eee eee BY BP. GRAY MEEK. Ink Slings, — Work is good to look upon ; that is, when some one else is doing it. —Itis op to Governor STUART now to make or break muoh bad legislation. ~The day of the ice cream cone is not so far distant that you would be unwise in laying up a few pickles for the kids, —A car load of Chinamen being smug- gled into this country consigned as beans were discovered through a crack in the car. Marder will oat. —The trout fisherman is ‘‘the mano with the smile’ these days. It is not the kind produced by good luck, however. It is bottled in his inside pocket. —The Sultan was soo good to the young Tarks. Had he cut their heads off about Thaoksgiving time he wouldn’t be in such danger of baving them gobble him up now. —It bas just been revealed that LEIGH HUNT is the person who is to foot the bills of RoosSEVELT's expedition into Africa. Naturally it is a hunt in every sense of the word. —Some wealthy cattle raisers were Jynched in Oklahoma oo Monday. They probably were ‘‘malefactors of great wealth” and eminently ‘‘ondesirable citi- zens. '’ ~The end of the business depression or some other equally pretentions crisis must be arriving. A Philadelphia politician has voluntarily resigned a ten thousand a year job, —JIt is a question as to whether as a plain nuisance the stink, the noise and the dust of the automobile will be able to beat out the horus they are putting on some of them now. —Many a man who is worried over his lawn grass now will be wishing it never had grown when the hot days of July and August arrive and there is po one else to push the lawn mower. —The Daughters of the Revolution should arrange to bold their next Coogress in one of those Soath American Republics 80 a3 to give the revolutionists down there a show of what real fighting is. : —Sugar manufacturers, scientists and the customs officials are now involved in a wrangle as to whether the heet isa vegeta- ble or an unmanufactared article of coms merce. It is both, just the same as **pigs is pigs.” ~Jis JEFFRIES having finally decided to re-enter the prize ring the only regres ia that the time he has set is nos early enough | to eave the public from being a by that colored gas louse that over in Australia. ~—President TAFT went to a baseball game on Monday and the team he rooted for lost. Now that conldn’t bave happen- ed bad TEDDY been there. He wouldjbave proven the umpire a liar on every decision against the home team. —If everything the poor man wears and most all he eats is to be taxed through a tariff for the benefit o! monopolistic inter. ests why shouldn’t the incomes of the wealthy be taxed for the benefis of the government. If the poor bave to keep up the rich, the rich should keep up the gov- ernment. —The Steabenville, Ohio, gir! who re- fused to marry FRANK BEEFSTAKE, of Irondale, after it flashed through her mind that she was becoming a Mrs. BEEFSTAKE, made a veritable hamburger ont of poor FRANK'S affections. Her love for him wouldn't stand for such a name aod he stoutly refused to change is. ~—What's the use of tbat Indiana man wearing himself out on his invention to make the day twenty-four hours long. We will be allowed to work only eight of them jost the same and in summer time we would never have a moment's rest from the flies nor be able to enjoy any of that pesti- lence that walketh in darkness. —After while there won’t be anything of the real girl lefs. The little bit of hair she has after concealing her rat she uses as an anchor for a lot of pioned on puffs ; then she covers it all up, her face as weil, with a peach basket hat, puts a rubber form under her jacket, blows is full of wind, and minces forth because her skirt is 80 narrow she can’t step and the high heel- ed suede shoes she wears are so painful that her antios border on the ridicalons. —The best and most effective application of the tariff idea to the daily life of the ordinary man was noticed on Tuesday. For the past year and a half there has been great indastrial paralysis in this ccuntry, thousands of men are out o! employment and other thousands are on hall time. Ordinarily prices of commodities fall dur- ing such a period. That is, they adjust themselves to the ability of the masses to pay. The reverse has been the case during thie depression. Everything the poor man needs for his table has gone up in price and flour has been dearer than it has been at any time in twenty-five years. This has been due to the high price of wheat, which touched $1.30 last week, but what happen. ed Tuesday. The price of wheat fell in a few moments to $1.22. Why? Because talk of taking tariff off it was started. All that was needed was the mere suggestion and the gamblers who were cornering is let goat once. And that is what the tariff does in many instances. It does not help the producer, it robs the consumer and puts the loot into the pookets of the gam- bler. CAR repairs VOL. 54 Will the Supervisors Do 1t? State road building in Penosylvania is largely in the experimental stage. The fa- ture is a problem. There are =o many conditions