Rosybugs are ripe in the Land of Mears

-The Kreigh family were invited to a beefsteak dinner at Howard Gashal's . Mrs. Kreigh choked on a chunk and couldn't get it up or down . To . Dr. Robinson to get it out . It was complicated and difficult . The half - swallowed beefsteak wouldn't come out . To a specialist in Muskegon and to a hospital where they had to put her to sleep and pick the meat out piece by piece . - Mrs . Crystal Weldon's electric pump was struck by lightning and nine feet of wiring conduit pipe were eaten up like water . Some rafters were charred . The fire bell rang at 3:30 in the morning and most of the village was there to see the excitement . A car went peep - peeping through town . Maybe it was Mrs. Krauter . Her young son Douglas went camping at Lake Michigan with Billo Lathers and Richard Fuller . They slept so soundly they hardly knew it rained . But a mother naturally wonders when the sky breaks and the thunder crashes , so at 3:30 a . m . she called on Olive Fuller to see if there were tidings . Crystal says the atmosphere was blue at her house , not with profanity , but with sulphurous smoke . When the big crash came Dale Lathers , aged 3. was startled in bed and smelled a blue light . Whether his head was against the head of the bed I do not know . He awoke and tried to crawl down to the foot of the bed . He says the head of the bed hit him . The next morning his head ached and he could not rise from his pillow . - Mrs . A. J. Baker did some extra baking when Mr. and Mrs. J. Bausewein and Mrs. E. Watson came up from Chicago to smell the roses on Collins hill - White Holland laying hens for sale , 20c a pound . Or will oven dress for for 50e extra . Harry Munroe , Shelby , phone 29F12 . - Danish ball head and flat Dutch cab- bage plants for sale , 3 miles north of Hart on US - 31 , 60c a hundred , $ 5 a thousand . Mrs. Charles Schaner , Hart , Rt . 2. Telephone 34F13- The gas stations are buying up old tires for the government and are paying 1c a pound for scrap rubber . - St . Gregory's parish will have its annual home - coming and spaghetti dinner at the Country Club on June 28. Mrs. Clarence Welsh says dinner from 1 to 5 - LIGHT CRAN BERRY BEANS for sale , for seed ( or eating ) , in Hubbard's bouse at $ 5.50 cwt . Maysie L. Draper . Rt . 3. Hart . This " soul conser- vation district act , " being Act 297 of the Public Acts of 1937 , is a very lengthy act and runs along for 17 pages . It embraces some twelve

thousand words . Perhaps few of you , very few of you , have read it all the way through . It is a drastic law and embraces compulsory measures such as you do not have in your present soil practices in this county . It can compel you to build check dams , dikes , ponds , ditches , do re- forestation , contour cultivating , contour plowing , lister furrowing , strip cropping . It can compel you to conform to specified cropping programs and tillage practices . Your agricultural liberty is taken from you . You become a slave to maybe 101 rules and regulations . And what happens if you fail in any of these rules and regulations ? Read Section 10 , on the enforcement of land - use regulations . The directors shall have auth- ority to go upon any lands within the district to determine whether the regulations are being observed . Any person , firm or corporation who shall violate any of such regulations shall be GUILTY OF A MISDE- MEANOR , and upon conviction , shall be punished as provided by the laws of this state . And what does that mean ? We turn to Section 16,589 of the Compiled Laws of 1929 , which reads : " Misdemeanor , pen- alty where none specially prescribed . Sec . 27. Every person who shall be convicted of a misdemeanor , the punishment for which is not other- wise prescribed by any statute , shall be imprisoned in the county jail not more than one year , or by fine not exceeding $ 250 , or by both such fine and imprisonment . " And that isn't all . Even after they have you fined and in jail they can get an order from the court requiring the work to be done . They can hire men and go upon your land whether it takes a week or a month or a year and run up expense with no statu- tory limitation which you will have to pay in your taxes . That bill might be hundreds of dollars and if you can not pay it your farm may be eventually taken from you for taxes . Nor is this all . Sec . 5 on page 562 gives the directors the power to acquire , by purchase , exchange , lease , gift , devise , OR OTHERWISE any property , real or personal , and to sell your property after they have taken it . Those simple little words , OR OTHERWISE , can cover a multitude of methods . They can heap upon your unwilling shoulders the burden of a program so ex- pensive you cannot carry it and you may be obliged to sell your land for a song or give it away . At the present time land ownership in Oceana county is a privilege , but if this drastic soil conservation dist- rict act is imposed upon us , the ownership of your farm may prove to I have be an expensive liability . Looking this matter carefully over , reason to believe that many who signed the petition last fall did so in- nocently , because they did not know the drastic terms of the act . I also realize that there may be fifty people in this county , three or more from each township , who are anxious for this thing to go over so they can get more easy dollars at committee work telling the other fellow what he has to do . Instead of staying at home and tilling their own farms they want to run all over the township regulating the other fellow's farm and telling him what to do . They are in this thing for mercenary reasons . I for one don't want to regulate the other fellow's farm . grant him the liberty to look after his land and I will look after mine . You don't have to be bound down by these iron chains in order to prac- tice a sensible soil conservation on your farm . You can go ahead even now and put brush on your open fields and plant forests on your side hills . You don't have to join the Ku Klux Klan in order to be an Ameri- can . Nor surround yourself with the fetters of this drastic act in order to practice soil conservation . Of all times to start an expensive pro- gram like this entailing the expenditure of perhaps thousands of pub- lic and private dollars ! Here we are engaged in a war , asking people

