Bemorei Wacp INK SLINGS. —Scarcely more than a month un- til the Grange picnic will be in full blast. This reads like fall, sure enough. —Lay in your winter supply of coal now if you have the funds to do it with. It will be higher before it is cheaper than it is now. ——That impecunious monarch who was willing to trade his crown for an Irish stew hadn’t been reading up on affairs in Ireland. —“Passing the buck” and hunting for “goats” seems to consume more of Washington’s time than serious consideration of remedial legislation. —OId h. c. 1. is your horse that is in the pit and if you can get him out by gathering huckleberries, blackber- ries or any other kind of food that na- ture provides on Sunday do it, if that is the only day you have off from work. : —Travelers tell us that hard liquor is being sold openly over the bars in New York. While Congress debates the peace treaty and flies into a fren- zy of excitement over the high cost of living violations of the Prohibition laws continue, for want of enabling legislation. —Surely we thought that Prohibi- tion would help the individual meet the problem of the high cost of liv- ing, but the pay envelope has gone home, unsapped by the corner saloon, for well nigh six weeks and the agi- tation about being able to make ends meet is greater than ever. —The Prince of Wales has sailed for Canada, which means that he is to make his long promised visit to the States. Chiropodists, manicures, masseuers and hair dressers have probably had feminine Newport in hand for weeks in anticipation of the wonderful, wonderful event. —Our neighbor, the Gazette, de- votes nearly a column to kicking up a dust but not a word to denial of the “Watchman’s” declaration that the Republican county organization has planned to throw Ad Hartswick and seven of the nine gentlemen who would like to get on that party ticket for Commissioner. —A procession of friends preceded by a brass band escorted a Memphis, Tenn., editor to jail on Monday. He had been sentenced to serve a term of ten days for contempt of court. In- asmuch as we have never been in jail cr been escorted anywhere by a brass band we can’t either sympathize with or envy the southern journalist. —If there isn’t enough butter being churned in this community to supply ‘the local demand for it the law of supply and demand will regulate the price. The scarcer it becomes the higher the price is certain to go. Farmers are finding it far more prof- itable and certainly less laborious to sell their milk and cream directly to the condensaries and’ for that reason. the home churned butter supply is gradually decreasing and the price of it advancing. —Labor is continually demanding more pay and shorter hours. Labor is continually complaining of the high cost of living yet doesn’t seem to have eyes to see that its demands, more than anything else, are responsible for the condition it complains so ve- hemently of. Working hours in this country have been reduced to the point where an actual day and one- half has been lost to production by every laborer under the eight hour law. In other words, the aggregate of production has decreased over one sixth while there has been no corres- ponding diminution in consumption, and the further this economic situa- tion is carried the higher prices are certain to go. —The farm hand wants more mon- _ey for tilling the soil, the harvest hand wants more money for husking the corn, the miller wants more mon- ey for grinding the meal, the railroad men want more money for carrying it to the markets, the draymen want more money for hauling it to the job- bers, the jobbers clerks and agents want more money for handling and selling it to the grocer and then the railroaders take another crack at it for hauling it back to the grocer. The grocer’s clerks complain of the h. c 1. and add their little extra to it. Then labor goes into the grocery store on Saturday night and talks itself hoarse because a package of corn meal isn’t as cheap as it used to be, all unmindful of the fact that its pay envelope has already been fatten- ed up by some of the extra tariff on corn meal. —The demand of the several rail- road brotherhoods that the govern- ment buy the railroads of the country and turn them over to them looks very much like a deliberate attempt at hold-up of the public. How will the government buy railroads? By issuing bonds the interest on which the public will have to pay through new forms of taxation. The railroad men may attempt to answer this question by stating that they are part of the public and will pay part of the taxes, as well. Of course they will, but their plan is to pay themselves whatever wages they like out of the earnings of the roads and then divide among themselves half of whatever surplus there may be. They could well afford to pay the additional tax necessitated by the purchase of the railroads but what of the rest of us. We receive no increased wages, we divide the surplus of no gerat public utility, the government buys no print- ing establishments for us and tells us to go to it and pay ourselves what- ever wages we want. fo — STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION. OL