WHERE THERE’S A WILL

WHERE THERE’S A WILL

By George Peck

“Where there’s a: will, there is a way.*’ If you doubt the truth of that old saying, please read on and be convinced.

In the summer of 1937 serious physical trouble came to .visit an ' eleven-year-old Ohio boy. Traveling with his parents on a vacation trip, Ira Gossett Hawk picked up an infanile paralysis germ which p'Tit him into plaster casts for the next 23 months, and which even today, many years later, has left him crippled. But that infantile paralysis germ which so badly ravaged his physical being, more than met its master when it sought to carry its devastation to he brave spirit with which God had Endowed this boy from the Buckeye State.

You will recall that America was languishing iri the slough of depression when this disaster struck young Hawk—it was a period when a paternalistic “government^ with every good intention but unwise, judgment, was attempting to overcome that depression by doing things for people rather than encouraging people to do things for themselves; when boys, strong of body, unconsciously were absorbing the defeatist philosophy being propagandized that America had no new frontiers, that there were no new worlds to conquer., and that only government could save -the people from want and starvation.

Ira Gossett Hawk stood as a living symbol to refute these false defeatist theories. His record of accomplishment, despite pain and suffering, despite physical handicap, bore excellent -testimony to the fact that “Where there’s a will there’s a way,” and that “You just can’t keep a good boy down.”

Shortly after his affliction, Gossett launched a newspaper, “The Salem Echo”. Its slogan was, “The Echo Echoes The American Way.” —and it did just that. Its youthful publisher succeeded in putting into it considerable of his indomitable spirit. The first printing of the “Echo” was a modest 100 copies,