From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for June 25, 1915:

“The keg craze has struck Lawrence and the humble beer keg, smashed by Carrie Nation, outlawed by the state legislature, hunted remorselessly by the city police, branded with disgrace by the W. C. T. U., cursed by temperance orators, and ostracized by all good citizens, has come to its own. Now instead of dodging the public eye, hiding in out-of-the-way places and hanging its head in shame, the keg can stand still and proudly wait for the honest Douglas county farmer to come to it and beg its pardon. For all this there’s a reason, and the reason is the fact that the Kansas wheat grower needs the keg in his business, needs it quick and needs it bad. The wet harvest fields have made it impossible for the farmers to get in with binders to harvest the rapidly ripening grain and so they have turned to the keg as a solution…. This is how they use it. The keg is fastened under the binder and acts as a roller to pack the ground for the bull-wheel on the binder. As more fields are ready for the machines more kegs will be needed and the supply is not going to be adequate. ‘So dig down in your cellars, ladies and gentlemen,’ says the wheat grower, ‘rummage the garret, ransack the old closets and bring forth the signs of intemperance for they are worth real money.’… Ray Price, a wheat grower who lives 11 miles south of Lawrence in the High Prairie neighborhood, started the trouble this morning. He called first at the police station in the city hall and asked that he be allowed to buy up all the old beer kegs that had been collected in many raids in the bottoms…. Unfortunately the police had recently destroyed most of their supply and had only one on hand. They showed the keg to Mr. Price and it was just what he wanted. Now the city cannot legally sell such things so after a conference the officials decided to lend the keg to Mr. Price to use during harvest. A fireman had one which he had found in a vacant lot on the east side and he sold it for $1.00. Mr. Price caught the train back to Baldwin and will soon begin his beer keg harvest…. ‘One of my neighbors put me wise to the use of the keg,’ said Mr. Price this morning…. ‘It sounds funny, I know, but the matter is not one of humor when one has 160 acres of wheat going to waste as I have and can’t get to it with a binder.'”

“The fourth assistant postmaster general has ordered all postmasters in Kansas to make a report upon each and every rural carrier, including his age, his physical condition, equipment and attention to duty. In postal circles the order has aroused great interest. Many supervising employees think it means a shake-up in the rural service, especially affecting the elderly carriers and those who were appointed before the service was placed upon the civil list.”

“Ecke & Sons are having the front of their business house at 943 Mass. torn out and ‘modernized.'”