surrounding the State’s efforts to make better pablic highwavs that it is impossible to say just how [ar the work that i: now nud:rway will be carried for- ward, To our mind the most serious and possi. bly the most effectual drawback in the en- tire system or theory to he worked out is and will be the attitnde of the road mas. ters or supervisors of the precinots in which State roads have been bails. After thous- ands of dollars have been expended in con- structing a perfect highway, il a couple of stabborn, contiary or just plain ignoram- uses who can’t and won't see, permit it to be destroyed for want of slight expense in maintenance there will be an end of State road building. What would be the use of building roads at a cost of from five to ten thousand dollars a mile which is straight. way allowed to deteriorate into common country highways such ae they replaced ? It would be the grossest waste of money. Centre county has secared several see- tions of State road. All of it has been built more durable than the average in other counties. One section extending from Bellefonte to Milesburg cost approxi- mately sixteen thousand dollars, Of this amount the State paid twelve thousand, the county two thousand and the town- ships of Boggs and Spring two thousand dollars. All of that money was pat into the road two year? ago and to tois minate we do not know of a cent that has been ex- pended in taking care of the investment, As to whether the State, the county or the townships is responsible for its up- keep is not the question. The faot is that the road is disintegrating for the want of a few small repairs that probably wouldn’s cost fifty dollars. And as the supervisors of Boggs and Spring townships are the men on the jobs they are the ones who should be held to accountability for she d tion of the two thou a’ ” in the right way and wait for the fatare to decide who is really responsible for the upkeep. If it is let go until too late the value the townships have put in it will be gone and they will have the road to maintain anyway, but then it will be just as it was before the improvement was made. Conditions are the same on all the other sections of road that have been built in the county. The WATCHMAN relers especially to the Milesharg section because it is more familiar with it, but what it han to say ap- plies to all of them. It is certainly a lamentable affair, whatever may he the cause, and if the supervisors or road masters do not awaken to the duty the tax payers should demand their attention. The State will certainly not continue building roads in communities where the roads are not looked after and even if it should it is a very short sighted policy that permits a good road to become a kad road again, es- pecially when a minimum of repairing would keep it good. Senator Aldrich's Base Parpose. Senator ALDRICH knows, if he knows anything, that his statement in the Senate, on Monday, shat his tariff bill will produce ample revenue to meet the requirements of the government, was not true. The reve- nue deficit for this year is $150,000,000. The appropriations of the last Congress for the next fiscal year amount to $60,000,000 in excess of those of the present year and the revenues can be no greater under exist- ing laws. That would indicate a deficit next year of something like $200,000,000. Accepting Mr. ALDRICH'S statement of the revenue possibilities of his bill there would only be a revenue gain of $30,000, 000. That would be a deficis at the end of the fiscal year 1910 of $170,000,000. With a deficits of $150,000,000 this year which ends June 30, 1909, and $170,000,000 on Jane 30, 1910, the entire surplus, inclad- ing the legal reserve, would be exhausted and the country would be at the mercy of the money lenders. Anybody who has been obliged to borrow in an emergency knows what that means. The purpose of Senator ALDRICH'S mis. representation of the facts in the master is taxing incomes. He is essentially the rep- resentative in the Senate of ‘‘the system.” He is the attorney in fact of the Standard Oil company and the Steel trast. Because of hia relation to these corporations he is also the leader of she Republican party in the Senate. He is striving to make the government of the United States a creature of the corporations he represents. ——At 8 recent meeting of the directors of the Bellefonte Central railroad company the office of general superintendent was abolished and Mr. F. H. Thomas, of this place, was made vice president and gen- eral manager. to prevent the passage of a provision tor | STATE RIG The Income Tax, The esteemed Philadelphia Ledger char- acterizes the income tax as ‘‘a blow at wealth.” Several other esteemed contem- poraries have [allen into the same perni- cious habit. Why they do this, except upon the broad principle that any tax isa blow at the subject taxed, we are uuable to understand. An income tax is certain. ly no more inimical to wealth than a tax on the necessaries of life is injurions to pov- erty. [Either proposition iavolves pay- | ment by one to