INK SLINGS.
—Have you started your Christmas |
shopping?
—Now is the time to get the
coal bin |
geod and full. :
—Next week we'll do a lite turk kill- | ~~
ing on this side of the Atlantic. |
—Turkish bullets have haé¢ no terror |
for Bulgarian soldiers, but going up!
against Turkish cholera may be a much |
more disastrous undertaking.
—Isn't it awful, MasLE? Poor Presi-
dent TAPT had to issue the proclamation
to the people to be thankful because
they had elected WiLSON President.,
—Why not get the choice articles,
those that have not been fingered over
by everyone else. You can do it by be-
ginning your Christmas shopping at once.
—-A good deal of money was wasted
by over-enthusiastic partisans during the
past six months but it is still in existence
and those who try will get a share of it
yet.
—The Russians are about to expend
thirty-four million dollars on their navy.
The Japs will probably begin to plan the
capture of the prizes as soon as they are
afloat.
—Let us see. Congressman WILLIAM
B. WILSON was elected three times under
the Old Guard Democratic State commit-
tee and defeated once under the reorgan-
ized body.
—Among other good things to be
expected is the speedy dissolution of the
tariff board. Of all the expensive and
worthless bodies in the country that is
the most mischievous.
—Penn State is celebrating her Penn-
sylvania day today. Here's hoping that
Pennsylvania will give Penn State some-
thing worth while celebrating when her
next Legislature meets.
—Speaking of Armageddon the con-
flict was less destructive than some peo-
ple imagined it would be but then the
principal warrior was mistaken in the
cause in which he was enlisted.
~If you want to send a friend a most
acceptable Christmas present send the
WATCHMAN for a year. The cost is
small and the expression of your good
will renewed every week during the year.
~Why worry so much about the reor-
ganization of the Republican party. Just
wait until WiLsON has had a little chance
to run things and all will probably agree
that there is no need for any other party
than his.
—It is highly probable that President.
elect WILSON will be astonished by the
number of other distinguished American
Democrats who will have discovered that
their systems need the salubrious cli
mate of Bermuda while he is there.
—The Korean bride is compelled to re-
main mute throughout her wedding day.
With such a custom in vogue here the
average American groom would have one
day to point to, at least, as having been
the chance of his life to get in a word or
two without an interruption.
~The hunting season will now ab-
sorb much of the surplus energy which
has been given to politics during
the last few weeks and the stories of
achievement will be quite as interesting
and nearly as exaggerated as the cam-
paign lies that have been current.
—For a jollification parade one night
last week Shamokin Democrats borrow-
ed ten mules from a neighboring coal
mine. The next morning they returned
eleven. Now, do you believe that was
simply a sample of what WILSON'S pros-
perity will mean or are you of the opin-
jon that the mule committee was still
“lit up” from the glare of the torches the
night before.
~—It will be a miserable, hopeless crea-
ture, indeed, who will have nothing to be
thankful for next Thursday. The real
christian man is thankful for something
every day, every hour, every moment of
life, but the general Thanksgiving day is
the one designated specially to call the
attention of the unthinking to the won.
|
g
| took to en!
STATE RIGHTS AN
D FEDERAL UNION.
VOL. 57.
BELLEFONTE, PA__NOVEMBER 33. 1017.
Roosevelt and Flinn,
In his statement to the public Colonel
ROOSEVELT refers to the platform of his
late party as a “contract with the public.”
This is a silly figure of speech which he
used frequently during the campaign,
and was absolutely without significance
and almost as certainly without sincerity.
A contract, according to Webster's dic-
tionary, is an “agreement of two or more
persons, upon a sufficient consideration
or cause, to do, or to abstain from doing,
some act.” On the part of the people
who supported Colonel ROOSEVELT for
President, there may have been an agree-
ment to deliver sufficient votes to elect
him. On his part he agreed to have en-
acted certain legislation which he knew
he had no power and little inclination to
have enacted.
Consequently, so far as ROOSEVELT was
concerned, the agreement was a fraud
and false pretense. He had no hope or
even expectation of finding, on the 4th
of March, a Congress in sympathy with
the things he recklessly promised to do
in consideration of the support given him
by the people. In other words, he was
deliberately “gold bricking” the public
and an agreement of that kind is not a
contract legally or morally. In the case
in point it was a purpose to deceive. No-
body knew this better than ROOSEVELT.
