Saturday been nipped by the frost yet?
—The righteous had their share of
trouble standing in the slippery places
yesterday.
—Strange as it may appeargMayor
GAYNOR is showing signs of being Mayor
of New York.
—A great many things are likely done
behind the President's back, by those oily
Congressmen and Senators, because it is
so big.
—The Philadelphia heiress who eloped
with the waiter has at least saved the
fees she probably had to salve him with
in order to get enough to eat.
—So the steam roller is to be run in
Washington. CANNON and ALDRICH have
the President on their side and the Pro-
gessives will progress inversely.
—The death of the French zronaut
DELAGRAGNE at Bordeaux, on Tuesday,
will 1evive, for a time at least, the old
story of DARIUS GREEN and his flyin’ ma-
chine.
—Inasmuch as the Bell Telephone Co,
made one hundred and fifty million dol-
lars last year we won't argue with you
either that talk is cheap or that silence is
golden.
—The Republican begins the new year
with a new head; not quite so ornate as
the old one was but plain and strong
enough to convey the impression that
there is something in it.
—The price of pork has dropped five
cents per one hundred pounds, but as this
is liveweight and to the butchers only it
is not much consolation to the working
man when he comes to buy his bacon.
—The time appears to be here again
when Wall street uses the news from
Washington to shoot stocksup or down as
may best suit the purposes of the men who
depend on the tickers for a living.
—Not to say that the old one exposed
anything that we were really ashamed of
or that it had any of the characteristics
of the sheath gown we do think the new
dress of the WATCHMAN is rather attract-
ive.
—Chairman GARY has announced that
the United States steel corporation can
manufacture iron and steel in Alabama
as cheap as it can be manufactured any
place in the world; hence the need of a
tariff—nit.
—The value of farm crops in Pennsyl-
vania averaged four dollars more per acre
during 1909 than the average of the coun-
try at large. Pennsylvania agriculture in-
tends not to be outstripped by her coal
and iron records.
—As financier, politician, lawyer and
bon vivant Col. JACKSON L. SPANGLER
needs no introduction, but we await his
debut as an art lecturer with a feeling as
if we must, some time or other, have had
a residence in Missouri.
—The petition of the patronsof the local
steam heating plant for more heat is cal-
culated to cause an atmosphere in the
management of that concern that, if
properly directed, might serve the pur-
pose very satisfactorily.
—Centre county farmers are buying
oleomargarine at twenty-five cents a
pound and selling their butter for forty.
Not all of them are doing this, but at
least enough to prove that the farmer
has his eye on the main chance,
—The Great Hunter has discovered a
new animal in the African jungles. It is
the octocyon vergatus, a species of the
fox family. This announcement will
probably stand until some faunal Dr.
CooK appears to claim that he saw it
first.
—The newly installed mayor of In-
dianapolis has been so hard pressed for
jobs by his constituency that he has found
it necessary to appoint a personal body
guard, and the officer's name is COFFIN,
Quite suggestive isn't it, for such a posi-
tion.
—Altoona councils are fighting over the
question of whether baby coaches should
be placed in the class of vehicles danger-
ous to pedestrians. Is this the beginning
of a movement that will some day compel
the expectant father to take out a license
tag and pay tax according to his rated
motive power?
—In the New Year make up your mind
to be cheerful. See the best in every-
thing. Say a kind work whether you feel
just like it or not; get the habit of being
courteous atall times; keep yourself ciean
mentally, morally and physically and you
will be surprised at what a glorious thing
life that is worth while is. :
—With the spring elections only a little
aver a month off there has been little or
no talk concerning the local situation.
This is probably due tothe fact that coun-
cil has been so harmonious of late and the
public seems disposed to let the present
school board work its own way out of the
building that it has on hand.
~—THoMAS A. EpisoN has made good in
so many things that we are compelled to
give respect to his prediction that in fifty
years our heat and fuel will be radium, we
will be dressing in artificialsilks and be in
constant communication with the people
in other worlds. It sounds rather dreamy,
but a great many EDISON dreams have
come true.