another. Nine times out ot ten the payment upon the necessaries of | lite go into the sales of some corporation or the pockets of a favored individual. Ten times out of teu the tax on incomes will go into the public treasary as revenue for the government. A tax on shoes, hosiery, gloves, blankets, lamber, hats or any other of the essentials to healthful life is a blow at poverty which works great hardships on the victims of the injustice. A tax on incomes may be justly regarded as a blow at wealth bat one which in no respect impairs its powers for usefulness or evil. The tax on the nee- essaries of life goes to the protected favor. ite whose prodaot is shielded from compe- tition and enjoys the ad vantage of monopo- ly while the tax on incomes goes into the treasury of the country where it conserves the interest of the public. Iv other words, the tax on incomes is a burden laid upon an object best able to bear it and serves a useful purpose while a tax on necessaries is a burden on ohjeots least able to carry the load which works a vicicus result. The esteemed New York World states the oase accurately and happily when it says that an income tax, ‘taxes wealth, not poverty.” The prime object of all taxa. tion is to raise revenue. Bot it is almost equally important that in levying a tax for revenue it be so adjusted that is will be most easily borne. A tax whioh takes from the needy things they require for the maintenance of health is an inignity. A v wots from those who have i | hich simply adds to the pro - favored individuals or corporations robs the many to benefit the few and is an abomination. Au income tax produces revenne. A tax on necessaries creates profits for favorites. In view of these facts there is something tandamentally wrong with an individual or a newspaper which condemns a tax on incomes and favors a tax on necessaries. Such a man or paper lacks intelligence or integrity and may be deficient in both. In auy event it is serving the cause of wrong at the expense of the principles of right. It is adveeating a policy which is unjust and unfair. It is fighting the battle of in- iquity and against the cause of justice. Probably the people may be deceived by the sophistry of injustice. But there will be a day of reckoning when popular intel- ligence and public conscience will resent the fraud. The Tax on Lumber. The National Conservation League pro- tests that a tariff on lamber affords no pro- tection to American labor and gives no help to American manufacturers. Is adds that the only person protected by a tariff ou lumber is the timber owner and might have added that the timber owner ia the lumber trust. ‘‘The removal of the tariff,” tbe League continues in a statement re. cently issued to the public, “‘will reduce the price of lamber and conserve the Amer- ican forests most desirable results.” No man of rational mind will dispute either of these propositions. They are irrefutable and almost self-evident. A considerable decrease in the price of lamber would stimalate home building in every direction. The difference of two dollars a thousand feet in the price of lum- ber amounts to a good deal in the cost of a frame house in the conutry or subarbs or any kind of a house in town or city. Han. dreds of artisans have refrained from build- ing homes because of this difference in the cost of lumber, attributable to the tariff tax of two dollars a thonsand feet. Thousands of mechanics have been deprived of em- ployment because this difference in the price of lamber prevented artisans and oth- ere from building houses. Talk about the conservation of forests and reforestation while there is a tariff tax of two dollars a thousand feet on lamber is absurd. That tariff tax on lumber is actually and absolutely prohibitive. One result of itis that nobody builds except those who have to baild and those who are obliged to build consume domestic lamber [aster than the moss energetic reforestation can replace it. As a matter of [act thers ought to be no tariff tax on lumber or forest products of any kind. A tax ofa dollara thousand feet is quite as prohibitive as if it were double. It means that our own forests will be denuded. ——Subsoribe for the WATCHMAN. HTS AND BELLEFONTE. BA, APRIL 23. 1009. pub FEDERAL UNION. The Two Tariff Bills There is no material difference between | the ALDRICH and PAYNE tariff bills except | that one was evolved in the Honse and the other in the Senate. The PAYNE bill graduates the tax so that the poor pay more than the rich in the ratio of about three to one. The ALDRICH bill aims for aboat the same resnlt. In the ALDRICH measure hoisery is taxed a trifle less than in the other. Bat on flannels the schedale of the PAYNE bill is lower. tax reductions are alike on the luxuries which are accessible only to the opnlent, It is essentially a echeme of the tariff mongers to tax the people for the benefit of favorites, Both bills are defective, moreover, he- cause they will fail to produce the revenue that is needed. The deficiency in the treasury this year will amount to $150,000, 