During the campaign he persisted in it
with full understanding of its character
and in referring to itas a contract since
the election he is simply aggravating an
offense which was without justification
in the beginning and is a crime now.
In his testimony before the Senate
committee which inquired into the cam-
paign expenditure of candidates, Mr.
ROOSEVELT'S friend BILL FLINN declared
under oath, that he never intended to
fulfil a contract which he offered to
make with the late Senator QUAY. It
was a gold-brick he handed to the for-
mer Republican leader of the Republican
party of Pennsylvania, he said, but it was
$0 atrocious a proposition thateven QUAY
balked at it. Probably ROOSEVELT had
the same idea in mind when he under-
into a “contract with the
public” which he knew was impossible of
fulfillment unless he is denser mental-
than supposed to be. FLINN'S meth-
ods seem to have appealed to ROOSEVELT
and the chances are that it was for the
reason that “birds of a feather flock to-
gether,
——Uncle JoE CANNON will be missed
in Washington and that is more than can
be said of some of the others who failed
of re-election. At the same time it must
be admitted that Uncle Joe's absence
will not be greatly regretted.
Third Term Ghost Laid.
One of the resuits of the extraordinary
campaign through which we have just
passed is the settlement of the question
of a third term for at least a century
to come. O% course ROOSEVELT will be a
candidate again in 1916 and it may be
assumed that he will begin his canvass
at once. But he will never again be for-
midable. One after another of his blind
followers who were sincere in their sup-
port will fall away from him and he will
have left only the mercenary politicians,
the expectant corporation managers and
the disappointed office seekers. That
crowd will not make much of an impres-
sion upon the public mind apd the ambi-
tious Colonel will cut a poor figure in the
next fight for the third term.
This is a gratifying solution of a vexed
and dangerous problem. In the recent
campaign too little attention was paid to
the menace of the infraction of an un-
written law created by WASHINGTON and
sanctioned by JEFFERSON and JACKSON.
Probably this fact is ascribable to the
well settled faith of the vast majority of
voters that ROOSEVELT never had a
chance of election. If the contrary opin-
ion had prevailed to any considerable
extent the question would have been the
paramount issue for it is as certain as
that day follows night that the violation
of this sacred law will mark the begin-
ning of the end of the Republic. It will
mean a political slavery which cannot be
endured.
That ROOSEVELT intended to usurp
the government scarcely admits of a
doubt. If by any pretense he had suc-
ceeded in restoring himself to power, he
would have easily found pretexts for
prolonging his tenure and our representa-
tive government would soon have been
merged into the benevolent despotism
which he hopes to create. If he had had |
anything else in mind he would have | ample, and if that is true, the people ceeded
consented to a compromise in the Chica-
go National convention upon some man
who commanded the support of both fac-
tions of his party and might have had a
chance of success. But that wouldn't have
filled the insatiate ambition of the one
American who makes NAPOLEON BONA-
PARTE his model.
Mr. Bryan Should be Cautious.
For the sake of harmony in the party
we sincerely hope that Mr. WiLLiAM
JENNINGS BRYAN will not undertake to
control the policies of the President and
Congress under the incoming Democratic
administration. Mr. BRYAN is a distin-
guished citizen of the country and a con-
spicuous member of the party. But he
has not been elected political boss.
Neither has he a monopoly of the ability
and patriotism of the party. There are a
good many Democrats in this broad “land
of liberty” who are quite as well inform-
ed and just as well equipped for leader-
ship as Mr. BRYAN, but so far as our in-
formation extends, none of them has been
invested with a franchise to run the
President and the Congress.
Mr. BRYAN went as a delegate to the
Baltimore convention instructed to sup-
port Champ Clark for the Presidential
nomination. Those instructions were |
given by direct vote of the people at a
primary election held according to law.
At a time when Mr. CLARK was leading
the contestants for the nomination and
when he had a majority of the delegates
in his favor Mr. BRYAN deserted him, be-
trayed his obligations to the people of
Nebraska, and cast his vote for and gave
his influence to another candidate. It
may be said that he knew CLARK could
never get a two-thirds vote. So did many
others who adhered to CLARK neverthe-
less. Mr. BRYAN'S recreancy, under the
circumstances, may have been shrewd
politics but it was bad morals.
