Letters to the editor
Switchboard operator responds
To the Editor:
I enjoyed reading about the switchboard that has been put in the Marion Historical Museum and the 1935 article in the July 6 issue.
I would like to make a correction. Elizabeth Grubb was the operator who helped Miss Keazer and Mrs. Meierhoff.
Yes, we had a nice write-up in the Wichita Beacon and also were in the Southwestern Bell Telephone magazine when we received the award.
That was quite an experience for me as I had just started as an operator that spring. I worked till the fall of 1941, in Marion, then transferred to Los Angeles, Calif. What a change that was!
I remember working 12 hours the day Pearl Harbor was bombed. How the world has changed since then. I worked there until the fall of 1950, when I transferred to Wichita.
In 1942, I had married Orlie Hiebert, son of P.A. Hiebert and brother of Alfred, Melvin, and Leroy Hiebert of Hillsboro.
We came back to Kansas in October 1950, and purchased a farm in Neosho County. I retired from the telephone company in 1951, and have lived on the farm since then.
I am still at the same place and it is a wonderful neighborhood.
Again, thanks for the story about the men in the cistern. Glad all of them survived!
Elizabeth (Grubb) Hiebert
Erie
This land is
our land, or is it?
To The Editor
It was irritating to get requests from the county about reporting our land acres and what we produce on them. It gives the feeling that I don't own my land, that the deeds we have don't mean anything.
Government's response is the fact that we can't provide for ourselves. What are the services the government provides that the private sector can't provide for and more efficiently? Government says the private sector can't be trusted, it isn't fair, it's greedy, it's a profit monger. What is it that makes government fair and trustworthy with the people's resources? And if they are our resources, aren't we more efficient in terms of knowing our own needs and meeting those needs?
What is the criteria by which we can trust the government and know that it is fair with our resources? What investment does the government make in relation to my land that gives it the right to dictate the taxes and the needs of society? What is the government's right to take from the people who work to provide for themselves and distribute it to those who don't work and have so-called "needs?" I'm not denying that people have needs, but to tell the people the government provides those services is a lie. Does the government care for the people who are its resource? Who lives like the government, which gets a pay increase every year, has a paid vacation, has retirement benefits, all these programs, at taxpayers' expense?
Do increased valuations justify the government to get more revenue? It's our wealth, not the government's wealth, but the government takes it to pay for its own needs. The workers are the slaves, the government is the master. All government can do is take away our right to be free and responsible for our own welfare.
Jerry Plett
Lincolnville