school . All occupiers of land

to be careful of their money , to save their dimes and buy war stamps . And we need to do so to win the war . Why should we launch out on a program of vast and unnecessary expense like this soil conservation district business ? We don't need it . Agriculture got along in Oceana county for eighty years without it . We can still go on . Gentlemen , I can understand why these committeemen are anxious and eager for this thing to go through so they can get more easy work away from their own furrows . But I cannot understand how any liberty - loving Oceana farmer who plans his own work and sticks to his own acres should want to bring down on his shoulders this bondage which we can avoid . And before you vote for it consider again these drastic sections of the law which can bring down upon you a $ 250 fine and a year's imprison- ment if you fail to live up to each and every regulation . There you have something to ponder on . Gentlemen , I have studied this thing ser- iously and I know what I am talking about . I have stood before the supreme court of the state of Michigan and fought for my liberty . And liberty is a wonderful thing to keep , whether it be liberty of person or liberty of utterance or the liberty to enjoy your own fields as you al- ways have . Such was the substance of the remarks made by Swift Lathers at the preliminary hearing at the Shelby high school audi- torium Thursday night . More than a hundred people were at the meet- ing . Among the other speakers against the adoption of the measure were Thomas Welsh , who believed the county was getting along well enough with the advice and assistance of the county agent and the present soils program . He is plenty right . Miss Carrie Mears thought things were well enough as they are . William Graham of Claybanks called attention to the fact that certain soil conditions might exist in one township and affect one township only , but the people from the other 15 townships might pass land use regulations which would work no hardship in these other 15 townships because the conditions existed only in one township . Hurrah for Bill . He has a sense of justice and discernment . It was very noticeable that the people who did the most talking in favor of the proposed soils conservation district setup were township committeemen or ones who had been acting in that capacity , people who had received money for committee work . Bill Wenk was getting about five dollars a day sitting in his chair in the vine - covered brick building so he could afford to argue for it . So could Ted Rouse , who has pulled down many a dollar with a pencil over his ear . So Vie- tor Ruckel got up and called attention to the mercenary coloring of the motives behind the utterances of these fellows and wanted to hear from the real honest - to - goodness farmers . There was a roar of ap- plause when someone mentioned how much more anxious these town- ship committeemen were to go around telling the other fellow how to farm instead of staying at home working on their own farms . The sec- retary of agriculture had charge of the meeting . The hearing lasted so long that some people drifted out ; when the straw vote was taken and the hands were counted , it was 45 to 45. If it ever comes to a referen- dum election the opponents of the measure will turn out in mass to Swamp it.To Keith Corliss in Mears for groceries and meats , for elec- tric breeze and a pound of cheese . Geneva is the new clerk . adv . - The dune scooters have been trespassing on the north end of the dunes again against Lansing instructions , and endangering the lives of chil- dren on the hills . Lansing may rise up and wipe out the whole business . Western and native beef , spring chickens , lamb , bacon , ham , home- made sausage . We especially welcome resort trade . Sanitary Meat Mar- ket , east side Shelby's Main street .