“VOL. 55.
The Election Law Commission.
Governor STUART selected the mem-
bers of the Commission to revise the
election laws with the highest measure
of wisdom and fairness. The Chairman
of the Commission is a lawyer of distin-
guished ability and though a Republican
is not a machine worker. The other
majority members, Senator TUSTIN, of
Philadelphia, Representative FREEMAN, of
Lebanon, and Davip N. LANE are gentle-
men of wide experience in politics and
public affairs. It may safely be conjec-
tured that Mr. LANE, though neither a
lawyer nor legislator, will take to his
work a practical experience that will
make him an important member of the
body. He is the practical politician of the
group and quite as capable as he is prac-
tical.
Of the minority members of the Com-
mission former Attorney General W. U.
HensyL fulfills the legal requirements of
the law and he easily ranks among the
foremost lawyers of the State. Besides
that he has had sufficient experience in
political management and ample time in
the public service to qualify him for work
of the highest merit in the line of labor
which his appointment devolves. The
other minority members are equally well
equipped. Senator DIMLING has proved
himself to be a conscientious and pains-
taking legislator and Representative JOHN
M. FLINN, of Elk county, is a legislator of
long experience who has given much in-
telligent thought to the subject of ballot
legislation.
Such a commission ought to accomplish
much good in the way of correcting the
numerous and grievous faults of our bal-
lot system and we most cordially congrat-
ulate Governor STUART on his happy
and wise solution of an involved problem.
We congratulate the people of this dis-
trict, moreover, on the compliment be-
stowed upon them by the selection of
Senator DIMELING to a seat in the body.
It is a deserved tribute to his ability as a
Senator, to his fidelity as a Democrat and
to his merit as a citizen. He has not
been a garrulous Senator but he has been
an efficient one and his appointment to
this honorasy office is substantial evi-
dence that his good work has been observ-
ed and appreciated.
Protesting at the Wrong Place.
Some five or six railroad presidents call-
ed at the White House, the other day, to
remonstrate against certain legislation
said to be contemplated by Congress.
These captains of industry profess to be
very much afraid that any alterations of
the existing laws in relation to interstate
commerce or carrying corporations might
work an inimical influence on business
and they undertook to prevent it by ap-
peal to the President. They have proba-
bly never read the constitution of the
United States which not only provides that
ali legislation shall be by Congress, but
forbids the encroachment of the executive
upon the functions of the legislative de-
partment of the government.
These captains of industry are perplex-
ing. Several years ago it was pretty clear-
ly demonstrated in the northern securi-
ties case that existing laws are fully ade-
quate to put all needed restraints upon
predatory corporations. This fact was
further established recentlyin the case of
the Standard Oil company. Obviously,
therefore, the purpose of the President or
Congress in renewing the agitation with
which President ROOSEVELT kept the
country in a state of consternation for
three or four years, is sinister, and the
wisest course for railroad presidents to
pursue is to let the worst come to the
worst and fix the responsibility where it
belongs. That would probably end the
foolishness.
But if these captains of industry really
feel that they ought to protest against
legislation they should at least have intel-
ligence enough to understand that the
place to lodge their complaint is in Con-
gress. The President has nothing to do
with legislation and Congress has repeat-
edly, within the past half dozen years, not
only ignored the recommendations of the
President but actually flouted them. Now
that the captains of industry have receiv-
ed little courtesy and no encouragement
from the President, moreover, the chances
are that they will go to Congress, where
they ought to have gone in the beginning,
and ALDRICH and CANNON will show their
fat friend in the White House what is
trump.
The Johnstown Democrat informs
the public that in his whiskey decision
President TAFT reverses his own father,
the late Judge ArLonNzo TAFT, and other
| distinguished experts on the subject. Our
| esteemed contemporary should remember,
however, that at the time that the late
| Judge TAFT passed upon the question
| there was no whiskey trust to divert the
“current of reason or change the color of
| facts.
