I notice several of our merchants have been industriously at work this week cleaning up about the back doors of their places of business and decorating the fronts with flags and bunting. No kick on that. It's a sensible idea.
    I have a kick coming on some sidewalks of this city, and about the only way there seems to be to square myself will be to take that kick out on the protruding nail heads and ends of planks that clear the supposedly level surface by from two to six inches. There is need of repairs.
    "These are hard times," I hear a farmer say. Well, it is little wonder when you throw away your ashes and grease and buy soap; when you allow the manure to accumulate about your barns--and your fields in actual need of it; when you catch five-cent fish with a $4 rod; when you send your son out with a $40 gun and $20 dog to hunt 15-cent game. Your fathers didn't do this sort of thing--and they didn't cry hard times, because they didn't expect so much of the world as we do. They were content with much less--their notions were not as high strung as ours, but they all told us they were happy--we are not.
    Brevity is acknowledged the soul of wit. That being the case, the Kicker has compiled these brevities: Minister, have you a sermon to preach? Make it short. Lawyer, have you an argument to present? Make it short. Funny man, have you a joke to tell? Make it short. Ladies, have you pie crust or dresses to make? Make 'em short. Young man, have you marriage engagement on hand? Make it short. Obituary writers and presidents, make your messages short. It is not necessary to advise bank cashiers as to their accounts. They are sure to make them short.
    Sunday was a pretty warm day, as almost everyone will admit. The shady side of an oak and a cool draft from the "old oaken bucket" were hailed as treasures, but because the day was warm and a cool drink of water refreshing, there is no reason why the horse we drive or ride does not feel the heat and long for that cool drink--which he don't always get. I saw a young man ride up to a pump in this city Sunday, dismount and take several draughts of nature's cool beverage, but the horse, heated and dust-covered, got not a drop to moisten its dry lips. Such treatment is inhuman, and a man who will thus treat his horse is a man only in stature.
    "America for Americans." No kick on that. Medford for Medford people. No kick there, either; but the principle is not carried out to the limit of entirety. A Medford man's dollar which is going to be expended in the construction of new buildings, improving sidewalks and streets, is not the full value of the dollar to the city unless a Medford laboring man is given an opportunity to earn it. The business man or capitalist who employs mechanics from other towns to do his work is not building up a feeling of friendship among the less fortunate laborers at home that will strew his pathway with roses. Rose bushes have thorns, and if when gathering the fragrant flowers the gatherer insists upon taking bush and all, he must expect that the thorns will prick him. This is a free country, this America; but a fellow in exercising that freedom born of a loyal and independent people must use that discretion which is supposed to be innate with us all. Medford has mechanics in nearly all the several lines. They are capable men, honest and law-abiding, and there is a rivalry existing between them that demands a very keen, close figuring in preparing estimates upon construction work, in consequence of which no person is going to be "fleeced" who gives them a contract. The Kicker don't like to see things go otherwise--Medford for Medfordites. Let each town or city look after the interests of its own people. This is Medford and we are living inside the corporate limits of the city, and we have no right to go outside these limits to procure that which can be had inside, provided, of course, that our neighbors do not intrude upon the generosity which we feel we ought to extend.
Medford Mail, June 28, 1895, page 4