Letters

Colfax

Still Asking

A long time ago my family and I relocated to Colfax because I had the great good fortune to join the Colfax School District staff.

One of the very first persons to cross my path was Jerry Jones of the Gazette Staff, now editor after fifty fulfilling years.

Immediately he started asking questions about where I was from and how did I see the future here in Colfax.

Over the years Jerry is still asking the right questions and he is also still making the trips to far off places where the Colfax Wrestling Team was participating to get the real feel of what was happening.

It has always been a great joy of mine to see my friend walk through the gym doors with several cameras and his bag hanging around his neck.

He always got the photos right and the credits too.

I affectionately call him “Scoop”.

I would also like to give him a big attaboy for his work with the local Scout Troops. The stories that have been generated down through the years, whether it be about some climbing expedition, a run down the St. Joe River or a bike ride on the Hiawatha Trail, he was in the middle of that and it became lifelong memories for a lot of young men in the making.

Jack McBride,

New lows

This week’s guest editorial by Rich Lowry regarding the “truth” of Donald Trump’s immigration comments reached new lows in logic and reasoning.

They (Donald and Rich) seem to be saying we need more of the “1%” and less of the poor and hardworking.

My grandparents immigrated to the United States because they were starving.

Maybe because they were starving in Northern Europe and not south of the U.S. border makes that okay for Rich and Donald.

They arrived speaking no English and had to start with the most menial jobs.

They worked hard and from nothing and they made a success in their new home.

Their descendents include engineers, managers, homemakers and librarians.

Maybe Rich and Donald feel that making fame based on the phrase, “You’re Fired” constitutes success, but I believe our country has become great because of hard-working immigrants, not despite them.

The plaque on the Statue of Liberty states, “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddle masses yearning to breathe free.” Maybe Rich and Donald feel it should be changed to, “Give us your rich, your reality stars, your 1% yearning to victimize all below them.” It scares me that Donald is presently the top polling presidential candidate in the Republican Party. Only slightly less worrisome is this type of forgetful and historically inaccurate editorial.

Of course all immigrants aren’t perfect, but painting all the poor as “undesirable” would eliminate my grandparents and probably most other’s (if we went back enough generations) in Whitman County. We need to denounce jingoistic rhetoric by our politicians, not encourage it in our editorials.

Roy Moxley,

Colfax