3
STATE
Upward of $150,000,000 was paid in
benefactions, within the United States,
during 1909, according to newspaper re-
ports. This represents the vast voluntary
offering of the very rich to the comfort
and convenience of the not very poor, as
a rule. The money was bestowed upon
colleges, universities, libraries and asso-
the main. Some portion of it went to
hospitals, of course, and may serve to
alleviate the sufferings of worthy victims
of misfortune. But the bulk of it will be
used for the advantage of those who
might have got along without it and
probably would have been better off if
left to depend upon their own resources.
The money thus generously appropriat-
ed to what seemed to the donor's worthy
objects of philanthropy was acquired
mainly by dodging taxes, shifting the bur-
dens of expense from their own shoulders
to the already heavily laden backs of
others and by the use of special privilege.
It was probably as good use as money
thus obtained could be put to. It is cer-
tainly better to employ it in that way
than to use it in paying the expenses of
costly vices and profligate habits of the
sons of multi-millionaires or cheating jus-
tice by preventing the punishment of such
for crimes wantonly perpetrated. For this
reason we have no intention of criticising
the form of the beneficences.
But we do protest against the methods
by which the vast fortunes of these phil-
anthropists have been acquired. The
multi-millionaire who impoverishes thous-
ands by manipulating stocks in order to
enrich himself cuts a poor figure in the
role of Providence and the wrecker who
grinds poverty to thelast extremity through
legalized injustice hardly “squares”
himself with God by donating fortunes
for educational purposes. Privilege is an
expensive medium of charity and money
tainted with dishonesty and dishonor is
not sanctified by use in benevolence.
If every man, woman and child had
equal opportunities there would be less
need of ostentatious benevolence and we
would have a better world.
A Pittsburg church treasurer who
had absconded with a considerable sum
of church funds indicated no concern
when he was apprehended in Chicago,
shortly afterward. The church authori-
ties "will not ask for my extradition,” he
said, "for the reason that know too
much about them.” A thief with inside
information concerning his accusers is
thrice concealed, it may be said.
Reducing Expenses in Wrong Way.
The President insists on curtailing the
expenses of the postal service and Post-
master General HITCHCOCK is humping
himself to achieve the result, according
to Washington dispatches. The poorly
paid railway mail clerks are being work-
ed nearly double time and an order to
stop the extension of the rural delivery
has been issued, in pursuance of this
purpose. Other trifling economies will
be made, no doubt, and possibly the rate
of postage on newspapers and magazines
will be increased, as the charge for post-
al money orders has already been greatly
advanced. These are the picayune meth-
ods of false pretenders.
But nothing has been or is being done
to check the real and expensive abuses of
the postal service. There has been no
suggestign of a decrease in the compen-
sation paid to the railroads for carrying
the mails though, as a matter of fact,
that is the seat of the profligacy. The
government not only pays an annual
rental for the postal cars sufficiently
large to buy new cars every year, but it
pays the railroads more than double the
amount which the express companies
charge for similar service, though they
are able to pay dividends of from 100 to
300 per cent. a year. That is what causes
the vast deficit in the Postoffice De-
partment.
The railroads largely provide the funds
by the corrupt use of which the Republi-
can party keeps itself in power and for
that reason they are thus overpaid for
their services. Only a few years ago
ROGSEVELT entered the lobby to elec-
tioneer against a motion to investigate
| that an investigation would have reveal-
ed the fact that he had probably consent-
ed to overcharge for carrying mails because
the railroads had just previously given
him an expensive special train to visit
Yellowstone Park. Probably TAFT is in-
fluenced by something like the same
reasons in his present action.
—Dr. Cook is said to be suffering from
aphasia, a malady that makes it impossi-
bie for him to think for even a minute on
a certain subject. It is evident that he
showed no symptoms of the disease when
he came home from the polar regions. It
must have taken considerable thought to
frame up that story about the pole.
RIGHTS AND FED
BELLEFONTE, PA..
The Vast Philanthropy of 1909. |
ciations engaged in scientific research, in i
fo i
ERAL UNION.
J
A Dangerous Proposition.
