"Kansas Crowd Applauds Cardinal Burke's Stump Speech"
Operational definition of "stump": the dying remnants of a dismembered tree, the productive part of which has already been utilized. Small stumps can usually be ignored as they deteriorate rapidly and are replaced by viable vegetation. Large stumps constitute an impediment to both natural growth and useful cultivation and continue to absorb otherwise useful nutrients in a futile pretense of vitality. In isolation, the latter can be left to eventual self-deterioration as a habitat or refuge for rodents, fungi, etc. However for productive utilization of the "terroir" the impediment must be forcibly removed.