That, however, is a matter to be set-
tled between Mr. BRYAN and his Nebras-
ka constituents upon one hand and Mr,
CLARK and Mr, BRYAN on the other. But
it should be borne in mind that Mr.
CLARK occupies an important position in
the public affairs of the country and an
intimate relation with the incoming Dem-
ocratic administration and he is likely to
resent any undue interference with the
Congressional end of the programme on
the part of Mr. BRYAN. In this feeling
Mr. Oscar UNDERWOOD, also an import-
ant figure in the Democratic activities of
the future, is quite likely to share. Mr.
BRYAN went out of his way to traduce
Mr. UNDERWOOD a short time ago and
if he is prudent he will be cautious now.
——Now that the election is over and
a safe and sane President has been elect-
ed, the people can give themselves over
to the fulfillment of business obligations.
We have had bumper crops and the signs
all point to an era of industrial and com-
mercial prosperity greater than has ever
been enjoyed. If every man performs
his part in the program, the most san-
guine expectations will be realized.
Let Us Hope Vare Will Insist.
While we lay claim to no direct inter-
est in the matter we are inclined to hope
that State Senator EDWIN H. VARE of
Philadelphia will insist upon his demand
that the Catlin Commission be made com-
plete its work. During the primary cam-
paign of 1911 that body was called to
Philadelphia for the ostensible purpose
of investigating the municipal govern-
ment and exposing the crooked deals of
the contractors in that city. BILL VARE
was 2 candidate for the Republican nomi.
nation for Mayor and it was alleged at
the time, and has been reiterated since,
that the investigation was an expedient,
not to reform political methods, but to
defeat VARE.
‘It is certainly true that VARE contracts
with the city were taken up and every-
thing not strictly according to law expos-
ed. The VARES themselves were made
to tell things which they would have pre-
ferred to keep in concealment and from
the beginning of the inquiry to the close
BILL VARE'S chances of the nomination
diminished. When all the exposures that
were possible with respect to the VARES
had been made the commission refused
to continue its sessions. In other words
when it came the turn of the VARES to
expose things the opportunity was taken
away. Now Senator VARE threatens to
force a resumption of the investigation
so that some of the shady transactions of
PENROSE and MCNICHOL may be ex-
the necessary power to achieve the re-
sult, we hope that Senator VARE will
insist upon it. It is alleged that Senator
PENROSE is, or was, a silent partner in
the MCNICHOL contracting firm, for ex-
have a right to know about it. There
are a lot of other things of a suspicious
character, moreover, which ought to be
revealed and we know of no p
more certain to produce that result
than
| a thorough and searching investigation er have another campaign like it, though
into the municipal methods of the Phila-
delphia bosses.
Put the Dropes Out.
Mr. FOoLWELL, president of the Phila-
delphia Manufacturers’ club, is still sub-
merged under a burden of woe. The
prospect of an extra session of Congress
to revise the tariff has filled him with
the spirit of calamity. He has enjoyed
the full measure of tariff graft so long
that the very idea of relinquishing it is
harrowing to his soul. He already sees
whole packs of hungry wolves at the Na-
tional door and pestilence, famine and
death are the inevitable consequences.
The pirates of old probably experienced
| the same mental anguish when their op-
portunities in the open sea were taken
away by the influence of advancing civ-
ilization. But FOLWELL needn't despair.
Other forms of graft are open.
All the panics we have had since the
Civil war came upon us while high tariff
tax laws were in full force and Republi-
can policies in absolute control, The
| panic of 1907, organized to force the Ten-
nessee Coal and Iron company into sur-
render to the Steel Trust, came while
ROOSEVELT was in the White House and
there were overwhelming Republican ma-
jorities in both branches of Congress. It
continued until after a Democratic ma-
jority in the House had indicated its pur-
| pose to check the tariff spoliation and the |
! election of a Democratic President was |
practically assured. Then business men |
inspired with hope and confident of the |
future threw off the shackles of fear and |
resumed industrial activity. i
Probably Mr. FOLWELL can’t get along |
without subsidies. To care for imbeciles |
and incapables is an admitted duty of
the State and we have no objection to
making provision of some sort for the
FoLwELLS and others who are incapable
of conducting their own affairs. But
there are plenty of American manufac-
turers and merchants who can compete
they are called into the control of the
commercial and industrial activities in-
stead of the grafters who depend upon
jovernment bounties for their mainte-
ness it is a gain. If he will get out of
the way of self-reliant and capable men
it will be better. :
~——It’s really a pity that the Steel
Trust is crowded with orders. The tar- |
iff mongers who own and control that
predatory conspiracy were so earnest and
| persistent in their predictions that the
| election of WILSON would bring industrial
disaster that they ought to have got a |
little taste of trouble.