The Rapid Transit company, of Phila- |
delphia, announces its intention to organize |
ANUARY 7, 1910.
The Democrats in Congress.
From the Phi
a pension system for its employees. The | Clark, of
Steel trust has in contemplation an ex-
tension of its profit-sharing scheme and
we are told that even the Standard Oil | the appropriations and fighting steamship
company is considering a proposition to Subsidy. In the nature
divide some of its vast profits with those |
uity have contributed so much to its pros- |
perity, in the event that the government |
will let up atrifle in its legal proceedings
against that monopoly. Other predatory
depths of forbearance by promises of sim- |
ilar import, under certain conditions,
““Beware of Greeks bearing gifts,” is an |
old adage. These schemes are intended |
to enslave rather than enrich those who |
are to be presumably benefitted by them. !
The pension is a medium of binding men |
through the bonds of selfishness to a con-
sent to the wrongful treatment of their
fellow men. It is intended to influence
them to acquiescence in injustice to their
comrades in work. It is the most
atrocious method of bribery ever con-
ceived by human intelligence because it
works infinite harm to thousands while
it yields advantage to comparatively few.
If the employees of the Philadelphia | PY
Rapid Transit company are wise they
will indignantly spurn this proposition.
The Philadelphia Rapid Transit com-
pany through an agreement with the
Republican machine of that city has per- |;
fected an arrangement by which the in-
dustrial element of the community will
be robbed annually of ten times as much
as it proposes to disburse among its em-
ployees in the shape of pensions. It may
be presumed, therefore, that its pension
scheme is intended to influence its em-
ployees to consent to the perpetuation of
this monstrous iniquity. This expectation
ought to be disappointed. If the com-
pany will treat its employees justly while
they are able to work the majority of
them will need no pension afterward and
they should not consent to the robbery of
others.
«i= Farmers and High Prices.
Secretary of Agriculture WILSON is tol-
erably safe in his assertion that the farm-
ers are not responsible for the high prices
of food stuffs and that they are not get-
ting the bulk of the benefits of the boom
in prices of farm products. He is equal.
ly right in his purpose to investigate the
causes of the economic phenomena and
ought to have little, if any difficulty in
running it down. The trouble is that the
Secretary may not be sincere in his dec-
larations on the subject. That is to say
he may not want to find what he promis-
es to search for, and in that event his in-
vestigation will be a failure, of course.
The causes of the present high prices
are easily ascertained. The first and
main cause is the tariff and all the other
causes are collateral. The tariff creates
the trusts and the trusts do the rest in
various ways. For example, it corners
the commodity on one hand and makes
millionaires on the other who can and do
pay any price for the things they want.
If they do not consume all that the sup-
ply affords they pay so much for what
they do want that the trust holders
can afford to waste the balance rather
than put it on the market to reduce
prices. If Secretary WILSON makes a
real investigation, that is what he will
find out.
But even if the farmers really did get
a share of the advantage of the high
prices of their products, they would not be
benefitted much for the reason that the
same tariff which enables monopolies to
corner the farm products gives other mo-
nopolies the opportunity to run up the
prices on everything farmers consume.
Clothing, farm implements, agricultural
machinery and even the twine with
which they bind their sheaves are taxed
until the prices are doubled and high or
low prices for farm products, when the
farmer disposes of his crops and balances
accounts, he has little or nothing left as
for his labor.
——The WATCHMAN goes to its readers
today in a new dress throughout and we
have not the least doubt its improved ap-
pearance will be so fully appreciated by | the
every subscriber that we shall feel well
repaid for the trouble and expense of
making the change. We have long been
convinced of the fact that nothing is too
good for the subscribers of this paper and
we always aim to give them the very best
typographically as well as editorially and
in the line of news. And as it has been
in the past the WATCHMAN will continue
to be in the future—the best county paper
published anywhere.
the Congressional Insurgents
‘Washington dispatches and it may be ex-
pected that before the session closes
ALDRICH will make a monkey of TAFT in
various other ways.
of the minority
molded, the
measures,
the majority.
TT
:
NO. 1.
wy
ia Record
of
.
