x i I
INK SLINGS.
A PROPHECY AS TO JOSEPH—
JOBCANNON came in from the west
With a greatly swelled head and big chest,
He'll go back to his town
With both head and tail down
And the people will “do him" the rest.
—Manifestly Mr. BRYAN is trying te
annex the Prohibition party to his polit-
ical assets.
—If Old Probabilities has anything on
the ground hog it is not discernible at
this distance.
—The fellow born with a craving for
strong drink has a great start on the one
who isn’t. In most cases it costs a for-
tune to acquire it.
—After all some good can be found in
every condition. Not nearly so many
people are making gluttons of themselves
now as would be if food prices were lower.
—Senator BURTON is opposing Presi-
dent TAPT's savings bank bill. And both
men from Ohio, too. Verily Republican
demoralization must be in the air out in
that State.
—Speaker CANNON declined to rule on
a question of order, the other day, and
submitted its decision to the action of the
House. A slight symptom, at least, of
possible repentance.
—The old saw that assures us that
“whatever goes up is sure tocome down,"
evidently was a stranger to these times
when the trusts, the tariff and Republican
prosperity (?) run things.
—The Lock Haven man who boasts
that he never kissed a girl may not be
much of a liar, but most people will put
him down as too much of an ass to know
a good thing when he sees it.
—Jt will be noticed that under the
boasted prosperity of a tariff bill that is
doing so much for the trusts, the size of
the working man’s dinner pail has not in
creased to any observable extent.
——“Antique” collectors are advised
that a most promising field awaits their
explorations in that Jersey city cold stor-
age house, that boasts of having thirty-
six millions of eggs under its roof.
—The Pullman company has just de
cided to declare a dividend of $2,000,000.
After it has pocketed a few more of the
kind this poverty stricken corporation
may feel able to pay its own porters.
—Anyhow the ground hog has no need
to offer excuses for a failure to keep its
platform pledges. It's on the job and
making good every day, which shows the
difference between a G. H. and a Presi.
dent.
—Mr. CARNEGIE is also enthusiastical-
ly in favor of abolishing taxes on person-
al property. In this connection it is not
irrelevant to remark that most of Mr.
CARNEGIE'S vast fortune is in that kind
of goods.
—President TAFT, it is now reported,
will not insist on the passage of the Fed-
eral Incorporation law. This suggests
the probability that Mr. MORGAN'S man,
PERKINS, “winked the other eye" when
he declared such legislation desirable.
—A Pittsburg contemporary is anxious
to know “what Wall street will find to
fuss about now.” Really we are unable
to teil it; but if it will keep its eyes open
it may discover people very near home
who have found plenty to “fussabout Wall
street.”
——There must be a serpent some-
where in the pending postal savings bank
bill or else Senator ALDRICH would not
consent to it. Probably the Standard Oil
agent in the Senate imagines that it may
be made the nucleus for his central bank
scheme.
—It is greatly to be regretted that the
ANANIAS club will take no part in the
reception proposed to Mr. T. ROOSEVELT
on his ostentatious return from Africa. It
would be so appropriate for that organi
zation to lead the parade and occupy the
place of honor.
—1It is the opinion of Mr. JOHN KEN-
pRICK BANGS that ADAM was the first hu-
morist. Possibly brother BANGS is right,
but if so, it must have been only a side
entertainment for him. If our recollec-
tion is reliable ADAM'S first fun and busi-
ness was to raise CAIN.
—It is really surprising how wonderful
ly quick the temperature in certain local-
ities can change. Whenever Commander
PEARY visits the Navy Department, at
Washington, the thermometer drops to
about the same degree of frigidity he
found at the north pole.
~—“Republican prosperity is not an im-
aginary blessing at this time, it is a real
one that people everywhereare enjoying,”
says a Republican exchange. Possibly
our contemporary thinks so, but he can’t
prove it by us, or by the size or contents
of the working-man’s dinner pail.
—Just now the multi-millionaires are
working over hours to make the public
believe that prosperity is surging over
the land like waves over the sea. Unfor-
tunately the pay envelope of the working-
men and the dinner tables in most fami.
lies fail to confirm their statements.
—What is the limit of usefulness of the storage
egg. — Johnstown Democrat.
That depends, brother, entirely upon
the purposes for which it is to be used.
If to raise a smell, its limit would far out-
do the tail of HALEY'S comet, and as to
time, would be in good working order
long after that sky-wonder had disappear-
A emocrlic
“VOL. 55.
High Prices and the Causes.
