Benelitdan
INK SLINGS.
—1Is your winter’s supply of coal
going to hold out.
— Even Nebraska seems to have
grown tired of the perennial candida-
cy of Mr. Bryan.
— Incidentally the Herbert Hoover
boom isn’t booming as boomily as it
was a few days ago.
. —Many a fellow who could hardly
wait for the opening day of the trout
season has already laid his rod away
to rest until the 15th of April, 1921.
— We used to laugh at the folly of
the recurrent South and Central
American revolutions, yet what they
dignify with such a name down there
doesn’t cause half the trouble that one
of the smaller strikes we are having
in the States every day now occasions.
— Senator Watson, of Indiana,
called on Senator Penrose on Tuesday
and after his visit he volunteered the
information that the Pennsylvania
boss has “an open mind” on the Pres-
idential question, but qualified it by
stating that: “Senator Harding is the
type of man Senator Penrose has in
mind for the Republican nomination.”
How lovely. A nod’s as good as a
wink.
—Mr. Palmer has apparently se-
cured the delegates from Georgia;
having beaten Hoke Smith in his
home State. But Hoke is just about
as popular down there as Palmer is in
Pennsylvania so that the victory is of
rather a negative character. In truth
he would stand at least a fair chance
of evening things up if it were not too
late for him to enter the Pennsylva-
nia primaries.
—The primaries are only twenty-
five days off and the only excitement
there seems to be in Centre county is
being stirred up by the friends of the
Hon. Ives Harvey, who are determin-
ed to send him back to Harrisburg.
He isn’t particularly anxious to go and
we believe he wouldn’t have announc-
ed at all had it not been for the pro-
hibition question, as he says himself:
“My one idea in being a candidate is
to further Temperance matters.”
Several weeks ago the “Watch-
man” advised its readers to keep an
eye on Governor Cox, of Ohio, and
William G. McAdoo as Presidential
possibilities. All Washington must
have taken a tip from the paper, for
during the past ten days scarcely any-
body else has been discussed by the
men at the Capital who are looking
for a winning leader. Either one of
these men would command more sup-
port at the polls than all of the oth-
er prospects combined.
— How many of those people who
get all of their ideas out of some one
else’s head, who are devoting most of
their time to villifying, scandal-mong-
ing and belittling President Wilson
have stopped to think of the condition
of the President and what has been
its cause? Would they think of ut-
tering a word of defamation of any
of the boys who came back from the
other side suffering from wounds or
disease? President Wilson’s present
condition, whatever it may be, has
been the result of a service to his
country the like of which no man was
ever called upon before to give and
we pray to God that no one in the fu-
ture will be so tried as he has been.
In the face of this it seems to us that
loose tongues should burn with shame
for flippantly taking up and passing
on stories that have emanated for no
other than partisan political reasons.
—The Philadelphia Public Ledger
editorially discussed an anonymous
letter that appeared in its columns on
Tuesday. By publishing the letter at
all it violated one of the inexorable
rules of journalism, but the subject
treated was one of such interesting
character that the infraction was
quite worth while. The Ledger’s cor-
respondent is convinced that revolu-
tion is coming in this country and as-
cribes its imminence to the waning
reverence of the preacher and heed-
lessness of the teacher on the part of
the public. Both have fallen from the
honored position they once held as
leaders of thought and action in the
communities they served and the
Ledger believes that the public deca-
dence is due to the exaltation of ma-
terialism as expressed in this coun-
try’s disposition to measure men by
what they earn and not by what they
do. In a sense we agree with our
contemporary, but education iself,
more than anything else, is the under-
lying reason of the change, according
to our analysis. Time was when men
with an education were relatively few
and it was correspondingly easy for
them to wield an influence over the
minds of their fellows. But now the
school house is to be seen dotting the
blackest landscapes of our country
and every mind is being cultivated to
the limit of public and private bounty
with the result that diseased as well
as sound intellects are being trained.