Democrats can no
and if they did their work
consideration
small i
from
In this situation the mi-
ttle more than lend their
corporations are likewise sounding the | aid to restrain extra
parliamentary
goverment the Inorg is_ of necessity
party of opposition. ing no control
SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
~It is asserted by high officials that the rural
free delivery of mail in York and Adams coun-
ties is worth not less than $5.000,000 a year to
—Philadelphia will have a new $2,500,000 hotel.
Ground will be broken on February Ist for a twen-
ty-story structure to be known as the Hotel Fair-
mount, on the present site of Boothby's hotel.
—Judge M. W. Keim has renewed his options on
5,000 acres of coal land in Cambria township, Cam-
bria county, which he has held since 1902. In ad-
dition an agent is securing options on 3,500 acres
more.
—Two hundred seventy-five couples were given
licenses to wed at the register and recorder’s
office in Huntingdon county in the year 1909. In
1908 there were 256 issued and in 1907, 318. In
1906 there "vere 315.
~—Rumor says that brick works to give employ-
ment to 300 men are to built by the Harbison-
Walker company at Templeton, near Kittanning.
The new plant will be almost a duplicate of the
one now in operation at Templeton.
—Several hundred men are working day and
night trying to get five of the ten new mills being
built by the McKeesport Tinplate company ready
for operation by April 15th. The new works will
employ 600 men and will cost $500,000.
~Counterfeit nickles of the year 1908 are said
to be in circulation around Clearfield. They are
rough on the edges. They cannot have come
from Altoona because the nickles said to have
been manufactured there recently are of the year
1901.
@
in expendi- ~The property of the Juniata Water and Water
tures and to t it involves in | Power company, located at Warrior's Ridge, will
the scheme of subsidy for increasing be sold under foreclosure in the Bourse, in Phila-
blic
yond
With the majority as well as the minor-
i this class of Government beneficiaries at
But it does not lie be-
ility that in the program de-
ity the present session will be
chiefly in
E§2
zg
ist
y
1
:
g
:
*
a
cratic
a political organization, then, all impar-
tial minds will agree that the national
Democratic party is entirely trustworthy
test of issues before the coun-
that the Republican organization
on the
try,
years. elections
is utterly unreliable on this issue.
it comes to mustering the mighty
When
ing forces in the next elections aoe:
gress individuals here and and there
crossing the line on either side will count
for little in determining the result of the
contest.
The
Revoit in Ohio.
From the Springfield Republican.
The Republican “insurgency” is even
spreading into Ohio. That former thick-
and-thin party
der, is printing editorials in vigorous
sault of “Cannonism,” “Aldrichism,
This je also tye of ie Toledo Blade avd
t might not long ago have
the bourbon class. The
Ohio State Journal of Colum!
other papers
been in
takes to speak
the State when
The people of this State are disgusted
with the subserviency of its representa-
tives and Senators to Cannonism and Ald-
they propose to end
whatever cost. The Republicans will not
go on voting to maintain a system of
political control dictated by the interests
richism, and
n, the Cleveland
it says:
and obedient to a selfish
ed
for in
for Con-
bus under-
for the party throughout
delphia, on Jan. 24, by order of the common pleas
court of Philadelphia county. The upset price is
$250,000.
fined by Representative Clark, especially | —It has been learned in Johastown on good but
| in regard to ship su , the Democrats | unofficial authority that plans for improvements
will secure substantial blican aid. of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad in Johnstown
have been approved and the work will cost ap”
proximately $225,000. It is believed that work
will be started in a few weeks.
—In the state Supreme court at Philadelphia the
decision of the Cambria county court granting
James P. Thomas, of Johnstown, a judgment
against the Harbison-Walker Refractories
company in excess of $11,000 as a royalty on clay
deposits in Dean township, was upheld.
—On opening up a trial kiln of shale brick at
the Stevenson Brick works in Wayne township,
Huntingdon county, last week, it was found that
it was one of the best kilns of bricks ever made
at the works and it is rumored that the company
will put in the necessary machinery to run the
works to their fullest capacity.
