegates — and when they arrived inside the big building, the only living thing in sight was an old darkey who was puttering around with an old feather duster on the dust covered chairs in the balcony. Exactly what some of these men said wouldn’t look well in print — and in a few moments they got in touch with the Chamber of Commerce and the State Fair authorities over the telephone and in language very emphatic if not Angelic, they demanded to know why the arrangements agreed upon were not being carried out. Without attempting any long winded explanations, Messrs. Biggerstaff and Collins got busy and in less time than it takes to tell it, a force of men and teams were making good — and then some — every pre-Convention promise.
p 3
 

19 April 2025