The Presidential Term.
President TAFT has done more to alien-
ate the people from the extension of the
Presidential term of office to six years
than all the other influences which have
been brought to bear on the subject with-
in a century. If his term of office were
six years, instead of four, the people of
the United States would be compelled to
pay half a billion dollars a year in exces-
sive tariff taxation for two years more.
His veto of the tariff legislation enacted
during the special session of 1911 and at
| the regular session recently closed has
| gone a long way toward convincing the
public that a four year term is sufficient
for a man who uses his office to assist
| predatory interests to rob the tax payers.
There is a pretty general agreement
that the Presidential office should be lim-
lited to one term and before Mr. TAPT
| had prostituted the powers for the pur-
pose of reimbursing those who bought
his election in 1908, there was considera-
| ble unanimity in the idea that the term
lof office ought to be extended to six
i years. But in the light of recent experi-
| ence sentiment has changed on that sub-
ject. In fact there are more people who
now favor the recall! of Presidents than
desire an extension of the term. If TAFT
could have been recalled after his first
| vetoes in 1911 the country would be ines-
| timably richer today and the people in-
finitely happier and more contented.
An act of Congress limiting the office
| of President to one term, therefore, will
; be ample to dispose of these questions
| forever. Since the overwhelming defeat
| death. But neither he nor any other man
. will ever again be a formidable candidate
- for a third term because the voters have
| to such a thing. If ROOSEVELT had suc-
this time there would not likely
have ever been another Presidential elec-
tion other than such as Mexico used to
| ——It is to be hoped that we will nev-
as long as ROOSEVELT lives vituperation
will be an element in politics.
with the world on equal conditions and it | the
will be a blessing to the country when one
In a Minority ot the Popular Vote.
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now breaks up, and it is
moCracy again in power to sa
long that party is to remain a
majority or a united minority under
or name.
shes
S—————
From the Greensburg Argus.
By the abolition of the “party square”
Pennsylvania would obtain a reasonably
good ballot law. This reform alone
would remove nearly all the temptations
of candidates to secure duplicate or
triplicate nominations. If voters were
uired to mark the name of every can-
SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
—An United States court jury gave Walter Bird
Jr., of Bloomsburg, and his father $5,000 damages
dead of heart disease. He was aged & and was
proprietor of a grocery.
~John Frampton, near Marion Centre, has 100
tons of cabbage from thirteen acres of ground.
He has one stalk on which there were twenty-five
small, but perfectly formed heads, each devel-
oping where a leaf should have grown.
—Ira Beatty, of Punxsutawney, a Bell tele’
phone lineman working at Johnstown, came in
contact with a live wire and fell twenty-five feet.
He may possibly recover from a fractured skull,
arm and leg and perhaps internal injuries.
—George A. Drake, a farmer of Wayne town-
ship, near Huntingdon, was burned to death last
Friday when he fell on his lantern while intoxicat-
saturated his clothes, and before help arrived he
was incinerated. .
~Harry A. Fox, aged 42, whose salary is $10,009
a year, and who is a designer for a large Philadel-
phia department store, committed suicide last
week at his home in New York, because of his
inability to cope with the next spring fashions.
He could not see his way clear to figure out the
general trend of the spring fashions,
~While in a fit of uncontrollable temper, Geo-
Montgomery, a third grade pupil in the Mount
Union public school, slashed Priscilla Hockes-
berry across the fingers of her right hand with a
boy killed a playmate while in a fit of anger.
~The Crawford hotel property, of Williamsport
is not four years since the association outgrew its
first quarters and now another move is made
Rectisary by the rowing usefaluessol. the-2200-
c 3
—A carload of female patients Friday were
tersville. It is, however, the first consignment
of females that has been removed to the new
district,
=The Clover Run mine of the Madeira-Hill
Coal Mining company, located near Mahaffey,
has resumed operations after being idle for a
period of several months. A force of 200 miners
will be employed at the operation, which has am
output of 300 tons daily. Superintendent W, R.