—Investors do not seem to think much of Johns-
town's $100,000 paving bond as an investment as
when the time for receiving bids expired recently
there was not one received. The bonds bear in-
terest at 4 per cent. Councils may have to au-
thorize the selling of the bonds on commission as
was done with the overhead bridge bonds.
—~With memoranda indicating that he had de
posits of over $100,000 in local banks, William H.
Thomas, aged 66 years, a negro, was found dead
in the barracks of a local mission house in Pitts-
burg on Monday. Thomas is known only as
“Hen” to the management of the mission, was
one armed and was employed intermittently asa
5
&
2
2
SR aR watchman.
would have I "=Lynn Morris, strike breaker employed at the
South Sharon tin mill of the American Sheet and
Tinplate company, was shot and instantly killed
by one of two assailants who escaped. He was
held up and is thought to have been struck by one
of the men for he pulled a revolver. Then he
was shot. His father says the lad had been
threatened
—While sinking a test well on the William Robi-
son farm on Cheese run, near the Curry Run,
Clearfieid county, church, gas was struck recent-
ly. The flow shot six feet into the air and is
steady. The drill was testing for coal when the
gas was struck, the work being done by the
Jefferson and Clearfield Coal and Iron company.
ft is thought that the region is rich in gas and
other wells will be sunk.
—James-H. Allport. a northern Cambria coal
operator, has disposed of his holdings around
Barnesboro to the Pennsylvania Coal and Coke
company for $150,000. The operations give work
to from 300 to 500 men. The new owners con-
template no changes in the works. Allport is in-
terested in northern Cambria business concerns
and will remain in Barneshoro. He may operate
a mine around Hastings.
—The Harbison-Walker company intends to
make big improvements at its works at Mt. Union
Twenty new houses for the employees will be
started at once and four new kilns will be built
Lea- | upon the latest steam process and will connect
as- | with the new 130 foot stack, thus saving the heat
etc. | which went to waste from the boilers which heat
the plant. Fifty men will have to be employed.
The work will take six months.
—Williamsport began the new year with a $180,-
000 fire in her business section. Flames that had
gained great headway werediscovered in the rear
of the shoe store of Harry Levine in the southwest
angle of Market Square at 1 o'clock Sunday momn-
ing, and before they were extinguished had also
destroyed the shoe store of Michael Coxe, cloth-
ing store of Julius and Hiram Ulman, grocery
store of B. F. Dietrick and the wholesale liquor
store of Aaron Strausburger.
—It is stated that the Buffalo, Rochester and
it at
The
berty
blican party was organized for li Pittsburg railroad is contemplating the construc-
equal rights, and it does not propose | tion of a reservoir on Kyle creek above Falls
that these high ends shall be lost sight of | Creek, for the purpose of supplying the DuBois
i « struggle of privilege or the domina- | shops. It will have a capacity of 500,000,000 gallons
tion of a poli oligarchy. which will make the reservoir about five times the
At this rate a big shake-up in Ohio's | size of any along the system. Four miles of pipe
tation should be | line will be required to convey the waterto Du-
due about next fall. The President's sub-
Senator Aldrich in the
Bois. Six or eight hundred dollars a month is
paid to the borough at the present time for water
by the railroad company, at the rate of three cents
for 1,000 gallons.
—Judge Woods, in Huntingdon county, will hear
tariff
oe : J cea tis oS Mt. Uslom aga citizens
next 3
From the Philadelphia Public Ledger. . want the court to compel the company to furnish
The new Mayor of New York, though | an adequate supply of pure water for domestic
and sanitary purposes and for proper fire protec-
tion. The water company says that it is doing
its best and that the dry weather and not it is to
blame for its failures. It is claimed that there is
enough water going to waste to supply everybody
but the water company lacks the enterprise to
gather it into its pipes.
~The property of the Cresson and Clearfield
Coal and Coke company, the late P. H. Walls’
left by Mrs.
cover
ble to get any of the -
— attorney's fees
an amount
commission,
4’