Statistics of the Agricultural Depart-
ment at Washington show that during the
period from 1899 to 1909 there was an in-
crease in the number of food animals
greater than the increase in population.
Unless the statistics are worthless, there-
fore, the present increase in the price of
meat can't be ascribed to a scarcity of
cattle. The same statistics show an in-
crease in the number of milk cows, in
the same ratio to population, within the
same period, so that it can’t be said that
the increased price of butter is attribu-
table to a scarcity of milk. Chickens are
raised in vastly greater numbers now than
ten years ago and cared for and fed bet-
ter. Therefore the price of eggs must be
attributed to some other cause than
scarcity.
As a matter of fact all these commod-
ities are dearer now than they were ten
years ago for the reason that under con.
ditions brought about by laws enacted by
a Republican party, trusts have acquired
control of the products and manipulate
prices as they please. The natural laws
of supply and demand have nothing to do
with prices now. The trusts regulate
not only the production but the prices
upon the basis of "what the traffic will
bear,” to borrow the language of one of
the transportation magnates, and the peo-
ple have neither redress nor recourse.
The tariff system and other economic
policies of the Republican party are re-
sponsible for the trusts and the remedy
jies in the defeat of the Republican party
at the coming congressional elections. It
is not CANNONism or ALDRICHism. It is
Republicanism that is at fault.
If the increased prices for the products
of the farm benefitted the farmers, the
evil might be endured, for the farmers
are vastly in the majority and their pros-
perity is invariably shared by the general
public for they are a progressive and
generous people. But unhappily the
farmers get little, if any, part of the in-
creased cost, and what they do get is
immediately absorbed by the increased
cost of the things they are compelled to
buy in order to keep their soil up to the
necessary productive standard.
There is, in view of all the facts, no ex-
cuse or justification for the condition that
is spreading poverty and diffusing suffer-
ing all over this land of plenty. All Re-
publican candidates are alike in this mat-
ter and the only safe way is to vote
against all of them.
Dr. Krauskopf's Faulty Diagnosis.
The Rev. Dr. Josep KrAUSKOPF, of
Philadelphia, is only partially right in his
diagnosis of the malady which afflicts
that city. Rabbi KRAUSKOPF is among
the most eloquent preachers of that "city
of churches.” He is among the profound
thinkers of the country. Not only that
but in practice and precept he is a model
citizen. But in attributing those iniqui-
ties which have earned for Philadelphia
the unenviable reputation of being “cor-
rupt and contented,” to that element of
the citizenship which takes no part in the
political life of the city, he is not only
inaccurate, but he subjects himself to the
suspicion of being wilfully and deliberate-
ly unjust.
Rabbi KRAUSKOPF justly arraigns those
citizens who neglect their civic duties as
wanting in civic virtue. It is as much
the duty of a man to vote at the primary
and general elections as it is to provide
food, raiment and shelter for his family.
The affairs of the community, under our
system of government, are very much
like those of the family. Of course the
first duty of a man is to his family under
the high law that self-preservation is the
first obligation of nature. But the tem-
poral and spiritual necessities of the
family provided for, the concerns of the
‘community next demand the attention
and care of the individual. To that ex-
tent Rabbi KRAUSKOPF is right.
But in Philadelphia, because of the
severity of the governing class and the
iniquity of the dominant party, the high-
est aspirations of citizenship are stifled
under a deluge of fraud. Probably if all
those in the community who prefer right
to wrong would assert themselves sim-
ultaneously in behalf of right, they would
prevail. But in the final analysis so vast
a proportion of those who mean right are
influenced by selfish and sordid consider-
ations to give their moral support to
those who are fundamentally wrong, that
the remnant of right-thinkers are sub-
merged in the deluge of unrighteousness.
The most potent proof of this proposi-
tion is concealed in Dr. KRAUSKOPF'S
masked apology for the municipal evils
of Philadelphia.
——Some of the fellows who are swear-
ing off their just taxes under existing con-
ditions are losing sleep through the fear
thatsome other fellows will perjure them-
selves in order to evade payment of in-
come tax, in the event such a tax shall
be levied.
213
®
7B
BELLEFONTE, PA. FEBRUARY 18, 1910.
An Infamous Perversion of Law. ;
The decision of the Philadelphia court
that an elector shall himself determine
his right to call an assistant into the
booth where he is preparing his ballot, is
not in the least surprising. The language
of the law is: "If any voter declares to
the judge of election that by reason of
any disability he desires assistance in the
preparation of his ballot, he shall be
permitted by the judge of election to se-
lect a qualified voter of the election dis-
trict to aid him in the preparation of his
ballot, such preparation being made in
the voting compartment.” That implies,
clearly, that some mental or physical
disability must exist. The fact that an
elector has sold his vote on condition of
proof of his part of the bargain, is not
sufficient.