Wilburn saysthat the output is to be doubled
within a short time.
~Mrs, Kate Edwards, slayer of her husband»
who has been confined to the Reading prison for
the past eleven years, has refused to endorse a
petition for her release. Although the meeting
of the prison board was held behind closed doors,
it was stated that Mrs. Edwards was so useful
around the warden's home, that he did not
didate for whom they to vote it | to bedeprived of her services.
would make very little toa| —Mrs. J. C. Blair has directed the board of
te his name on | directors of the J. C. Blair Memorial hospital, at
ballot once or several times, or with | Huntingdon, to go ahead with the plans for the
or many party new nurses home, which will cost $20,000. She
The temptation to a Vater fo vote ing fclossd a Shecle ou $00: Sor. pealisuiniany work.
primary 0 than that of the party construction work will start at once. The
which would also be greatly | home will be erected on the grounds close to the
weakened, it not eliminated . | hospital and will relieve the congestion at the
the total vote, the remain-
ng abuses would be completely remedied.
; The nomination of independents could be
made by y petition.
A req ent that a candidate's name
appear on the election ballot only
once would be helpful, but more would
accomplished at one stroke by the
abolition of the party square than by any
of the other refoms suggested.
g
An Extra Session.
From the Harrisburg Star Independent.
President-elect Wilson has announced
that he will call the next Congress into
extraordinary session not later than April
15 next, to revise the tariff. He will do
this in obedience to what is almost a com-
people.
EL Eira dent
action on the or con-
sideration of schedules. The
issue was immediate revision, not revision
teen months or so after the election.
principal schedules that should be
considered were twice Yeviewd by the
Independen ns
and they but little
by any commission, for the schedules, as
these were introduced in the House, were
almost perfect rom the Democratic and
veiwpoin
ere will be some objection from cer-
fice. You'll find it always right. *
institution. ’
=—When Grover Cleveland left the White House
in 1886, Peter Kreezmer, of Indiana, Pa., declared
that he was going to wear a beard until another
Democratic President was elected. The other
day Kreezmer visited a barber and it cost him 50
cents to get operated upon. Some day President-
elect Wilson will receive a watch chain made of
human red hair which has been adorning the
chin of one, Peter Kreezmer.
—Judge Whitehead sentenced Arthur Dorman
at Williamsport Saturday, to 10 years in the
penitentiary, with a minimum of nine years and
to pay a fine of $500. The sentence was imposed
upon the first count of the indictment charging
Arthur Dormap with breaking inte the house of
Robert McEwen. Sentence was suspended om
the second count, charging theft of a ring be-
longing to Mr. McEwen's daughter.
~Albert Mase, a former Kane man, almost
severed his head from his body with a jack knife
in a barber shop at Warren last Thursday.
Despondency following illness is believed the
cause. He had been acting strangely since a
severe illness in the spring. He seemed posses?
sed of desperate nerve as two bigslashes with the
knife were made, the second severing the jugular
vein and cutting his throat from ear to ear. .
~Augustus Miller, the well known and ever
progressive farmer of West Logan township,
Clinton county, has gathered his crops for the
season and reports the following bumper yield.
From one field of 13 acres he husked 1400 bushels
of ears of corn, 20 two horse loads of pumpkins.
300 bushels of turnips, 200 large squashes, 50
bushels of potatoes, 500 bushels of apples, 4
bushels of beans and 4 bushels of buckwheat.
~Four diamond drills are testing out a large
coal field, consisting of nearly 50,000 acres, that is
now under option in Indiana county near Mar,
ion Center. The tract extends from Nashville
| west two miles below Willet and is the largest
tract of coal that was ever optioned in Indiana
ger of a large part of the coal in Indiana county
will resuit.
—=On information sworn before justice of the
peace Reed, of Ridgway, by L. C. Hauber, of St.
Mary's, defeated candidate for State Assembly,
A. J. Windfilder, of St. Mary's, judge of the re.
cent election, was arrested and waived a hearing
and gave bail in the sum of $1,000 for his appear-
~Weeker & Co., of New
York, independent
district, were: