SE reemm———— Demortali Jats. BY P. GRAY MEEK. INK SLINGS. —Hobble and other close fitting skirts are out of fashion in Paris. The Lord be praised. —Our Senator ALEXANDER voted to confirm BIGELOW'S appointment as State Highway Commissioner. —The elder Diaz may resolve that he prefers the Niletoa very possible journey on the Styx and remain away from Mexico. —The local option bill has failed in the Legislature by a vote of 83 to 121; thus endeth the struggle that will be renewed again in two years. —Hon. C. L. GRAMLEY voted for the local option bill at Harrisburg, which probably represented the wishes of the majority of his constituents. —Anyway HARRY THAW'S case has re- vealed the fact that a number lawyers who demand fancy prices for their serv- jces are quite ready to render shady serv- ices. —Revolution will not end in Mexico until MADERO'S death is avenged and then it will break out anew again in its frenzy to avenge those who avenge MADERO. —All the cabinet guesses put BRYAN ———— — —— | . p———————— VOL. 58. Mr. Bigelow Confirmed. The confirmation of the appointment of E. M. BIGELOW to the office of Highway Commissioner, is not surprising, in view of the circumstances. There was just reason for protesting against the appoint- ment, for by his own admission Mr. BiGe- | Low has managed the department profii- gately. We have taken occasion in the past to criticise his administration of the office on that account. But the testimony of his neighbors as to Mr. BIGELOW'S capability and integrity left no doubt in the minds of those who have given the subject attention, on that score. He came to the office with a clean record and so far as can be discovered the op- position to him was based entirely upon | the enmity of BiLL FLINN. When Mr. BicELow was director of public works in Pittsburgh, some years Clouds on the Political Horizon. ‘The controversy between Mr. WILLIAM | JENNINGS BRYAN and the President-elect is unfortunate, perhaps, but it was in- evitable. The dispute is with respect to the personnel of the cabinet. The Presi- dent-elect imagined that in allowing Mr. BRYAN to choose any portfolio he fancied all obligations would be cancelled and that he might then proceed to fill the other cabinet chairs according to his own judgment. But he “reckoned without his host,” so to speak. In other words Mr. BRYAN wants not only to select a place for himself but to name the gentlemen who shall occupy the other seats at the cabinet table. President-elect WILSON is not entirely happy under the circum- stances but we can't see how he may | | avoid the trouble that is impending. Mr. BRYAN is a peculiar man. He in the chair of the Secretary of State. | oo wii jay FLINN was amunicipal con- imagines that the President-elect is under And the Democrats of the country are | i. “por vears he had enjoyed the obligations to him for the office into hoping that the guess will prove a good | cu of the municipal machine to the one on March 4th. —According to statistics just completed to February first Americans are consum- ing more whiskey than ever and this in face of the fact that we have had the warmest winter in forty years. —The report of government investiga- tors at Washington shows that bachelors are more liable to become insane than married men. But that depends largely upon whom the men are married to. —When it comes down to the real principle of the thing how much worse were DiAZ's actions toward MADERO than those of a notoriously prominent friend of our own President toward him last year. —What Mexico needs more than any- thing else right now is THEODORE ROOSE- vELT and Gen. ROSALIE JONES and we can spare them both long enough for them to benevolently assimilate the Greasers. —Why waste time juggling with wom- an’s suffrage and local option bills in Harrisburg. Put them up to the people to vote on. Surely they are the ones most "interested and the only ones competent full measure and when Mr. BIGELOW | undertook to hold him to the same con- | ditions which were imposed upon other | contractors, a quarrel ensued and FLINN | being wealthy and powerful “ripped” | BIGELOW out of office. On the commercial | principle that one bad turn deserves | another BIGELOW organized a force and | literally threw FLINN out of politics and | kept him out until the ROOSEVELT tidal | wave of last fall restored him. The ef-| fort to defeat his confirmation as High- | way Commissioner was, therefore, the logic of events. As between FLINN and BIGELOW the average citizen has little choice, probably, and if their personal difference were the | only item in the equation the popular verdict would be “a plague on both your | Houses.” But Senators in the General Assembly are