We have long since come to expect that
the courts, the pulpit, the business and
professional life of Philadelphia, are all
ready to give moral and material help to
the political machine. The judges, as
the late Senator QUAY once observed, are
chosen because of their servility to the
machine and catapulted on to the bench
as a reward . for sinister party services.
Judges thus selected have no option in
the interpretation of the law. They nec-
essarily accept the mandates which come
from political headquarters and hand
down decisions without respect to law
but in conformity with political exigen-
cies. Thus far this iniquity has been
limited to Philadelphia. It is a question
how long it will be confined within that
area.
The provision of the law upon which
this corruption breeding decision was
made, was intended to protect the political
rights of men who couldn’t read or write
or were physically unable to mark a bal-
lot. For years it was used only for the
assistance of such voters. But after the
practice of bribing voters came into vogue
it was found necessary to pervert this
provision in order to "keep tab” on the
voters who had been bribed. Now this
infamous misuse of a doubtful power has
received the sanction of judicial approval
and we will not be surprised to hear, in
the near future, that the Philadel
judges have been obliged to ask -
ance in the booths. Their commissions
are the bribes given to them and why
shouldn't they be compelleed to “show
down.”
——Congressman REYNOLDS has intro-
duced a bill into Congress providing for
an appropriation of fifty thousand dollars
for the erection of a monument in Al-
toona commemorating the congress of
Governors held there during the war of
the rebellion, and in which the late Gov-
ernor ANDREW G. CURTIN tock such a
prominent part; the appropriation, how-
ever, if passed, to be available only when
the citizens of Altoona and the public at
large shall have raised twenty-five thous-
and dollars additional, making a fund of
seventy-five thousand dollars available
for the building of the monument. This
is in line with a movement for the build-
ing of such a monument started by the
citizens of Altoona some weeks ago and
which has been heartily endorsed by the
Governor of every State represented at
that congress as well as the public gen-
erally.
aa
:
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
4
Ay
ky
LITT
. - RS
Taft’s Petty Grafting. The Tale a Day Nursery
President TAFT is not revealing the
nice moral distinction which should char-
acterize the office he occupies, in per-
mitting the congressional machine to
make the use of his LINCOLN day speech
that is contemplated. It is proposed to
make it, by resolution of the Senate, a
“public document,” which entitles it to
free transportation in the mail. That is
a petty type of graft that is rapidly com-
ing under popular condemnation. It is
one of the causes of the deficit in the
Postoffice Department which amounted, | ?
last year, to nearly $20,000,000. It con-
tributed to the waste which threatens a
curtailment of useful postal convenience.
The President's LINCOLN day speech
was a political harangue, entirely ont of
place and in bad form. No other Presi
dent, except ROOSEVELT, has ever offend-
ed the proprieties in that way, as glaring-
ly as TAFT has done. ROOSEVELT prosti-
tuted an opportunity afforded by an invi-
tation to deliver the Decoration day ad
dress at Arlington cemetery, some time
ago, by making a partisan speech. TAFT
has now made the same monumental
blunder by turning his LINCOLN day
speech into a political declamation. But
bad as that is, the proposition to make a
“public document” of it and distribute it
through the mails at the expense of the
public is infinitely worse.
TAFT seems to have a passion for graft-
ing, however. His acceptance of a trav-
eling expense fund of $25,000, voted by
Congress in violation of the constitution
and in consideration of his signing the
ALDRICH tariff bill revealed him in a most
odious light. But there was something
big in that. The amount involved was
considerable and his passion for junket-
ing is abnormally developed.
This scheme to get his speech printed
as a “public document," however, in or-
der that it may be circulated free of ex-
pense to himself and his party, is graft of
the trifling sort that suggests the temper-
ament and inclination of a petty criminal.
——Under the constitutional amend.
ment abolishing spring elections it has
just been discovered that the terms of
‘forty common pleas judges in the State
will be lengthened one year, as the law
provides that judges of the common pleas
and quarter sessions courts shall be elect-
ed in the odd years, at the same time
that municipal and township officers shal}
be elected. Under thislaw the term of
Judge Eris L. Orvis will of necessity be
extended one year, or from the first Mon-
day of January, 1915, to the first Monday
of January, 1916, inasmuch as his suc-
cessor cannot be elected until theelection
in November, 1915. This inakes three
county officials who will be affected by
the constitutional amendment, the other
two being prothonotary ARTHUR B. Kim-
PORT and district attorney WiLLiaMm G.