BELLEFONTE, PA., AUGUST 8, 1919. NO. 31. Senator Watson Throws a Fit. Senator Watson, of Indiana, has | spoken the “last word” on the Shan- Republicans Opposed to Peace. I | i That the Republican leaders in Con- | gress want war becomes increasingly The Philadelphia Muddle. The indications are that Congress- man Moore will be the Republican Ll i tung problem. In a speech in the | evident. Why they want war instead | candidate for Mayor of Philadelphia. Senate on Tuesday he said “the Pres- | of peace is not so clear. War creates | For more than a year the profession- ident willingly throws aside the work ' abundant opportunities for graft and | al reformers of that city have been of Burlingame, casts the efforts of | vast possibilities in profiteering. But | organizing a fight on the contractor Hay upon the scrap heap and not on- ly consents to the robbing of China by Japan, but seeks to force us to fight to sustain the robbery and pro- tect the robbers * * * * * We send missionaries to China to teach the principles of the christian religion, and we do right. But it ill becomes us,” he adds, “to sanction an arrange- ment that will fasten upon them the rule of a nation that is opposed to christianity, that has systematically persecuted christian missionaries.” That is certainly heroic as well as | dramatic language. But it is not true. In the beginning of his speech he said “the original Shantung rights were taken from China by Germany in 1898 through a demand enforced by a fleet of battleships, and has been expanded to embrace ‘complete eco- nomic possession of Shantung’ through supplemental treaties in 1899, 1900 and 1905.” In 1898 and 1900 William McKinley, Republican, was President of the United States and in 1905 Theodore Roosevelt, Re- publican superman, occupied that great office and during all the time from 1898 to 1905 there were Repub- lican majorities in both branches ef Congress. If the robbery of China was so great a crime, the time to pro- test against it was when it was per- petrated. But not a voice was raised in Washington against it. The exact language of the treaty of Versailles with respect to Shantung is contained in Articles 156, 157 and 158, which provide that “Germany re- nounces, in favor of Japan, all her rights, title and privileges—particu- larly those concerning the territory of Kiaochow, railways, mines and submarine cables—which she acquir- ed in virtue of the treaty concluded by her with China on March 6th, 1898; all.rights in the Tsingtao-Tsin- anfu railway, including its branch lines and . subsidiary property; the German submarine cables from Tsing- tao to Shanghai; the movable proper- ty owned by the German state in the territory of ~ Kiaochow and official records of every kind relating to the administration, whether civil, mili- tary, financial, judicial or other of the territory of Kiaoehow,” within three months from the coming into force of the treaty. If there had been no war all these properties, rights, privileges and franchises would have reposed safely in the possession of Germany for the full period of time expressed in the treaty of 1898 and the chances are more than even that they would have been held forever. Therefore the provisions of the treaty take nothing from China and commit no crime against that nation. It simply trans- fers to Japan what was held by Ger- many under a guarantee of restora- tion to China at some time in the fu- ture. There is nothing in that to throw any Senator into conniption fits out of sympathy for China. The time for protest was when the treaty was made and the Republican party is re- sponsible for silence then. ——Monday’s Altoona papers com- mented upon the fact that dozens of people in that city spent the Sabbath in the mountains gathering huckle- berries and returned home well laden with the luscious fruit in the evening. In this connection it might be added that Altoona people are not the only ones who spend Sunday picking huck- leberries. rens, the Seven mountains or the Al- leghenies any Sunday will result in finding many men, women and chil- dren hard at work gathering berries, and while the bible has set apart that day as a day of rest and one to keep holy, in these days of high food prices, when huckleberries are not only hard . to get but selling at 20 and 25 cents the basket, and not very big baskets at that, people can hardly be blamed for taking advantage of Sunday, the only day they are not working at something else in order to make a liv- ing, to go to the mountains and gath- er the berries which are this year so abundant. Surely there is some ex- cuse for man or woman in these days of unwarranted prices spending Sun- day in an endeavor to lay up food to tide them over winter. ——Frank E. Costello, of Brad- ford, McKean county, has been ap- pointed supervisor of census for the Fifteenth district of Pennsylvania, which includes the counties of Centre, Clearfield, Cameron and McKean. Mr. Costello is the Democratie county chairman in McKean county. The average pay of a supervisor is about $1700. ——There are some crops of wheat in Nittany valley that have yielded thirty bushels to the acre, notwith- standing the fact that the farmers were fearful of the wet weather spoil- re 3 | money waiting for any one who will | ing the crop. ——Subscribe for the “Watchman.” A pilgrimage to the Bar- | lit impairs healthful prosperity, de- ! stroys valuable property and sacri- ' fices human life. In war times a few ‘men make millions in brief periods but the great majority suffer from the poverty that invariably follows wanton destruction. War causes a fitful and fictitious prosperity while peace creates enduring contentment "and happiness. It is hard, in these circumstances, to reason out why Re- , publican leaders want war instead of | peace. Manufacturers of munitions and materials of war made millions of money out of contracts to supply our own and other governments during the recent world war. From the view point of these captains of industry and mostly contributors to the Repub- ‘lican campaign fund, that fact repre- sents the bright side of war. But dur- ing the same brief period millions of homes were saddened by the loss of the precious lives of loved ones who responded to the call to preserve the , honor of their country. Charge one | of these conditions against the other | and strike a balance. The leaders of | | the Republican party in Congress + want war because it affords graft. The people want peace for the reason | that it makes for prosperity and hap- | piness. | When the ruthless Hun was strick- en to his knees in France and Flan- ders the opportunity came to make an enduring peace. The best minds of the civilized world were assembled to draft conditions that would make , for this splendid result. After months , of labor their work was accomplished. i Great Britain and France hastened to t ratify their beneficent action. The Congress of the United States was i asked to concur. But the Republican { leaders refused to assent. Their mas- ' ters, the munition makers, could see no hope for future profits in such an issue of the conflict, and under one pretext or another, a fight has been maintained and ‘will be continued un- til all Europe dispairs. = | ——The verdiet in the Ford trial ¥will probably be disappointing to Mr. Ford ‘who * wanted a million dollars damages. But it has served to show that the Chicago Tribune is yellow and that is something. Problem Up to Congress. The impending fight against the high cost of living, at present staged in Washington, is more interesting than promising. President Wilson was wise in calling Congress to. its "duty for it is obvious that relief must | come from that source, if it comes at , all. Local effort has completely fall- {en down. Mayors and councils of | cities may proclaim and ordain “until | the cows come home” without accom- : plishing anything. Profiteering will go on as long as purchasers will pay | the prices fixed by the producers and . tradesmen, and producers and trades- | men will charge “all the traffic will bear,” as long as purchasers will pay. Congress may find a way to alter this i condition, but it is doubtful. | The high cost of living is ascriba- | ble to many causes. High rates of { wages is one of the most conspicuous | of them. High cost of other commod- ities contribute to the high price of each product. For example, farmers i have to pay unheard of wages to farm si hands and unprecedented prices for everything necessary to produce their ! To balance these increased ex- ! penses they must charge higher prices for their products. The retail- er is obliged to pay higher wages, higher rents and higher taxes and necessarily must have larger profits. : The cost of transporting the commod- ities to market is enhanced by the i same causes and all these elements * combine to create the cause of univer- . sal complaint. There may be a way to remedy these evils and we have full faith that President Wilson will discover and point it out. But it doesn’t lie in the hysteria expressed in some sections of the country. Wages must be high to enable the workers to live and as prices advance wages must climb. But some of the necessaries of life are higher than the rates of wages : justify. Profiteers are getting their nefarious work and they should be stopped. The task of Congress is to work this result and it should be ‘attended to at once. For this reason ! crops. the President put it up to the House | of Representatives and compelled that body to abandon its contemplated vacation. It is hard but just. ‘much thought to religious matters now but it may be safely predicted that the partnership between “Me and Got” has been dissolved for all time. —— There is a big pile of easy invent an excuse for Congress ad- journing before things get worse. in | It is ‘said that the Kaiser gives | ' government. They came to the Leg- islature and obtained a new charter, they procured from the Legislature other legislation calculated to impair the force of the Vare machine and they proclaimed an irrepressible con- flict, a settled determination to nomi- nate and elect a Mayor who may be depended upon to fight the Vare forces. Finally they have concluded to nominate Mr. J. Hampton Moore. “The mountain labored and brought forth a mouse.” Hampy is a good fellow, a fairly well equipped Con- gressman and that’s all. He has been in Congress fifteen or sixteen years and always a faithful follower of the . machine and a devoted apostle of tar- iff. While other Republicans protest- ed against Cannonism and other evils | which spring from or grow out of long continued power, Hampy sat quiet, or cordially acquiesced. In fact his greatest distinction is the authorship of a biography of the par- liamentary czar in which Mr. Cannon is praised to the skies. But he was always in line with the party bosses and mostly in their favor. Four years ago the present Mayor i of Philadelphia was nominated under precisely similar conditions. The par- ty was broken into fragments and i each part was throwing harpoons into | the other. We predicted while the war was in progress that it would end in compromise which would be disappointing to one side or the oth- ‘er. The compromise was Mayor Smith and before he was in office a month he was head over heels in the toils of the contractors. The nomina- tion of Hampy Moore will come to the same thing if the voters are stu- . pid enough to elect him. The disap- pointment may be on the other side but it will be there. ——China has tried hard to make people believe that she was badly treated by the Peace Conference but most people are persuaded that in getting away from Germany she is ahead of the game. ~~ Germany’s New “White Book.” .. The “White Book,” issued by the German government the other day, contains some interesting informa- tion, but is not entirely satisfying. That is to say it informs the public that as early as September, 1918, Gen- eral Ludendorf got “cold feet” and that on October 1st, Field Marshall von Hindenburg telegraphed to Ber lin that unless Prince Max would form a new government an offer of peace would be sent immediately. On October 27th the Kaiser’s conscience got busy, according to this official au- thority, for “he had reached an un- alterable determination to sue for a separate peace within twenty-four hours and demand an immediate armistice.” But these facts are really of little if any importance to the public. When Bulgaria offered to sign a sep- arate peace the German jig was up and an armistice or unconditional sur- render within a brief period became inevitable. That' was in September and the practical surrender of Tur- key soon after removed all doubt on the subject. A considerable part of the German army might have contin- ued a hopeless resistance to the pro- gress of the Allies toward Berlin, but that was all. The “hoss’s eyes was sot” and there was nothing left but to save the hide. But if that “White Book” had told us what the Kaiser said and did in the early part of August, 1914, the whole world would have listened. Even if it had given in some detail, the actions of Bethmann-Holweg and a few other leaders of German civil and military thought at that time it would have been worth while. Every- body wants to know exactly who was responsible for that greatest crime of ' history and the surest place to get | that information is in the archives of ithe German government. Telling | what happened between September and Nesz¢mber, 1918, is like “carrying | coals to ew Castle.” The most im- : portant item is the escape of the Kaiser. * | | Taking the tax off certain lux- uries is all right but the expenses of government go on and something must be taxed to compensate for the loss of revenue. ——Bela Kun is running on hard i lines now but he enjoyed the time of i his life during the brief period that he stood on the neck of all the people of Hungary. ——It may be said that Henry Ford wouldn’t make a good college professor but we know college pro- fessors who couldn’t build an auto- mobile. Chicago was simply imitating . other German cities during the re- cent orgie. Price Regulations. From the Philadelphia Record. If Congress can repeal the law of supply and demand it can regulate Pes and reduce the cost of living. f it can’t—there may be other ways of attaining the object, but they are not very promising. Mr. Huddleston, of Alabama, has offered a bill to lim- it all prices to the figures of Novem- ber 11, 1918. It would be venture- some to say what cannot be done, but experience with governmental efforts here and elsewhere to limit prices does not warrant very much hope. The government did limit the price of steel, but it was itself the largest customer, and it simply refused to pay what the steel producers asked. The producers of steel, too, are a very limited class compared with the pro- ducers and distributors of all food ar- ticles and all textiles and boots and shoes, and the renters of houses. The usual result of fixing a lower price than that of the open market is to lead producers to keep their goods off the market, hoping for a relaxation of the restrictions. The Department of Agriculture and the agricultural bureau of Illinois re- cently gave out figures of meats in cold storage showing large increases over last year. Reports from between 300 and 400 storage warehouses show large increase in butter and eggs stor- ed. It is a reasonable presumption that the cold storage system is being abused to sustain high prices. Possi- bly s.ored foods can be forced on the market. The government fixed minimum— not maximum—oprices of wheat and hogs. Prices went above the mini- mum. Last spring the Department of Agriculture cautioned farmers against raising too many hogs lest the price should fall. The price of hogs has been rising steadily since the official minimum was removed, but the rise can hardly be due to this removal. The price of wheat, fixed by law, sup- plemented—upward—by executive ac- tion, regulates the price of corn. Corn affects the price of pork, and as ‘meats compete with each other the price of pork has some effect upon the prices of beef and mutton. When Congress fixed the price of wheat it appropriated $1,000,000,000 to meet the loss if the world price should fall below the statutory rate. The big growers have probably been holding back their wieat. They have been getting higher prices than the statutory minimum, and they are not marketing their wheat as fast as they did last year, though the -gver from the previous year mvt ‘have been larger than it was in 1918, fol- ‘lowing a’short crop, and the new crop is unprecedentedly large. The farm- ers have no fear of losing by holding back their wheat, because they have the government guarantee. They may gain—they are gaining—but they can- not lose. : There is no open world market for wheat. The recent report on the world’s wheat situation made by the Department of Agriculture shows that pretty much every country is guaran- teeing the price of wheat, or the ex- port price, or regulating the amount of exports. These guarantees and regulations were inspired by the need of increasing production; that is, they are in the interest of the seller. The Administration is said to be consider- ing the sale of wheat at a low price, indemnifying the farmers out of ‘the $1,000,000,000 appropriated for the purpose. Such a measure would be more likely than anything else that has been proposed to reduce the cost of all foods, but it would take that bil- lion from the taxpayers and give it to the bread eaters. : It is recognized in Europe as well as here that the cost of living is cre- ating a dangerous situation. 100 Per Cent. Americanism. From the Los Angeles Times (Rep). If it were a question of sacrificing our Americanism to become a part of | a world federation to preserve the peace of the world, then it would be apparent that Americanism, like the first articles of confederation that bound the thirteen colonies, was itself insufficient and must be enlarged or abandoned. But President Wilson and Mr. Taft have alike pointed out that we can become a part of a world league without sacrificing a particle of the American spirit to which we owe our country’s greatness. ~®* No man is 100 per cent. American who ignores America’s obligations to mankind, or who shirks any duty that may devolve upon this nation to aid in preserving the peace and liberty of the world. No man is 100 per cent. American who would draw back, like the turtle into its shell, before the principle of self-determination for all peoples is fully established. No man is 100 per cent. American who would permit his objection to some part of the covenant of the League of Na- tions to cause him to vote against the whole. No man is 100 per cent. American who does not possess a spirit of tolerance and a confidence in the future which can trust some of the vexed questions growing out of the war to future settlement. No man is 100 per cent. American who withholds his confidence from other peoples that have given heroic evi- dence of their determination to make the world a safer abiding place for women and children. No man is 100 per cent. American who pours sand in the bearings of the international ma- chinery for the preservation of world peace. ——Of course Germany ‘will come back” but she will have to behave better than formerly if she wants to stay. | SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE —Thirteen of every fourteen aliens who have left Hazleton for Europe since the armistice are Italians, 2000 of whom have sailed, intending to stay. —A weasel killed thirteen hens, valued at $10 each, belonging to John Mussel= man, an East Allentown farmer, and was in turn, slain by the owner of the chick- ens. The County Commissioners paid $2 for the weasel’s pelt. —Because of the high price of coffee the prisoners in the Lawrence county jail will become tea drinkers. Sheriff Joseph Boyd has ordered that tea be substituted for coffee on the jail menu. The number of prisoners has been greatly reduced since the dry era was ushered in. —Webster Campbell, who twenty years ago was charged with the murder of a girl at Lehighton, but was acquitted, was arrested at Newark, N. J., on the charge of having robbed an Allentown store of nearly $1000 worth of clothing nearly a year ago. He was lodged in the Lehigh county jail. —Berry pickers on the Blue mountains, in the upper end of Lehigh county, found the body of a man hanging from a tree in the woods near Best's Hill. It was identified as George Shalka, of Bethlehem, an employee of a slate company near Slatington. Shalka had recently returned from France, where he served in the ar- my. —Nineteen negroes employed by Quin- lan & Robertson, contractors, on the new Hamburg-Port Clinton state highway, quit because of the great number of cop- perhead snakes uncovered by the steam shovels on the road that flanks the wall of the old Blue mountain dam. Steve Klof, a white alien, was bitten and is in a hos- pital. —While Jerry Price, 19 years of age, was handling a revolver in his room at Montgomery last Friday evening, the weapon was accidentally discharged, the bullet lodging near the heart in the breast of Albert Griffe, a young married man, of Lewisburg. Griffe’s condition is so sef- ious that he could not be removed from the room. —Three million dollars’ damage to Lan- caster county’s enormous wheat crop was estimated at the Farm Bureau, following an investigation which disclosed that a second brood of Hessian flies, heretofore unknown in that county, had dealt a ser- ious blow to the fields. The few farmers who have started to thresh report their crops from five to seven bushels an acre less than the anticipated yield. —Friends of William Milnor, a Lycom- ing county boy, will bring to the atten- tion of the Carnegie hero commission a report of his feat several days ago in sav- ing Mary Sebring, aged 15 years, from drowning in a treacherous hole in Loyal- sock creek, near where three persons were drowned several years ago. Miss Sebring is the daughter of the late James Sebring, a former famous big league baseball star. —During a severe storm lightning play- ed an odd prank at the home of Leonard Ferrari, in Luzerne county. A bolt enter- ed the house, ripped off most of the plas- tering, smashed nearly all of the windows and brought out soot in such quantities from the chimney that it almost smother ed the family, but Ferrari, his wife and six children, escaped without a scratch. Their bodies were covered with debris ag they were awakened in bed. —A chimney in the residence of G. P. Womelsdorf, of Muncy township, Lycom- ing county, was chosen last spring by an immense swarm of bees as an ideal place ‘to store honey, and they havé been at work diligently ever since taking posses- siom of the unique storehouse. The own- er is satisfied to have them continue op- erations. until it becomes necessary to build a fire in the stove under the chim- ney, when the bees must give up the fruit of thelr labor and seek another home. —William “Hilbert, a farmer near Top- ton, enjoyed, or rather indulged in the costliest smoke reported in Berks county for years. He was driving a big wagon load of oats from the harvest field and was smoking a pipe at the same time. Going down grade, he went to the rear of the wagon to work the end brake. A high wind blew sparks into the oat straw, and in less than a minute the whole load was ablaze. The horses were released in time, but the oats and the wagon were destroy- ed. —Charged with the dynamiting of the home of the girl he loves, and who has been persistent in her refusal of his at- tentions, Anthony Costisno, 16 years of age, of Scranton, was arrested early Sun- day morning, after dynamite had been ex- ploded under the porch of the residence of John Salako, on east Drinker street. The porch was smashed into splinters and doors knocked out of plumb. Salako, his wife and their 15 year old daughter, Josephine, were thrown from their beds. Police . say Costisno told Josephine he would kill her unless she agreed to marr him, ? —Through a deal just closed the Vesta Coal company, of Pittsburgh, a Jones & Laughlin subsidiary, has purchased 552 acres of coal in eastern Washington coun- ty from the estate of Joseph Ulery for £193,000, or at the rate of about $350 an acre. The heirs who made the sale are Sarah Ulery and Charles Bigler, of West Bethlehem township, Washington county, and William E. Ulery, Lilly E. Eillis, and the Laura Thompson estate, all of Phila- delphia. The largest part of the purchase money was paid in cash, although two mortgages aggregating $62,000, have been accepted on part of the property. —First aid treatment for snake bites which is part of the instruction received by Boy Scouts was given a real test at Camp Shikelimy. George Nevin, son of George B. Nevin, of Northumberland, was bitten by a snake during the company drill last Tuesday afternoon. By prompt first aid treatment administered by first class Scout Harry Smith, and his assist- ants, the poison was effectually removed. Scout Nevin was taken to the Mary M. Packer hospital at Sunbury, by Scout Ex- ecutive Wingard, and Drs. Graham and McDonnell, reported that the treatment given by Scout Smith was highly efficient. —Guy C. Smith, lately engaged in mar- keting development in Connecticut and the New England States, has been named as chief of the reorganized Bureau of Markets of Pennsylvania. Mr. Smith is a graduate of Chicago University and spe- cialized in agricultural economics, estab- lishing the market reporting service in use in Connecticut. He has engaged in formation of co-operative marketing as- sociations in New England States and has written extensively on farm mortgage credit and short term farm loans. He as- sumed his duties on Monday and took up at once plans for a market survey and standardization of containers for farm products.