under sworn obligation to fulfill certain duties to the public, free | from prejudice and passion, and what BiceLow did to FLINN or how FLINN | countered upon BIGELOW has nothing to do with the matter. The capability and | fitness of the appointee are the only | questions, to_be considered with respect which he is about to enter and being a modern reformer he thinks, likewise, that he has both legal and moral right to President-elect WILSON feels that he was elected by the people and that after recog- nizing Mr. BRYAN's claim to a seat in the cabinet, he, being responsible to the peo- ple for the administration, ought to be allowed a free hand in the selection of the other members of the cabinet. That would make it a WILSON administration, with a reservation. Mr. BRYAN desires to make it a BRYAN administration, with a “recall.” It is practically agreed that Mr. BRYAN is to be Secretary of State in the WILSON cabinet, that being the office Mr. BRYAN preferred, and it is only just to add that the people, generally speaking, acquiesce in that arrangement. But Mr. BRYAN wants Mr. JosePHUS DANIELS to be made | €quipment, to any army in the world. Postmaster General and Mr. WILSON had in mind another gentleman for that office, especially important from a political viewpoint. There's the rub. Mr. BRYAN STATE RIGHTS AND BELLEFONTE, PA. FEBRUARY 28, 1918. FEDERAL UNION. : The Question of Preparedness. Ever since the Civil war army officers | From the Johnstown Democrat. ' and ordnance makers have been a unit n favor of a larger army and in all that : > time there has not been a naval officer or his own puissatit Bands: ready to swear that additional warships soodl quattel with things Mexican? are the supreme necessities of the day. e Army and navy officers and ordnance makers and shipbuilders prosper by war and what has of late years come to be talked about as “preparedness” is simply permit him to head a private army invasion. The fact is, that Mr. Hearst ought an expression of the hope of these men | do any fighting which the occasion re- that promotions will come on one hand quires. No one is quite so and profitable business on the other. The | 38 he over Mexican affairs. H upon the country by these elements in | to smash things below the Rio the population. It was the fruit of selfish- But singularl i ness. General LEONARD WooD, chief of staff ' army of alarmists. In a recent interview, skin is in question. He is made public for the ear of Congress, | we are unprepared for war and unfit to I A Om William Why doesn’t Mr. William Randolph Hearst take the Mexican situation into SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE. —Lewistown Odd Fellows have just completed an $18,000 building. Interesting exercises mark- ed the dedication. —Five thousand hens will find a home in the poultry house at the new sanitorium at Cresson. The great demand for eggs is the reason. —QOwing to differences among business men, Portage is likely to have two trade boards and three banks, two of which are not yet chartered. —Mayor Cauffel, of Johnstown, has signed the ordinance which prefaces the abolition of Penn” sylvania railroad grade crossings in that city. Work will begin when spring opens. —A youth on parole from the Huntingdon re. formatory is blamed for taking valuable articles from the home of Charles Burkett, a Yeagertown barber who had given him a chance to work. —A Latrobe justice of the peace who has had several boy thieves to deal with recently, is of the opinion that the desire to attend the nickelodeoms is responsible for a considerable amount of such thievery in the town. ~The Church of Christ at Lock Haven on Sun- does he insist on embroiling Uncle day celebrated its semi-centennial, conducting its a shipbuilder in the country who wasn't Sam in what is apparently his own per- morning service, as nearly as possible after the fashion of fifty years ago and the evening service lieve the United States would according to present day methods. view without the least alarm a decla- ration of war on Mexico by his yellow- | has declined to approve highway contracts ness. With equal equanimity it would | amounting to nearly $200,000, on the ground that —Westmoreland county's controller, John Sell, of | they were not drawn in strict accordance with the law. A re-letting will be necessary. —Mrs. M. J. Hurley, on a Baltimore and Ohio train between Foutzwell and Scalp Level, was to 8 wp about to leave the train at the latter place, when € @ | ghe discovered that her baby was dead. A doctor : . fighting humor; he thirsts for blood and recent Spanish war was literally forced conquest; he is simply wild in his desire said that heart trouble was the cause