RUNKLE, both of whose terms will be
lengthenad one year. The terms of the
other county officers will not be affected
at all.
—-President TAFT appears tobe more
anxious to bust Governor HARMON'S pres-
idential boom than to bust trusts. At
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SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
—C. R. Spangler, of McConnellshurg, who owns
over 1,000 acres of timber land in Fulton © ,
expects his holdings to yield 6,000,000 feet of .
ed lumber.
—3. Berlin, a resident of Tyrone, offers to give
$1,000 towards the erection of a hospital in that
‘place and $5,000 for its maintenance if the people
of the town will raise at least $20,000.
~The Rev. H. M. Laye, of Lock Haven, has
expected to arrive in that city about March 6th.
~Meat dealers in DuBois have decided to cut
their prices two cents a pound to prevent a con-
tinuation of the boycott. DuBois was one of the
towns that went into the boycott with a vengeance.
—Every day the health officer at Lewistown has
a dozen or more new cases of measles to quar-
antine. The spread of the disease at the present
time is as great as it has been since the epi-
demic set in.
—Rabbits destroyed 2,500 plants on the truck
firm of J. P. Watts, near Kerrmoor, Clearfield
county, last year. It is hardly to be wondered
- | that he is in favor of exterminating the frisky
little animals.
—After celebrating Lincoln's birthday anni-
versary Saturday, Henry Wentz, of York, one of
the guards of honor over the body of the martyred
President, died on Sunday. Wentz was 86 years
Pid adstrwéd Sate Union army teouglont the
war.
~The Ross library at Lock Haven will be open-
ed to the public next summer. The city now is
in possession of all the stocks, bonds and cash
that were held by the Lock Haven Trust and Safe
late Annie H. Ross.
conclusion of the January business. The rest of
the state has $5,387,832.10 on deposit, active and
on call.
Huntingdon county, to take her life by her own
hands at the home of her parents, Mr. and Mrs.
Samuel Miller, near Shirleysburg, where she had
showing that it had had an encounter with one of
those animals. Its teeth were badly worn and it
evidently had done away with its share of deer.
~The plant of the Harbison-Walker brick works
at Monument started last Friday morning to
make brick and the works will be run to their
fullest capacity. The quality of brick made at
- | that plant is of a superior quality, and with the
improved
machinery recently installed, the re-
sumption of operations means employment to a
large number of laborers.
—Dr. Thomas L. Johnston, a former resident of
Duncannon, died last week and brought back the
memory of the crime in which he was the central
figure. He was a prosperous physician and, while
working under an insane delusion, shot and kill-
ed Dr. George Henry, a pharmacist. He was
convicted of manslaughter and served about fif-
teen years of a twenty year sentence in the east.
ern penitentiary. He died in the Lebanon sani-
torium and was a physical wreck.
—Putting his coat over his head and dashing
through a sheet of flame, John Sheib Jr., saved
three valuable horses from cremation, when the
boarding stable of John Scheib & Son was burned
heard of the fire and is confined to his bed. Mrs.
phoned to the fire department. She ran into the
street where she met Scheib going to waken the
stable hands, told him of the fire and he did the
rest
—Plans for the forty-second annual convention
of the Y. M. C. A. at Oil City were completed at
the state headquarters Saturday and copies of the
program are being sent out. The convention
will begin Saturday and will last until Tuesday
evening, February 22nd. Among the speakers
will be D. Clarence Gibboney, of Philadelphia, and
Moses Friedmann, of Carlisle, superintendent of
the Indian school. The music will be again a
feature of the gathering and willbe in charge of
Fred L. Willis, general secretary at Worcester,
Mass,
~William T. Creasy, grand master of the Penn-
sylvania State Grange, intends to work up that
society in Berks county and the State Grange will
meet in Reading next year if sufficient enthusiasm
can be aroused. In speeches at Blandon and
Geigertown, Mr. Creasy made the statement that
the reason that young people leave the farm is
because farms do not furnish the social enjoy-
ment for which the youngsters long. This social
enjoyment he said, is provided by the grange and
wherever good granges are located, the younger
generation remains on the farm.
—At the mammoth coal shutesof the Philadel-
least he has persuaded WADE ELuis, the| Even the are not finding it | ,.. 2.4 Reading company, just below Schulykill
most successful trust buster, to resign his So had io } She next house Deo Haven. on Saturday. ten men were buried under
office in the Department of Justice in sider—iirst, the result of the recent con- about 1.000 tons of coal. following an avalanche
: !inavast bin. One man was killed, another in-
Deposit company, executor of the property of the’
in Pittsburg. His father was prostrated when he
Washington to accept the office of chair-
man of the Republican State committee
in Ohio.
——Mayor GAYNOR, of New York, or-
dered the immediate suspension and trial
of acouple of policemen charged with
jured fatally and the other eight men hurt more
or less severely. Owing tothe recent cold weath-
er, the coal had become frozen to a depth of
twenty feet. The men had undermined it in the
assaulting a woman, the other day. A few
years ago an attache of the White House
brutally assaulted the sister of a Con-
gressman, and President ROOSEVELT im-
mediately promoted him to the office of
chief of the District police. The tem-
peramental differences among men are
vastand varied.
——President TAFT draws the line on
Secretary KNoX’s "shot-gun” diplomacy in
Nicaragua while cordially endorsing his
commercial diplomacy in the far East
This seems like "straining at a gnat and
swallowing a camel.” The fact is, how-
ever, that the MORGAN money trust fa-
vors the Eastern and objects to the other
and TAFT knows his master.
——OLIVER SPITZER, former dock su-
——A note from our old friend, James
Wolfenden, of Lamar, says that Sunday’s
high winds so completely drifted the roads
shut between that place and Clintondale
that it took two teams with snow plows
and a gang of ten men almost half a day
to clean the snow away and open the
road for travel.
—1If, as former Attorney General
BONAPARTE declares in a magazine arti-
cle, ROOSEVELT will be remembered as “a
President who wasnot afraid todo right,”
how will they discover why he didn't
kick BONAPARTE out of office the moment
he discovered what an egregious ass that
sycophant is? :
——That the people of Bellefonte with-
out regard to party approve of P. H.
perintendent of the Sugar trust, and |
recently convicted of participation in the
weighing frauds at New York, protested
| on his way to jail, that the trust had |
, made a \"goat” of him. Cardinal WooLEs-
LEY was a more conspicuous exemplar of |
the ADAM policy but hardly a more con- |
temptible one.
——Governor Hucues, of New York, |
might have served predatory wealth bet-
ter in some other way than opposing the
income tax but his mind is so set on serv-
ing the trusts that hs is incapable of dis-
criminating wisely. i
~The meat boycott is geseniiy ue
knowledged to be a failure. The only
way to remedy the evil at which it aimed
is to vote against tariff advocates.
Gherrity’s administration as poor over-
seer is evidenced in the fact that he re-
ceived practically the total vote of both
parties in the borough.
——When Mr. J. PIERPONT MORGAN'S
man PERKINS carries measures to Washing-
ton for Congress to enact into law it is
high time to ponder on the wisdom of
the advice of "beware of the Greeks
bearing gifts.”
——The Mighty Hunter has officially
asked for an audience with the Pope on
his return trip from Africa and presum-
ably the Methodists of Rome will not in-
vite him to address them.
——Edward Gehret, who was elected '
borough treasurer on Tuesday, will serve
for almost four years, or until the first
Monday in January, 1914. | effected.
bin and had directed a stream of hot water to the
top when the whole thing came down on them.
A rescue force started at once and worked like
madmen
~That seventeen of the twenty children of Mr.
and Mrs. Frederick Carl, of Reading. died as the
result of witchcraft was the startling statement
made recently by the parents of the children. A
daughter, 28 years old, died a few days ago. The
majority of the others died quite young. The
parents were neverill, while the children wasted
almost to skeletons. Physicians say that several
fever or apparent disease, while the “pow wow™
doctors declare the little ones were bewitched by
an aged woman. Coroner Strausser is waging a
waron “pow wow" doctors, but they are still
doing business in Berks county. Eastern Pennsyl-
vania is a stronghold of superstition.
—David A. Wilson, a hotel keeper and politician
than eighteen months or not morethan six years
. | for using a forged ticket on the Pennsylvania rail-
road in this county last fall. During the hunting
season, Wilson, with other Harrisburgers, was in
Penn township, this county, hunting. When he
came to go home he had another party buy a
ticket from Grampian to near Clearfield, a dis-
| tance of twelve miles. When the ticket was pre-
sented to the conductor by Wilson it had been
changed to a point near Harrisburg, a station the
name of which had to be written in.
~The Nanty-Glo Coal Mining company is mak.
! ing preparations to put electric haulage and min-
improvements will cost about $50,000. The com-
pany’s engineers have been called to Nanty-Glo
from Idamar, Indiana county, to locate the drill
holes to place the electric power close to the face
' of the coal. Compressors willbe used to cut the
ing machines in its plant near Nanty-Glo. The