The average American today arrives
at his own deductions. If problems
are presented to him he has the com-
prehension to work them out for him-
self and finds the right answer accord-
ing as the question has been truth-
fully stated and as his mind is a sane
or diseased one. And in these three
points we find all of the causes of un-
rest that are so symptomatic of rev-
olution: If the preacher and the
teacher are no longer community or-
acles it is because education and the
great Metropolitan newspapers have
become so popular. And the former
is a dangerous thing in some heads
and the latter too prone to sensation-
alism and distortion for partisan or
counting room advantage.
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
VOL. 65.
Vote Your Choice for President.
In answer to a great number of in-
quiries as to how Pennsylvania Dem-
ocrats may express a preference for
William C. McAdoo as the party can-
didate for President, at the May pri-
mary, the esteemed Philadelphia Rec-
ord suggests the use of “stickers” or
that the name be written on the bal-
lot. Mr. McAdoo, who has respect for
traditions as well as a proper appre-
ciation of the dignity of the office, de-
clined to allow his name to be printed
on the ballot, as did also every other
man named except Mitchell Palmer,
who hoped to get the endorsement by
default and use it for trading pur-
poses. But any voter may express his
preference for any candidate in the
manner suggested by the Record.
There is a wide-spread and deep-
seated aversion to Mitchell Palmer in
Pennsylvania, and justly so. For the
past six years he has been conducting
an office brokerage in which the pa-
tronage of the party has been huck-
stered to the highest bidder without
regard to fitness. Servility to Palmer
and McCormick has been the only test
applied and Democrats who had given
years of faithful service to the party
principles have been flouted in order
that obsequious followers of those
political bosses might be rewarded for
servility. In the entire history of
Pennsylvania politics the appointing
power has never been so shamelessly
perverted by the leaders of any party.
It has become a nation-wide scandal.
Naturally a good many earnest
Democrats are anxious to learn how
they may set their seal of condemna-
tion upon the methods of Mr. Palmer
by expressing a preference for anoth-
er for the Presidential nomination.
As the Record states “Democrats who
favor the nomination of Mr. McAdoo
or any other man can use stickers
containing the name of their choice,
or they can write the name on the bal-
lot and their preference will be re-
corded, except where the election of-
ficers may be ballot-box crooks.” It
will entail a little trouble but the hon-
or of administering a rebuke to the
professional office brokers will be
worth the cost. We hope a vast num-
ber will avail themselves of the
means.
ee Ap meee.
— Senator Penrose is allowing the
little fellows a few days longer to im-
agine they have something to say
about candidates and delegates. But
at the psychological moment he will
give them a rude awakening.
ep =.
Better than the Overall Fad.
Those more or less wealthy and
leisurely gentlemen who have donned |
overalls as a protest against the high i
cost of clothing reveal more enthusi- t
asm than intelligence. Something ;
ought to be done to check the soaring |
prices of men’s apparel and there is i
novelty as well as economy in appear-
ing at dinner in blue jeans. But so
far as the purpose in mind is concern-
ed it is more than likely to work out
like Mr. Palmer’s plan to reduce the
cost of sirloin steaks. Mr. Palmer
asked people to buy cheaper cuts of
beef with the result that while sirloins
remained at the old price the cheaper
cuts advanced until there was little
difference other than that poor people
couldn’t buy meat at all.
There are a great many people in
this industrial country who for one |
reason or another are obliged to wear
overalls at ¢heir work. A blacksmith |
or a puddler or a railroad brakeman |
would look funny performing his
work in broadcloth whether cut on
clawhammer or Tuxedo form and
there are a great many men employed
in those and kindred occupations. But |
the moment the “idle rich” begin |
wearing overalls the profiteers will
get under the market and run the,
price of overalls up to such an alti-
tude that you can’t tell them from '
spike-tailed broadcloth. Thus a
grave hardship will be imposed upon
those who can’t afford broadcloth and
must have blue jean overalls.
The Mayor of Baltimore has a bet-
ter idea of achieving the purpose
which the members of Overall clubs .
imagine they have in mind. Having
been solicited by a friend to join the !
movement he confessed a deep inter- |
est in the matter of reducing the cost!
of clothes but protested that he His
not interested in running up the price
of overalls.” His plan is to wear old
clothes and in support of his attitude |
he exposed a patched shirt and a three |
year old hat. That manner of meet-
{
ing the question and solving the prob- | that a philanthropist would have been
lem will be more speedy and effective |
and will not
alls to those who are obliged to
and wear them. Lots
buy |
work.
— A
ballot. If you are a real Democrat it
will not be printed there.
a b—
—Surely there should be May flow-
ers a plenty if April showers are es-
sential to their blooming.
| dissolution of the partnership the
| which amount was paid to Mr. McCor-
of the amount covering the period
increase the cost of over- |
of us have | sued proves the contrary and it is
adopted his plan and still hope it will | now said that an appeal will be taken
| so that the payment may be delayed
| for many years.
— Write the name of your prefer-
ence for President on your primary
BELLE
Reduced to the Lowest Level.
In twenty-seven Assembly districts
LEFONTE, PA., APRIL 23, 19 0
Booze and Factional Politics.”
The detailed exposure of a close
in this State, this year, the Democrats | connection of booze and factional pol-
have no candidates for Representative ities in the Anthracite coal region is
| in the Legislature. In five Senatorial | not altogether surprising. The sup-
| districts the party has no candidate
‘and in at least one Congress district
‘the Jeffersonian electors will vote
"blank or cast their ballots for Repub-
lican candidates. Two years ago
when the President was pleading for
porters of A. Mitchell Palmer’s ab-
' surd ambition to pose as the favorite
‘son of the Pennsylvania Democracy
‘ Barleycorn all over the State.
a vote of confidence the Democrats of |
the Eighteenth district, Dauphin,
Cumberland and Lebanon counties,
mick, had no candidate, for the rea-
son that Mr. McCormick would not
approve of the choice of the party.
This record represents what Mitchell
Palmer would call the “peak” of in-
efficiency.
There are as many Democrate in the
' State of Pennsylvania today as at any
previous period in the history of the
party. But the vast proportion of the
voters of that party faith have be-
come so disgusted with the selfish and
stupid management of the party or-
ganization that they have lost both
confidence and hope. McCormick and
Palmer have given all their attention
and energies to the work of control-
iing the organization so that they will
have stock in trade for commerce in
politics in the future and left the in-
terests of the party go by default.
They openly boast a certainty of a
majority in the next State committee
but have taken no pains to put a tick-
et into the field to keep the party
alive for future services.
The Democratic party of Pennsyl-
“vania has been up against hard lines
on more than one occasion. With no
patronage, National, State or local to
bestow an appeal to patriotism was
the only expedient. But such an ap-
.peal invariably brought the result for
it was honestly made by earnest par-
ty leaders. But this year with thous-
ands of offices to dispense and all
sorts of rewards to offer the party
has fallen to so low an estate that its
voters are without candidates in one-
third of the legislative districts.
Mitchell Palmer and Vance McCor-
mick have reduced us to this wretch-
ed extremity and the first thought of
every earnest Democrat ought to be
to scourge them for their perfidy.
— The railroad strikers had neith-
er the sympathy of the public nor the
approval of their organizations in the
strike just ended. But the men must
‘be fairly treated or there will be
| another strike later in which the
| strikers will have the encouragement
. of both elements.
Some Profiteering in Coal.
An interesing case of profiteering
was revealed in the Dauphin county
Common Pleas court, last week in the
trial of the cause of Edwin F. Sax-
man vs. Vance C. McCormick. It was
shown that plaintiff and defendant
had been partners in the operation of
a coal mine, the plaintiff’s interest be-
ing one-third. Later the partnership
was dissolved, the plaintiff in the case
retiring after receiving $2500.00 for
his share. For some time before the
firm had been filing complaints with
the Public Service Commission that
the Pennsylvania railroad had dis-
criminated against the firm in failing
to furnish cars to convey its product
to market.