of death. —A huge rock crashed down the mountain side h he shrinks from in Mann's Narrows, flattened a rail on the trolley track near Reedsville and went on its way down on to the Kishacoquillas creek. It weighed a ton is his part and it gives an extremely em- and a half and the small damage is considered re- of the army, is the latest recruit to this | barrassing hint of timidity when his own markable. —Friends of the five men who met death on for the boys in the trenches to face the Derry sandworks incline, would not allow in- “ » Mexican guns and out their life | terment to proceed when they saw the grave this “favorite of fortune” declares that Son or glory, but no | They wanted it large enough to leave space be- ph tween the caskets and postponed burial until it ‘meet the exigencies which would con- | Hearst to expose his own precious per- | was so enlarged. front us in the event of war. Of course | SOD. —Eight rings, eighteen watches, diamonds and if Be believes that it was his duty, 28 |, Yet William Randolph belongs right at | other articles of jewelry, worth probably §2,000, head of the army, to conceal it from the the front. And there is where he should go. | were found by a railroad man in the N . | world and convey the intelligence in the quietest way possible to the Congressional | committee the duty of which is to deal From the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times. | with such situations. But that course i i | would not have served his purpose. He | the various berland yard a few days ago. They are thought to be loot from a jewelry store, dropped by thieves trying to board a freight train. ~While running across the railroad tracks in the East Tyrone yard Sunday morning, C. W. Americans Mexican States are familiar Brenisholtz, a Middle division conductor whose couldn't fool the House committee on | With internal conditions. They have had home is in Harrisburg, slipped and fell in front of military affairs and he has therefore ample opportunity. io go} away. | undertaken to frighten the constituents | in Mexico of necessity, on duty unavoid- For such ayard engine. He was badly mangled by the wheels and was killed almost instantly. —Rev. W. H. Brown, pastor of the Catholic | of Congressmen who compose that com- | able, there is proper sympathy and should | church at Sunbury, Monday climbed a pole on | mittee. It is probably true that this country is | 30% unprepared for war butit is not because | and should respond to the | any given date we could put an army in and ignored the force | the field equal in discipline and superior | jikely to | 31 demands | the army is small or the ‘raining and dis- interests and individuals that have disre- be adequate protection at any cost. That | the top of the church to replace a gilt cross that t should be at the beck had been broken off at the base and hung down , | the pole. Father Brown climbed out a belfry win® of | dow and up the pole at the risk of his life. —About seventy-five citizens of Johnstown i the ordi dictates of |cipline deficient. In ninety days from | Earle prdinary dict Of Prudence | parted with ten dollars apiece recently in ex- change for membership in a Masonic lodge that more than Congress and the exegutive ave didn't exist save in the imagination of the strang- in numbers, intelligence, courage and | ence in a atis of & Than. who volun. ers Who were bromating it. Warrants were sworn | But so long as we have officers like | LeoNARD WOOD, catapulted into high | stances beyond his out for them, but they had taken their departure. ~The Cambria Steel company within the last nger against his will and through circum: | few days has been awarded a contract to manu. or | facture 100 gondola cars for the Berwind-White | places through favoritism, we will be un- | evade. To the extent that it is practica- | Coal Mining company. The car plant of the | prepared for war or any other important ble the place for citizens of the United | Cambria is jammed with orders, included in on this side of the frontier until th. | insists that unless Mr. DANIELS is chosen) military service. Dr. Woop was advanced States who have been living in Megico is which is a contract for 4,50 cars for the Pennsy}- to the vote on confirmation and the good | for that office he, Mr. BRYRN, will not to the head of the army because he had | plows over. report which came to the Senators on | consent to become Secretary of State and | helped ROOSEVELT in his political ambi- —After a married life of fifty-three years, Mr. and Mrs. Alexander Alexander, of Philadelphia, to pass finally on such momentous ques- tions. —The prices of meat and potatoes and flour and butter and eggs are coming down but that real necessary, gasoline, is going higher and higher. Them Demo- crats never intended to keep their prom- ise about reducing the high cost of living, anyhow. —Prof. STARR,0f Chicago University,de- clares that the coming man will be hairless and toothless. We are almost persuaded to believe it when we see so many of them who are half way there gathered together in the front rows of the “girlie,” “girlie” shows. —State chairman GUTHRIE'S message to the Senators on the confirmation of BiGELow was evidently unappreciated but then state chairman GUTHRIE is not the authorized dictator for the voters of the various districts who sent Senators to Harrisburg to represent them. —Wasn't it just fine in President-elect WiLsoN tendering our distinguished Pennsylvanian, A. MITCHELL PALMER, the War portfolio. Of course no one will suspect that Mr. WILSON knew that he was a Quaker and couldn't accept it because of the ritual of his church. —The one new case of smallpox that has developed in Bellefonte within the past week is said to be due to violation of the quarantine regulations. It is said that the victim or members of his family exposed themselves to the contagion by visiting in a house that was under quar- antine. —After returning to Washington from New York, on Sunday, President TAFT had traveled 114,700 miles since his in- auguration four years ago. It isan aver- age of 78} miles a day for every day that he has been rresident. He will leave the White House with the record for being the greatest gadabout we ever had in the presidential chair. —Suppose the Legislature and not the Senate had had to confirm BIGELOW'S ap- pointment as Highway Commissioner, and suppose you were a Democrat repre- senting Centre county in the Legislature. State chairman GUTHRIE told you that it was against the best interests of the Democratic party to vote to confirm. But, suppose, meanwhile, Governor TEN- ER, or one of his agents, had sent you a you do? The situation is a perfectly pos- gible one and you are an honest man rep- resenting honest constituents. Think it over and decide what you would do. Possibly the little mental communion you have with yourself will change your mind on some things political. these points justified affirmative action. | thus the whole fabric will be shattered. | tions and so Jong as that sort of thing The Governor is responsible for the con- It is a sad state of affairs, whatever duct of the office, anyway. It is to be regretted that Mr. GEORGE | W. GUTHRIE, chairman of the Democratic | State committee, “butted” into the affair | as he did. In what Mr. FLINN's Phila- | angle it is viewed from and we con- template the consequences in a haze of despondency and fear. ——The Senatorial deadlock in West delphia organ calls “a manifesto” Mr. | Virginia has been broken by the election GuTHRIE summoned the Democratic Sena- tors to FLINN'S service much as a school master would command a kindergarten | class. The result was anything but flat’ tering to Mr. GUTHRIE'S vanity though entirely right trom a political vi nt. | Everyone of the ten Democratic Senators voted directly opposite to Mr GUTHRIE'S expressed will and thus proved that they are now as they always have been abso- lutely unbossed. The three Keystone Senators tried to pull FLINN'S chestnuts out of the fire but failed. A Local Option Problem. The vote by which the local option bill was defeated in the House of Representa- tives in Harrisburg on Tuesday settles that mooted question for the present. There were eighty-three votes for the bill, exactly twenty-one less than the necessary number. The 121 votes in the negative completes the full complement of members so that there was no dodg- ing or evasion of the question. The vote of Tuesday was substantially the same as that of two and four years ago so that it may justly be assumed that it is a fair expression of the sentiment of the people of the State on the subject. It need not be assumed, however, that it will settle the mater for all or evena considerable time. The local optionists will be doing business at the old stand two years hence. As one of the participants in the debate of Tuesday said, it is not the right way to proceed for the attainment of the moral improvement desired. There is too much money wasted in booze and it is the cause of far too much evil. But the proposition to legislate mo- rality into people has failed so frequently and proved abortive in so many localities and ways that it might as well be aban. | doned. The liquor traffic ought tobe regulated 80 as to minimize the bad effects of it and the way to achieve this result is for those who favor and those who oppose the trafficto get nearer together. The liquor men ought to do something toward eliminating the evils and the other should be more charitable in treating the sub- ject. The closing of bars in the towns and cities at midnight would be a step in | the right direction, and the sivict enforce ment of the laws, now upon our statute books, would tend greatly to the ameliora- tion of the evils justly complained of as of Justice GOFF of the United States Cir- | cuit court. Happily no scandal has ever “been connected with” the name of Jus- tice GOFF, but some grouchy persons may wonder why he quits a life job for a six year Senatorial toga at less annual sal- | ary. Make Him the Last Offender. Govenor TENER has resumed the habit of lobbying for pending legislation. Other Governors of the State have at intervals | suggested legislation to the General As- sembly, as a matter of fact that is what | the Governor's annual and special mes- sages are for. But TENER goes beyond this conventional expedient and personal- ly solicits the support of Senators and Representatives in the Legislature and other visitors to his office to help -along ma this measure or that, in which he y have some interest. Two years ago he |but if that name is Scenic, there's a literally kept men away from his office in this way and now he is at it again. “Curbing” the Trusts. ! continues we will be unprepared, how- ever big our army may be. From the Altoona Times, | ——Mr. Groundhog is losing his reputa- | been : tion as a weather prognosticator. He! a found geil died within twelve hours of each other, the hus- band expiring on Wednesday and the wife follow- ing him the next day. Their death was the ful- Within the last few days the bath tub : ¢ ¢ and the National Cash Register . fillment of an oft-repeated wish that they should of conspir- of the end life together. —Jacob Nicewonger, a young man who resides | made good the first two weeks but most companies have been given jail sentences, | at East Altoona, is under arrest on the charge of fin of last week was too mild for groundhog together with heavy | weather, and while in all probability assessed the cost of ution. | there will be more cold weather before spring sets in in earnest, it is hardly like- | curbing of the trusts. | iy there will be any long stretch of it, or aT Dupe severely cold. Robins and bluebirds have | £0 4 ity. "Some have been “dissolv- | both made their appearance in Bellefonte | ed,” { and they are preity sure harbingers of an early spring. se _- fits. ——Wall Street emissaries havegone to | Perhaps the the trouble of advising Governor WILSON in the right di that currency reform is a pressing neces- sity. But Wall Street did ail that it could sob met with j to prevent the election of Governor WiL- in the matter and every mother’s son in Wall Street knew that in the event of his defeat there would be no currency re- form within the period which will be a core covered by his administration. ——The old saw that “there's othing yu of Tamia has in a name” may be truein some instances | vestigate the police whole lot in it in Bellefonte. Everybody | 2ccused It It is diffi- cult to discover just wherein the country company, of Orviston, sent by parcel post Mon- nes, and have been | robbing the store of Peter Duncan, at Ore Hill, sometime Friday night. On Saturday morning Thus does the work of Attorney Gen- | Nicewonger left a big package containing about eral Wickersham go forward toward the $100 worth of loot at the home of Mrs. Irvin Fer- guson, at Hillside, and when he was arrested Sat- imistic on this sub- | urday afternoon he could give no satisfactory ex- trusts have been | planation of how he came by the stuff. —1J. Ellis Harvey, of the Centre Brick & Clay day morning a brick of local manufacture to be used in building a brick house at the Coliseum, now being taken are Chicago, during the Clay Products exposition on; they may lead to which is to be held February 26 to March 8. This brick will be one of 25,000 sent by parcel post But fines and dissolution orders have from every brick plant in the United States to be used in the construction of this house, which will marked success. the government is able to land some begiven way aut swerested er the Srp SON to the office which gives him a voice gf the ust officers ia jail, the reguits may | | | in town as well as visitors know that it | the public prosecutor. If this decision The other day a gentleman from one Ede for owe of he best moving picture | Tammany is carried out it will be de- Fridav,when: vs saved ihe two ver uid auth: of toe me theastern counties of the State | shows in this pst of the State. A place Serving of more praise than has been its BOE ol rx Tne wiieets of dn