000. In two years, at that rate, the treas- nry will be bankrapt. It has been proved that the Republican party is incapable of decreasing the public expenses. The two pending tariff bills indicate that it is equally incapable of increasing the reve- noes. It can issue bonds just as an opa- lent spendthrift can borrow money as long as his property lasts. But what sane man would trust the management of his busi- ness affairs to one who conld neither in. crease his resonroes nor rednee bis expens- es. He is an incompetent. For nearly ten years this country bas been enjoying an era of extraordinary pros- perity. Labor bas been liberally employed and generonsly rewarded. The taxes have been high but ont of an abundance they have heen paid without inconvenience. Things are different now, however. The high taxes continue but the resources to meet them are diminished and tbe result is inevitable. Poverty is the unavoidable consequence of such policies. Governments like individuals exhanst their resources in the end if they spend more than they earn. That is what this government has been doing for the last two years. We bave D 80 to the wind and will reap the | aap Ey is The Legislature of Pennsylvania filly finished ita work by providing a place for the QUAY monument. For nearly two years that memorial of our civic iniquity has been bardening the storehouse of the sculptor who chiseled it ont of marble. The commission whioh had been charged with the procuring and putting it in place on the capitol grounds have been afraid to act. The public conscience was in a state of uncertainty and resentment was appre. hended. Bat Senator MoNICHOL was not afraid. He has the courage of his deparavity and provided asolation of the problem. And why shouldn't this coarse have been adopted and now that it has been why shouldu’s it meet with the approval of the Republican party? QUAY was no worse thau his politica! associates. He has been dead for more than four years and the management of his party bas not been im- proved. In fact it is a matter of record that QUAY bad daring she closing years of his life admonished his associate leaders that they were going too far. He said that moss of those who were connected with the graft in the construction and farnishing of the capitol would be sent to the peniten- tiaty. That he took too gloomy a view of conditions has been proved by subsequent events. Nobody has been sent to the pen- itentiary and no one is likely to be. Bat if be bad lived things might have been dif- lerent. He might not have had the nerve to do what has been done by his successors. An esteemed contemporary bas said that “QUAY was asoldier who never participated in a battle. He was a legislator who never wrote a law or advocated a measure for the public good. He was a fiduciary officer who betrayed his trust and set examples to his associates which led to misery and ruin.” Bat he was precisely the kind ofa man the Republicans and Pennsylvania wanted for ‘‘a guide, philosopher and friend,” and it is proper that his effigy should be set up as an example for them to emulate. If he had been better he conldn’s have given satisfaction. His successor in the leadership is quite as bad. ——The first snake story of the season was told a day or two since by J. C. Har- per, who said that one day lass week he and a companion were walking through Emeriok’s graveyard in Pennsvalley when they came across a snake orawling around in the short grass and apparently as lively as in midsummer. They killed the reptile and according to Mr. Harper's measare- ment the snake was about four feet in length. And he farther declares that it was a garter snake at that, ——A Dew concrete pavement and steps were put down this week in front of the Furst building opposite the court Louse. —Governor, spare that bospital bill of ours. We want no GEORGIE WASHING - TON stunts on is. In both cases the | maiv purpose is to foster monopoly. The 1 i NO. 17. From the San Francisco Star. Fits years from now,” says Prophet James J. Hill, **the people of she United States wil! have to scramble for bread— there may be enough to go around.” It may be suspected that President Hill is getting ready to put up some job on the people, foi be has a habit of predicting ca- lamity when be has a scheme up his sleeve, He is trying to scare us now by icting that nnless we raise a great deal more wheat we won't have enough bread in 50 years [rom now. Let Mr. Hill torn his attention to the present. The enoogh to go around doesn’t go around. There is enough bread, enough clothing, enovgh shelter and material for shelter to go around, epongh of all the comforts of life to go around ; but they don’t, and President Hili, the railroad monopolist, is one of the comparatively few who are responsible for she fact that they don’t go around. Instead of predict- ing terrors for 50 years hence, President Hill would be in better business were be paying more attention to the don’t-go- around condition of the present. It we of today do oar full daty, we need not lear for the condition