Some time after the partnership
was dissolved the Public Service Com-
mission made an award of $153,000.00
damages against the Pennsylvania
Railroad company and in favor of the
coal company for discrimination in
supplying cars. The award was sub-
sequently contested in court and af-
firmed with interest added increasing
the total to upward of $160,000.00,
mick, the surviving partner. There-
upon Mr. Saxman demanded one-third
during which he was a partner. Mr.
McCormick refused to pay the claim
and suit was brought in the Dauphin
county court with the result that a
verdict for the plaintiff in the sum of
$21,597.47 was returned, last week.
Measuring the value of the proper-
ty at the rate paid the retiring part-
ner for one-third, the total value was
$7500.00, upon which an award of
more than $160,000.00 was collected
for discrimination in car service be-
sides what was obtained for the pro-
duct of the mines. With this liberal
profit on investment one would think
perfectly willing to give a just share
of the award to the retiring partner.
But the stubborn litigation which en-
Yet after payment
of the judgment there would be left a
big profit on the original investment.
e————————————————————
— Farmers are getting worried be-
cause they are so late with their plow-
'ing. Many of them have scarcely
' completed a “land” on their oats
are and have been flirting with John
Mr.
Casey, the Scranton booze king, is not
the only wet man concerned in the
Palmer campaign. Others in the list
of candidates for Delegate-at-Large
the home district of Vance C. McCor- |
ground.
are loudly proclaiming their fidelity
to the liquor interests while it is
known that Mr. Palmer has himself
expressed a preference for candidates
for delegates to the convention who
openly favor the traffic in booze.
But the affiliation of booze and Pal-
mer politics in the Anthracite region
has assumed a sinister aspect that
challenges public attention. In Scran-
ton, for example, according to state-
ments published in responsible news-
papers, the federal agents of the De-
partment of Justice charged with the
enforcement of the Eighteenth amend-
ment and the Volsted act have pros-
tituted the law to the basest uses in
the interest of Palmer and illegal
traders in booze. These illegal trad-
ers in booze are said to have made
vast fortunes by the traffic and pro-
fessing allegiance to Mr. Palmer is
reported as being about the only thing
necessary to get license to sell liquor
in any quantity and in any form.
We are not in sympathy with the
processes by which prohibition has
been established in this country. The
Fighteenth amendment to the consti-
tution and the Volsted act are sub-
versive of a fundamental principle of
the government. But they are never-
theless in force and should be equally
binding on all the people. Allegiance
to a hypocritical pretender of moral
and political virtue should not give
one man a right to trade in intoxi-
cants which is denied to others who
prefer other candidates for office. But
according to well attested information
published in the Philadelphia Record,
that discrimination is freely practiced
in the Anthracite coal region and es-
pecially in Scranton.
em ————— een —
ZZ it probably never occurred to
Admiral Sims but if he is ashamed of
his job he can resign and taking one 3
consideration with another it may be
said the country wouldn’t be much the
loser.
— Col. J. L. Spangler returned
home from Chicago on Sunday and
his experience in the Windy city dem-
onstrates that even the members of
the conciliation commission do not al-
ways tread a pathway of roses. The
Colonel was sent to Chicago to settle
a strike of the handlers at the stock
yards. The handlers are the men who
take the stock from the train as it
reaches Chicago, separate and classi-
fy it and see that it is properly dis-
tributed in the various stock yards.
There are about a thousand such
handlers in Chicago and they are
practically all Irish, mostly the sec- |
ond and third generation born in this
country, and every man is a fighter.
These characteristics showed very
plainly during the strike and inas-
much as the Colonel admires a good
fighter he not only got along pretty
well with the strikers but confesses to
getting considerable enjoyment out of
his mission. In due time he was able
to effect a settlement and the hand-
lers all went back to work but the
irony of the situation developed at
that time, owing to the fact that when
the handlers were ready to handle
stock there was no stock to handle as
the railroad strike had come along and
no stock was transported. Such was
the condition when the Colonel left
Chicago for home.
—1It is said that fifty people
have signed a petition for William
Randolph Hearst for President which
confirms our suspicion that the fool-
killer has not been attending to busi-
ness.
— The very ambitious Presiden-
tial “straw vote” being taken by the
Literary Digest shows that Mitchell
Palmer is still wagging along as the
tail.
ee
Mr. Hoover is more to be pitied
than blamed. He let the bug get
away with his good sense and nobody
cares now whether he wants to be
President or not.
i pits
Besides Senator Newberry
probably thinks that the only differ-
ence between some of the colleagues
and himself is that he has been found
out.
e——
— Tt would be too bad if those
millionaires who are financing Gen-
eral Wood’s campaign should be dis-
appointed in the result.
———————————————————
——If Admiral Sims had known
what was coming he would likely have
kept his mouth shut and broken up
his type writer.
XO: 17.
The President’s Achievement.
From the Philadelphia Record.
~ We_ invite the attention of the
| American people to the remarks of M.
Leon Bourgeois, president of the
| Leage of Nations, regarding that very
new international force. We don’t ex-
pect all the Republicans to be im-
pressed by them, but many Republi-
cans are not so hidebound that they
cannot think at all, and it ought to be
possible for all the Progressives to
take a friendly interest in a project
that Mr. Roosevelt supported with en-
_thusiasm in several of his books and
‘addresses from 1910 to 1916. Some
. Republicans who are not Progressives
might be able to consider dispassion-
| ately a project which is the legaliza-
ition of Mr. Taft’s voluntary associa-
tion, the League to Enforce Peace.
Mr. Bourgeois says:
The work of the Executive Council is
sufficient proof that the League is a prac-
tical body. The governments and people
who want a difference settled, or who wish
to make a complaint, have been coming
to the Council with the certainty that
they are appealing to a powerful and
moral authority, which is capable of hav-
ing its decisions respected. Enormous
progress has been made in the direction
of world peace. The people believe in
the League of Nations, and to provide it
with the necessary means of action is all
that now remains to be accomplished.
This tribute to the utility of the
League as a means of averting war
ought to make every one, even a Re-
publican, proud of his nationality.
For this League is the work of the
President of the United States. To
create it he went to Paris. There he
worked for it till he ruined his health
and endangered his life. He had open
opposition and luke-warm support.
But he succeeded. He got the cove-
nant of the League assented to by the
peace treaty. There it belonged, be-
cause the terms of the treaty depend-
ed very much on whether there should
be a League or not. The work of the
League, as Mr. Wilson and other far-
seeing and high-thinking men saw,
was not merely to impose penalities
upon Germany, but to provide so far as
human wisdom and agreements could,
that there should not be another great
war.
In this
great, wise and humane
project for mankind Mr. Wilson suc-
ceeded with the peace conference. But
his country is not a member of the
League, because the Republican Sena-
}
: Vast Knowledge, Little Action.
mn ses ces eee
From the New York Tribune.
Attorney General Palmer, accord-
ing to his own accounts, has a very
wide-awake information service. He
says now that he had the present
railroad walkout in mind when
he warned the country
months ago about soviet activi-
ties in this country. He tells us
that the same men are behind the rail-
road hold-up as were behind the abor-
tive steel strike last winter. He says
he knows the dates set for other so-
vietized labor demonstrations.
Mr. Palmer excites awe as a sleuth.
But when it comes to a preventive or
deterrent action he doesn’t greatly im-
press the imagination. He informed
the country last summer that there
was going to be a marked decrease in
the cost of necessaries of life. Hav-
ing recommended and secured an ex-
tension and enlargement of the Lever
act, he threatened to bring all the
power of the department of justice to
bear to punish profiteers and end
profiteering. We read about agents
of his, including the mysterious Mr.
Figg, operating in this community
and that. But where are the much-
heralded prosecutions and convictions
of profiteers? What has become of
the promised decrease in prices of
food and clothing?
There is a strike on today in this
city among the workers employed in
transporting perishable foods from
the railroad terminals to the chief
market centres. One of the effects of
this blockade, if it is successful, will
be to destroy vast quantities of fruits
and vegetables. The Lever law for-
bids conspiracies to limit the facilities
for the transportation of food or to
restrict the distribution of necessaries.
The strikers are manifestly violating
the Lever law. But Mr. Palmer is
still meditating in Washington.
It is well enough to have a great
sleuth and prognosticator at the head
of the Department of Justice. But it
would be better to have an Attorney
General who acts promptly and vigor-
ously on his skillfully accumulated
volume of advance information.
e— —
Germany Saving Herself.
From the New York Tribune.
The collapse of Bolshevism in the
industrial region of West Germany—
a collapse whose occurrence is now
conceded—is an event of world-wide
significance and of great encourage-
ment to those who long for a better
world. The supreme question in the
Ruhr district and in other parts of
Germany has been whether the gener-
al intelligence was sufficient to fur-
nish a bulwark against Bolshevism.
Conditions of life in Germany are
hard, and the specious arguments of
revolutionary communistic socialism
and of sovietry as its instrument have
been diligently preached.
One Thing Needful.
From the Birmingham Age-Herald.
Chemists announce that new discov-
eries will reduce the cost of living
millions of dollars. Now for the dem-
onstration!
. a
tors are “fighting President Wilson.” o
several
| SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
| —Michael Croft, thirty-five years of age,
| walked into his home at Berwick on Fri-
day after an absence of eight years, dur-
| ing which his folks received no mail from
{ him. He said he had been traveling over
the Union. Croft left home one night to
go up street and disappeared.
| —A term of not less than three years in
the eastern penitentiary or more than five,
coupled with a fine of $800 and the costs of
prosecution, was imposed on Friday on
William 8. Leib, Schuylkill county poli-
tician, by Judge Albert W. Johnson, in
Quarter Sessions court at Philadelphia,
for forging duplicate state tax receipts.
—The Highway Department has issued
automobile license No. 400,000, Jeremiah
Bolinger, of Kresgeville, Monroe county,
receiving the number. The receipts from
motor vehicle licenses thus far during
1920 amount to more than $5,685,000, as
against $3,800,000 at this time last year.
There has been a gain of more than 59,000
pneumatic tired licenses in a year.
—Burglars early last Friday morning
stole $11,000 from the clothing and money
belts of sleeping boarders in Mike Nel-
lish’s home in Slickville, ten miles north
of Greensburg, Westmoreland county.
Several hundred dollars in Liberty bonds
were also taken. The police found foot
marks of four men in the yard. Charles
Balaney lost $6000 and the six other board-
ers lost amounts totaling $5000.
— Milton is in the midst of an epidemic
of measles. Over one hundred cases have
been reported and quite a number have not
been reported. Some of the people do not
think it necessary to call a physician and
therefore those cases have not been sent
in. This is imperative, and the Board of
Health should insist that all such cases be
reported at once, in order that the homes
may be quarantined and other families
protected.
—Charles Robbins and William Taylor,
of Williamsport, were buried alive and
two fellow workmen were injured Thurs-
day when the walls of a ditch in which
they were working caved in upon them.
They were working at a depth of eighteen
feet for a sewer at the Darling pump
works at Williamsport when the sides
gave way, burying them under tons of
earth. Both men were dead when rescuers
reached them.
william Neeley, colored, of Sharon
Hill, Delaware county, who shot and kill-
ed Alexander Baxter, a white man, and
wounded five others last fall, was sentenc-
ed to twenty years in the eastern peniten-
tiary on Saturday by Judge Broomall.
The negro was convicted of murder in the
first degree two months ago. A new trial
was granted and immediately the defend-
ant pleaded guilty to murder, permitting
the Judge to fix the degree.
Ground has been broken for the erec-
tion of the first two colony units of the
Western State hospital for insane, at
Bairsville Intersection. The building, up-
on which work will be rushed this sum-
mer, is a complete unit, and it is estimat-
ed that the cost will be $125,000. When
completed it will be one of the largest and
pest equipped institutions of its kind in
the country. It is thought that much of
the construction work will be completed
before the summer is over. ;
__In conducting a post mortem over the
body of James Walker, the Johnstown ne-
gro who was killed in a battle with Balti-
more and Ohio officers in Fayette county
at the same time that Benjamin Kohut
was slain and several others wounded, Cor-
oner 8. H. Baum, of Connellsville, found
eight bullets in the man’s anatomy. A
coroner's jury held J. T. Gater, wounded,
and John Connor and James Coleman, all
negroes, responsible for the death of De-
tective Kohut. They are in the Fayette
county jail charged with murder.
__John Kalmbach, a farmer residing
near Woolrich, Clinton county, and his
sister-in-law, Lydia Suiler, were drowned
in the Susquehanna river Monday after-
noon. While crossing on the ferry at
Lock Haven their team became fractious
and backed off the boat in midstream. The
woman grasped the harness of one of the
animals and floated down stream several
squares before disappearing. Efforts were
made to rescue them. The bodies of the
horses and the wagon were recovered, but
those of the persons have not been found.
—Joseph Dubois, a Wyoming county
farmer, was convicted at Tunkhannock
late Saturday night of the murder of his
wife. It was a first-degree verdict reached
after a short deliberation. A new trial
has been asked. The case, on trial all
week before Judge Searle, of Wayne coun-
ty, resulted from the shooting of Mrs. Du-
bois, last October. She was instantly kill-
ed. There were no witnesses, but the hus-
band was arrested on circumstantial evi-
dence. They were estranged and only a
day previous to the shooting she had tak-
en action through the court to obtain sup-
port for herself and family.
— The Coleman Lumber company, of
Williamsport, which last year purchased
the extensive lands of the Girard estate, in
West Keating township, Clinton county,
and extending into Centre and Clearfield
counties, for $100,000, has erected a large
saw mill at Spruce Run, Clinton county,
and will soon begin to operate the mill,
which has a capacity of 35,000 feet of lum-
ber a day. The tract is nine miles wide
and contains many million feet of pine,
hemlock and oak lumber. With the mill
running continuously to full capacity, it
is estimated it will require eight years’
time to cut out the timber and convert it
into lumber.
—A Dauphin county jury last Friday re-
turned a verdict of $21,597.47 against Vance
C. McCormick and in favor of Edwin TF.
Saxman, of Latrobe. Mr. Saxman claimed
ten thirty-fifths of a sum recovered from
the Pennsylvania Railroad company, in a
suit brought by the Sonman Shaft Coal
company, Clearfield county, for alleged
failure to furnish cars at the mine. Mr.
Saxman sold 100 shares of the company’s
stock to Mr. McCormick in 1904 after the
mine had been flooded, and he averred an
agreement was made with Mr. McCormick
that in the event of judgment being ob-
tained against the railroad that he be giv-
en his proportionate share of the amount.
— Roosevelt Acker, 15 years old, of Drif-
ton, Luzerne county, recently released
from a reform school, was taken to the
county jail on Monday, after admitting
that he shot and killed Michael Urhan, 16
years old, also of Drifton, when Urhan re-
fused to get off a wagon at Acker's home,
where the boys were playing. “Sure, 1
blew his head oft,” confessed Acker, when
asked whether he knew what he had done.
It is believed that he is mentally defective,
and he will be arraigned in juvenile court.
He used a shotgun belonging to his step-
father, Richard Hall, in killing Urhan.
The tragedy occurred during the absence
of Hall and his wife on a visit to friends.