of our children and grandchildren of 50 years hence. We are producing enongh wealth to keep in comfort all who earn or are willing to earn a living, but the fant is in the unfair dis tribution of the wealth produced. He that assists in bringing abous a fair, a just dis- tribution of the wealth that is produced today need not fear that the future popula- tion will starve, or even wans for the nec- essaries and comforts of life. All that we need do, but the least that we are in duty hound to do, is to leave to posterity just laws and righteous conditions. It wonld be amusing were it not moral. ly oriminal for # wan like President Hill to pose as a prophes of calamity when he, the beneficiary and apholder of special privilege, insists on taking from the peo- ple the last farthing thas his monopoly mill can grind out of the pockets of the people. He that predicts want in the fature shoald not cause want in the present. Ha that would he a missionary for plenty in the futare should not practice the black art that canses dire want and poverty in the present. If President Hill would teach us how to sow and reap plenty of wheat in the future, he should set a good example in the present by ceasing to reap wealth ne Drove Fos “the food 8 President says, ‘‘the i em itself bas namerous collateral or Bat ——— a — oT SS A — Spawls from the Keystone. ~The oil field at Gaines, Tioga county, is to be further tested by putting down twenty wells, —Punxsutawney has developed quite = building boom and during the present week foundations will be begun for a dozen build ings, mostly dwellings. —The store of E. B. Kyler, at Bigler, Clearfield county, was entered the other night and robbed of shoes, gloves, hosiery, watches and other goods. —By a little effort on the part of the busi- ness men of DuBois the Queen's Run Fire Brick company has been induced to locate a £250.000 plant in that place. —Mrs. Frank Bonawitz, of Pottsville, was preparing clams for the use of the family on Sanday, when she found a pearl in one of the clams which jewelers estimate as being worth $150, ~The bakers of New Castle will not im- crease the price of bread per loaf, but have decided to decrease the size of the loaf, which is only another way of arriviug at the same object. —Two hundred octogenarians attended a unique Mexican War Veterans anniversary in Pottsville Sunday. It was in honor of the sixty.second anniversary of the battle of Cerro Gordo. —Mrs. Mart Rickard and Mrs. Cassie Amey, daughters of Joha Glass, of Fallen Timber, are making a comfortable income by cutting props and bank tieslfor the An. derson Coal company. —Peach growers in the sonwthern part of Franklin county estimate the loss to the peach trees during the recent severe cold spell at 50 per cent. But thejerop wili prob. ably average better than that. ~The heirs of the so-called Sitler fortune in Bavaria, estimated to amount to $200,000, - 000, held a meeting in York the other day and chipped iu sufficient money to send a representative to Bavaria to look into the fact. ~The members of the Young Men's Christian Association of Williamsport are about to enter & cimpaign to raise $20,000 for the payment of the floating debt and a part of the mortgage on the association build. ing. : —The initial work of tree planting from’ the two-year-old state nursery at Asaph commenced this week and 46,000 two year-. olds, of which 16,000 are hardwood and spruce, will be immediately set out on bar=. ren lands. ta —Mrs. Elizabeth Baker Duun, Clintom county's oldest resident, on Sunday ; brated the §7th anniversary of her birth the Dnun farm, on Great Island, near Haven. She is enjoying very good for one of her years and is remar bright. : —Mrs. Rhoda Lovell, aged 80 years, at widow, was robbed of $10,000 on Fr treasure belt. She lives in a tent along the Lancaster pike, and it was not until 8 da the first and most important issue of the food problem is the matter of preventing | Any man, whether Hill Al I 1 without what thas has earned or produced; and that is busta part of the issue or problem of giving to ach ane hin right lo ues Shem . paying any other man for use of the earth. It is not the ‘food problem,” bat the Man-and-Man problem. It is not a problem of sowing wheat, but the problem of forcing a few men, of whom President Hill is a type, to get off the necks and backs of other men, and leaving to the other men the simple matter of working out their own salvation. There is plenty to go around, and there will always be plenty te go around if we follow nature rather than Hill. And after some years of experience with both, we be- lieve that nature is the safer gmide. At any rate, natare is just to the laborer. A Flood of From the Harrisburg Star-Independent. The Legislatore sent to the Governor 798 bills and 51 resolutions as the product of its labors on about forty working days. O! course the session covered more than forty daye, but the working time, exqept as relates to committees, did not. Nearly every measure sent to the Governor was in violation of the Constitution, a act which nobody can disprove. Bat that is a matter of no importance, for in Penn- sylvania the Constitution has been a dead letter for the last thirty years. Bills were passed at ‘“‘high pressore’’ in order that they might be jammed through withont giving members an opportanity to study them and protest against their enactment, or to ascertain whether or not any soakes were hidden in them. With the exception of the charitable and penal appropriations, some of which could have been dispensed with, many of these new laws 'vere unnecessary. Among legis- lators there is a passion for making laws, and it has been well developed in Penn- sylvania. It is better to pass wisely a few necessary laws than to pass nnwisely many that are not necessary. That does not ap- peal to the average legislative body, how- ever, and the more bills it passes the more itis praised fora ‘‘working body’ and a “‘business session.’”’ It will always be so. The average baman being loves to pass laws for the government of somebody else. Snuggling Up to the Octopus. From the Hartford Courant. Not every man’s band is the of the i edb Bin el te organ acompany with a capi- tal of $5,000,000. It is annoonoced that the company will spend two millions in building a refinery at Baton Rouge and will lay pipe lines from the Caddo, Jen- nings and other fields. Very large de- posits of oil have been found in Louisiana, and there is » general opinion that in pro. viding money to develop these deposits the Standard is doing the work a good octopus. ~———John Sebring last Saturday sold Dr. John Robinson, of State College, a model 10 1909 Buiok roadster automobile with a double rumble seat. He traded in the doctor's old Ford machine and the same day sold it to Wade H. Barnes, of Soran. ton. Mr. Sebring has aiso several other prospective purchasers of Buick machines in view and expects to land some of them in the near future. ». f r to advises that a fig made. He says the | $600,000 should be used for improvement of the public highways instead of building a mammoth sewer. a —The mystery surrounding the disap- pearance February 16 of William Swibart, a wealthy farmer of the sonthern end of Washington county, was cleared up last Saturday when his body was found floating on the waters of Ten Mile creck. He had been shot and thrown into the water, —John Hauser, with his portable mill, has just finished the entling of the timber on the John Forcey tract, near Wallaceton, from which he realized about 200,000 feet of lumber, and will this week move his mill to the Beaver Run tract, near Blue Ball, where he will have about 500,000 feet to cat. In the libel suit of Lewis Emery versus the Butler Eagle, the case went to the jury with instruction from the judge to finda verdict for the plaintiff, the jury to fix the amount. A sum of $5,000 was fixed. The case grew out of the story published during the gubernatorial fight two years ago that Mr. Emery had been guilty of misdeeds in opening oil refineries. ~The will of the late Charles E. Ellis, street car magnate of Philadelphia, who aec- cidentsily shot himself recently, leaves the whole of his residuary estate, valued at not less than $2,000,000 for the establishment of the Ellis College for Fatherless Gitls, Itis to provide for the education and mainten- ance of fatherless white girls, perferably natives of Philadeiphia, between the ages of 13 and 17. —A meeting of the stockholders of New - ton Hamilton Camp Meeting association was held at Newton Hamilton fast Thursday. There was a good representation and busi. ness was transacted of importance to the fu ture of the place so weli known as a summer resort and camp meeting ground. President J. W. Lowther, of Bellwood, presided at the meeting. The adjustment of the insurance on the buildings recently destroyed by fire was accomplished in a satisfactory man- ner and the fature of the grounds was then taken up. Naturally, there were those who advocated rebuilding, but after careful deliberation, it was decided to offer the grounds at public sale. The date of the sale has vot yet been absolutely fixed, but it will probably be Tuesday, May 4. ~The ministerial association of Mars and Valencia, in Butler county, has adopted a code of reforms which it believes should ob~ tain regarding fanerals. It says any one is entitled to a decent Christian putting away, and nothing more; deprecates the holding of Sunday funerals; declares one minister is sufficient; that church funerals should be discouraged; that a faneral is properly con- ducted by reading a passage of Scripture, fol. lowed by prayer,and if an oration is desired, no mention should be made of the dead, ex~ eept perhaps the reading of a brief biogra- phy, prepared by friends; that flowers, while being a beautiful means of showing respect to the living, are out of place on the casket of the dead; that the “promenade” viewing of the remains is a relic of barbarism, and that state and local laws should be respected, sapesially in cases of infectious or contagious
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers