Denon Wada
INK SLINGS.
— Herbert Hoover is surely slip-|
ping. At any rate he has slipped off |
the front pages. ;
— The President presided at a Cab- |
inet meeting on Tuesday. God speed |
his complete recovery. |
—Cheer up, last year at this time |
we had a regular freeze that put al
crimp in nearly all of the fruit and |
many of the flowers.
—_Meanwhile “Hungry Hi” Johnsing |
goes on gathering in delegates or run- i
ning neck-and-neck with the other
candidates whenever a Presidential
preference vote is taken. i
—If emigration continues long to
exceed immigration we Americans
will have to get our schools and col-
leges to add courses with the pick and |
shovel to their curriculums.
—Farmers are almost a month be- |
hind with their spring work. Only
those worry who have no faith in the |
promise of the Good book that seed |
time and harvest we will always have.
—When you are reading about the
great joy ride Congressmen and their |
families are preparing to take at the |
expense of the government just keep
in mind that it is a Republican Con-
gress that is going junketing off to
the Philippines at a cost to the people
of the Lord only knows how much.
— Missouri gave Jim Reed exactly
what he deserved. As a Senator in
Congress he betrayed the sentiment of
the Democrats of that State and by
declining to send him as a delegate to
San Francisco they have told him in
language that he will feel most that
he is in the discard so far as further
political honors are concerned.
—Local rum-hounds are reported to
have lately given up the business of
“settin’ hens” for the more direct pro-
© cess of gathering up real, old fash-
ioned ninety-five proof red likker that
is being clandestinely dispensed at
from five to ten dollars a quart. Of
course the H. C. L. is a terrible thing
but the H. C. D., well, that’s some-
thing else.
—Physicians throughout the State
are advocating that the dandelion be
eaten in more liberal portions on ac-
count of its virtue as a good spring
tonic, but the man who has had vis-
ions of big patches of the yellow
blossoms as the basis of an all the
year ‘round tonic won’t take very
kindly to the idea of thus digging his
tonic up by the roots.
—People who believe that real
strong jurists should be sent to the
Supreme court bench will vote for
Judge Kunkel at the primaries next
month. Judge Kunkel is a Republi-
can and he is the man who adminis-
tered stern justice to the capitol
“‘grafters. For that reason the Repub-
lican machine is against him and for
that reason, if no other, every other
voter, Democrat and Republican alike,
should vote for him at the primaries.
—The delegation of Republican big-
wigs that journeyed from Centre
county to Pittsburgh to meet Gen.
Wood and Governor Sproul, on Tues-
day, was a mixture of the stalwart
and Bull Moose varieties. What they
went out for nobody knows for all of
them but Major Terry Boal and Major
Wilbur Leitzell will be for the man
Penrose is for and as the Senator
hasn’t spoken yet the trip looked to
us very much like a “kiddin’” expe-
dition.
—Developments of the past two
weeks indicate that Tom Beaver’s
campaign to beat the Hon. Ives Har-
vey for the Republican nomination
for Assemblyman has lost some of the
“pep” it started off with. Many of
those who hailed it with vociferous
acclaim are getting decidedly “mealy-
mouthed” and some are actually trim-
ming for the Harvey band-wagon.
We can’t understand such tactics for
certainly Tom Beaver is too fine a fel-
low to be made a “goat” of and it
seems to us that, right or wrong, win
or lose, those who encouraged him to
enter the fight should finish it with
him.
— Admiral McKean told the Senate
on Tuesday that if the statements
that Admiral Sims made some time
ago about the preparedness of the
navy had come from a patient in the
“government insane asylum” they
could be understood but coming from
an active admiral in the navy they
were “monstrous” and an insult to
every man in the service. As time
rolls on and men who did something
more than sport gilt-lace in London
are given an opportunity to have a
say the country is discovering the
truth of the “Watchman’s” statement,
made several months ago, to the ef-
fect that Sims is an egotistic old ass
and ought to be retired.
— If the State Highway Department
were to call off all new road building
until there is relief from the labor
shortage it seems to us that a very
beneficent public service would be ren-
dered. With new state roads being
constructed through the rural districts
where farmers are trying to hold
enough men to get their crops into the
ground and passing essential indus-
tries that are operating now at only
fifty per cent. of their capacity and
the contractors on them offering com-
mon labor five dollars a day is it any
wonder that the farmers can’t hold
help and industrial concerns are ham-
pered. Good roads are no longer a
luxury, they are a necessity, but only
an ultimate one. We could get along
with present road conditions for
awhile, but we might find it different
trying to get along without an ade-
quate supply of bread and butter and
potatoes and other necessaries of life.
Demo
STATE RIGHTS
AND FEDERAL UNION.
OL. 45.
BELLEFONTE.
PA., APRIL 30, 1920.
Price of McCormick’s Perfidy.
Two years ago Mr. Vance C. Mec-
Cormick appeared on the floor at the
meeting of the Democratic State com-
mittee, of which he was not a mem-
ber and in which he had no right to a
voice, and orally supported Mitchell
Palmer’s movement to repudiate the
Democratic nominee for Governor.
His hand-picked and servile candidate
for the nomination had been over-
whelmingly defeated for the party fa-
vor and he felt that because of the
personal relations between Mitchell
Palmer and the Republican nominee
for the office, he would stand a better
chance of getting favors from Sproul
as Governor, though a Republican,
than from Bonniwell, a Democrat.
The interests of the party and the
welfare of the State gave him no con-
cern.
Mr. McCormick is a multimillion-
aire by inheritance and has little, if
any, care for salaries. But he has an
abnormal ambition for power and an
insatiate thirst for control of public
affairs. But he revels in power and
in the expectation of favors from a
Republican administration, social or
material, he betrayed the party of
which he was at the time the official
head.
And Mr. McCormick is now enjoy-
ing a full and complete recompense
for his perfidy. The General Assem-
bly of 1919 authorized the Governor
to create a commission to be known
as “The Commission on Constitution-
al Amendment and Revision,” the du-
ties of which are “to study compre-
hensively and in detail the provisions
of the present Constitution in the
light of modern thought and condi-
tions, with especial view to the neces-
sity or advisability of changing or
omitting any such provisions, in or-
der to obtain and secure for the peo-
ple of this Commonwealth a form of
government best suited to their needs
and most conducive to their welfare.”
Membership of that body ought to
satisfy the ambition of any man.
The selection of twenty-five citizens
of Pennsylvania to perform that vast-
ly important service was a titanic
task. Among the members of the
convention which framed the present
constitution were such men as Jere-
mish S. Black, Charles R. Buckalew,
William Bigler, Charles Brodhead,
Lewis C. Cassidy, Silas M. Clark, An-
drew G. Curtin, R.A. Lamberton, and
George W. Woodward, Democrats,
and Henry C. Carey, Wayne Mac-
Veigh, Morton McMichael, Henry W.
Palmer and Samuel A. Purviance, Re-
publicans. Those were intellectual
giants and men to revise and amend
their work ought to be leaders in
thought and masters in achievement.
And to this great purpose Governor
Sproul has called Vance C. McCor-
mick.
But the appointment has served its
purpose. If Vance C. McCormick had
not betrayed his party candidate, Wil-
liam C. Sproul’s life-long ambition to
be Governor of Pennsylvania might
never have been fulfilled. His pledge
to the Prohibitionists had aroused
such a volume of resentment that the
party majority was tottering until
McCormick’s perfidy turned the tide
of opposition. Therefore he owed
McCormick a debt of gratitude which
the appointment fully repaid and he
gratified McCormick’s absurd ambi-
tion to pose as a distinguished man of
affairs at the same time. Of course
he has no fitness for the service. But
as the late Tim Campbell said to
President Cleveland: “What's the
constitution among friends.”
ey
——The “Watchman”
compliments to the secretary of the
Bureau of Internal Affairs of Penn-
sylvania for the very interesting arti-
cle on the manufacturing industries
of Centre county published on the
fourth page of today’s paper. 17
every department would confine its
energies to sending to the press in
different parts of the State only such
items as are of interest in the locality
covered by the different papers they
would not only save a vast amount of
paper but would stand a bigger chance
of getting the really newsy items in-
to print.
PUSE— ed
— High priced sugar is popular in
the South and the South has a good
deal to say in selecting the Democrat-
ic candidate for President. But it is
unpopular in the North which also has
a voice in the convention.
ee,
The discussion of the name of
Senator Knox in connection with the
Republican Presidential nomination is
being revived.
responsive chord in Berlin or Potts-
dam.
pies mnie
—The primary election is likely to
be the most important political event
this year until the vote for President.
Most of the questions will be decided
on the 18th of May, in this State any-
way.
teem
——Admiral Sims appears to be the
only man in the country who believes
that our naval operations during the
war were failures.
extends its :
It probably strikes a
Palmer’s Claims False and Absurd.
The “Presidential poll” of the Lit-
. erary Digest plainly reveals the falsi-
| ty as well as the absurdity of Mitchell |
: Palmer’s candidacy for the Democrat-
ic nomination for President. The re-
‘turns of two weeks’ canvass show a
total vote of 33,748 of which Mr. Pal-
mer has 1169, next to the lowest,
though he is the only candidate of the
eight named who has made any per-
sonal effort to get votes. The vote as
recorded in the last issue of the Di-
: gest stands Edwards 7568, McAdoo
| 6740, Wilson 6491, Cox 5649, Bryan
3885, Clark 1555, Palmer 1169, Mar-
shall 691. Herbert Hoover, who has
"declared he would not accept a Dem-
ocratic nomination, has 9974, while
i Hungry Hi Johnson received nearly
| five times as many votes as Palmer.
| These figures prove the absurdity
| of the Palmer claim to consideration
‘as a candidate. The falsity of it is
i shown by taking the figures in anoth-
er angle. Recently the Harrisburg
| Patriot, which is the mouthpiece and
| principal advocate of Palmer’s nomi-
| nation announced under flaring head-
{ lines that Connecticut, Minnesota and
! Jowa Democrats are enthusiastically
| for Palmer and would send solid del-
egations. to the San Francisco conven-
| tion to vote for him. The Literary
| Digest’s poll shows just one vote for
{ him in Connecticut, two in Minnesota
i and one in Iowa. The purpose of the
| Patriot was to make the Democrats
| within the radius of its circulation |
believe that there is a popular demand
for his nomination throughout the
country.
The vote in Georgia is also cited to
support his claim to popular favor in
the south. There are three candidates
for the preference in that State, Hoke
Smith, Tom Watson and Palmer.
Hoke Smith, a Senator in Congress,
was notoriously pro-German before
and during the war and among the ir-
reconcilable opponents of the peace
treaty. Watson is a half-baked
“Georgia cracker” of the type of the
'late Jerry Simpson, of Kansas, im-
mensely popular with the illiterate,
and Palmer, after a campaign of
great energy got considerably less
than one-third of the total vote,
though having carried the populous
counties, secured a trifle more than
‘ convention.
——Senator Reed, of Missouri, has
been partially rebuked but a good
clubbing is about the only punishment
that would exactly fit his various
crimes against his party and his
country.
Republican Leaders Responsible.
It may safely be said that the in-
| dustrial disturbances are ascribable
| largely to the Republican conspiracy
| to discredit President Wilson in pub-
| lic estimation and defeat the Demo-
| cratic party in the approaching Pres-
i idential election. Even before our
| government entered the war the lead-
ers of the Republican party were sow-
| ing the seeds of discontent in the in-
! dustrial life of the country and since
| the cessation of hostilities they have
increased their activities in this direc-
i tion. That was in reality the basis of
| the opposition to the peace treaty. '
"The complete restoration of peace
' would have been followed by indus-
i trial prosperity and contentment and
| the indefinite success of the party in
| power.
When Senator Lodge issued the
“Round Robin” to his political asso-
ciates in the Senate asking them to
refrain from committing themselves
to the support of the peace treaty un-
| til after conference, he had this in
mind. He realized the impossibility
of defeating the Democratic party in
' the coming Presidential contest if the
industrial life of the country were
prosperous and the wage earners con-
tented. He was equally well aware
that until the full restoration of peace
, there could be no substantial prosper-
ity and without it no industrial con-
tentment.
conspiracy to prevent the ratification
of the peace treaty and the result has
| proved the accuracy of his judgment.
are behind the outlaw railroad strik-
ers but it is equally certain that the
Republican politicians are behind the
I. W. W.’s. The responsible leaders of
the labor organizations are and have
been opposed to industrial disturbanc-
es such as have been occurring at
short intervals during the past two
years. But the political leaders are
more potent in influencing the action
of radical wage-earners because they
| are more liberal in promises and more
: persuasive in speech. It is not shoot-
| ing wide of the mark or traveling far
| afield to say that some of the em-
| ployers of the striking workers are
| highly pleased with the industrial
| confusion which prevails throughout
| the country.
| nr ——— A
1
| ——The Supreme court keeps the
liquor men guessing. That decision
| that is always looked for never
! comes.
one-third of the delegates to the State |
Hence he organized the .
It may be true that the I. W. W’s |
Importance of the Primaries this Year.
Voters should bear in mind the fact
. that a Justice of the Supreme court of
Pennsylvania will be elected this year
' at the primary election, on the 18th
' of May. Under the law any candidate
for the judicial office who receives '
more than fifty per cent. of the votes
cast will be practically chosen. That
is to say his will be the only name on
the official ballot atthe general elec-
tion in November and it would be lit-
erally impossible to elect a man to a
State office whose name is not on the
ballot. For that reason those who
have a preference between the candi-
dates for Supreme court judge should
express it at the primary election.
' After that it will be too late. The
| other candidate may have succeeded.
| There are so many reasons why
Judge George Kunkel, of Dauphin
county, should be elected to that office
| this year that it seems like a waste of
| words to enumerate them. Judge
1 Kunkel has had sixteen years’ exper-
ience on the bench of Dauphin county,
the most important court in the State.
All the State cases are tried in that
court and more important cases are
heard there than in any other court in
the Commonwealth. It is a matter of
record that he has been reversed less
frequently than any other of the
judges of the State notwithstanding
the wider interest in and because of
the greater importance of the litiga-
tion before him. This is a guarantee
of judicial fitness necessarily absent
from his opponent.
An equally important reason lies in
the fact that the Republican party
i machine is against him. Since his
i masterful conduct of the capitol graft
| cases in the Dauphin county court his
name has been anathema to the ma-
chine politicians some of whose asso-
' ciates in party management were con-
_victed before him and sentenced by
"him to prison. He simply performed
i his duty, of course, but if he had been
' more a politician and less a jurist he
' might have been advanced in the fa-
| vor of those who select public officials
| and received any reward he desired.
| But ae obeyed the mandates of con-
' science and fulfilled the law. Without
the least feeling against his opponent
we" candidly ‘believe he should be
elected.
i ——The big vote for “Hungry Hi”
'in the western States indicates a
! strong element of radicalism in the
| Republican party and augurs badly
| for harmony in the near future.
i —————————
| Factional Politics and Booze.
| The scandalous relations of booze
| and factional politics in Pennsylvania
| has been brought to the attention of
! Congress by former Congressman
| Diffenderfer, of Montgomery county,
! We referred last week to the exposure
‘of this sinister traffic in the coal re-
| gions in the interest of A. Mitchell
| Palmer’s absurd ambition to get a lo-
! cal endorsement for the Democratic
| nomination for President. Since then
| Mr. Diffenderfer has offered addition-
'al and important evidence in confir-
mation of the charge that Department
of Justice agents and Revenue offi-
cials have been prostituting their of-
fices in Philadelphia.
After stating that revenue agents
“have been known to stop trucks on
| the highways distributing beer to
| their customers and take barrels off
' the trucks to the storage house, os-
| tensibly for the purpose of securing
| evidence,” the brewer in consideration
i of a fixed sum, “was advised where
| his particular barrel was stored in the
| warehouse,” in order that he might
{ remove it. Mr. Diffenderfer added
that “it has been asserted by a certain
Judge in Schuylkill county that liquor
' dealers might go as far as they liked,
provided they work for Palmer.” By
| this violation of the law and manipu-
| lation of politics the friends of Mr.
i Palmer claim they have so securely
tied up the coal region in his interest
| that it will be impossible to defeat his
! delegates.
A man named Andrew Breslin, cf
' Summit Hill, Carbon county, who is a
candidate for District delegate to the
. National convention in the interest of
Palmer, visited Philadelphia the other
| day, according to former Congress-
i man Diffenderfer, and “sent for var-
| ious saloon keepers and officers of the
Retail Liquor Dealers’ association, of
Philadelphia, and demanded of them
that they support Palmer.” His
headquarters at the Bingham House,
“were conducted for the past three
weeks precisely like a wholesale
liquor clearing house.” Yet this arch-
hypocrite pretends to be a prohibition-
ist and his oath of office binds him to
the prosecution of all violators of the
Volstead Prohibition law.
|
of Europe” and by the same token she
is making all the rest of the world
both sick and tired.
—
——Can it be possible that Vance
McCormick approves of Mitchell Pal-
mer’s partnership with booze vend-
ers?
en rans
— Turkey may be “the sick man |
Reed’s Humiliation.
{ From the Philadelphia Record.
It would be difficult to imagine a
more stinging rebuke than that which
the Democrats of Missouri have ad-
| ministered to Senator Reed for his
| party recreancy. Not only did they,
in defiance of all State traditions, re-
ject him as a delegate-at-large to the
San Francisco convention, but they
refused to allow him to be elected as
a district delegate, and if he goes to
the convention it will have to-be as a
mere onlooker without influence in de-
ciding its action. This deep humilia-
tion was imposed upon the faithless
Senator for his course in opposing the
peace treaty and the League of Na-
tions, which the Missouri Democrats
went on record as indorsing without
those reservations which tend to de-
stroy its effectiveness. The issue was
a clean-cut one between the support-
ers and the enemies of President Wil-
son, and the former won overwhelm-
ingly.
No valid explanation has ever been
given of the peculiar tactics of the
Missouri Senator in_ separating him-
self from his party associates and
aligning himself with the Republican
opponents of the peace treaty. Ap-
parently it is due to sheer cantanker-
ousness or to a personal vanity which
leads him to imagine that he possess-
es the qualities of a great statesman
and that he must display these by act-
ing independently of the real leaders
of the Democracy. Throughout his
career in the Senate Reed has shown
this pure cussedness, mulish obstina-
cy, or delusion of grandeur—whatev-
er one may care to call the motive of
his actions. It was just three years
ago, soon after the entrance of the
United States into the world war, that
| he exasperated the nation by his bit-
‘ter opposition to the appointment of
Herbert Hoover as Food Administra-
tor. The pettiness and narrow-mind-
edness which he then displayed have
beer. characteristic of his attitude
toward the peace treaty and the
League of Nations.
i Now he goes into the discard so far
as any importance as a party leader
is concerned. His own Sate has re-
pudiated him, and the rest of the
country long ago took his measure
, very accurately. Who will blame Mis-
| souri Democrats for kicking such a
miserable hound dawg aroun’?
Who'll Do the Work?
| rom the Easton Argus.
| America might as well make up its
! mind to do its own dirty work. Either
, that, or it will have to invent the ma-
| chinery that will do away with the
i dirty work. One thing seems certain:
| America cannot longer depend upon
“foreigners” to do the disagreeable
jobs, as it has so largely in the past.
For now the foreigner is staying
home and going home. For the twelve
months beginning in November, 1918,
a total of 214,421 persons left the
United States, while only 201,473 ar-
rived. During the normal period pri-
or to 1914 more than half of the im-
migrants were listed as unskilled
workers. But it has been estimated
by the inter-racial Council that five
times as many unskilled laborers left
the country as came in during the
Inelvs months succeeding the armis-
ice.
And, although more came in Octo-
ber, November and December, 1919,
and the Ellis Island estimates for the
first three months of 1920 indicate
an
analysis of the movement indicates
that the incoming stream of humani-
ty are women and children, while the
predominating number of the depart-
ing is composed of able-bodied men.
And further, the Department of La-
bor reports that 1,100,000 men and
women are awaiting passports or pas-
sage to the land of their nativity.
In the past, approximately 50 per
cent. of the work on the railroads and
in the railroad shops of this country
has been done by men of the immi-
grant class. The iron and steel roll-
ing mills employ 70 per cent, immi-
grant labor in all departments em-
ploying unskilled labor. In textile
mills the figure is 72 per cent. In the
skilled labor is foreign born.
tions, high passenger rates, shortage
of ship accommodations and American
immigration laws prevent the tide
from moving westward again. Until
it does, America will have to learn
how to do the kinds of work that these
people performed for her.
A Wise and Lively Old Boy.
From the Baltimore Sun.
Chauncey M. Depew was one of the
corporation men who were swept out
of public life by the tide of politicai
reform years ago, when we began to
get so high-minded. We thought lit-
tle of his mind and less of his politic-
al morals. Perhaps the best thing
that ever happenad to him was when
he “got it in the neck” from Madame
Virtue. He started out then to dis-
prove his reputation, or, if he didn’t
“start out” with that intention, he has
succeeded in making us revise our
opinion of him. We have discovered
that he is as wise as he is witty, as
strong mentally as he is graceful. At
86 he delivers a forcible and telling
speech on the railroad strike that few
men half his age could equal either in
common sense or vim. .
Reform does not always provide for
the survival of the fittest in politics.
Who lost more by the elimination of
Chauncey Depew from public life—
Chauncey or his country? At all
events, Chauncey seems to be the
“chippier” of the two just now.
that the tide is swelling again, an |
building trades 60 per cent. of the un- |
Certain restrictions by foreign na-
went,
SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
—Granulated sugar jumped from 20 to
| 27 cents per pound in Lewistown grocery
| stores Thursday, and the sweetening lux-
ury was hard to secure even at that price.
i —John D. Davis, for years a member of
! the Carbondale city council, has been in-
| dicted by the Lackawanna grand jury om
i a charge of bribery, Mayor John T. Loftus
being the prosecutor.
—Running to catch a street car at Se-
linsgrove on Monday, Felix Kerstetter, 4
years old, of Northumberland, a Civil war
veteran, was stricken with a heart attack
and died in a few minutes.
—It is said the McKean county auditors
have surcharged two of the county com-
missioners with $2537.33 each to cover al-
leged excess profits in electric lighting of
the county home and court house at
Smethport. Being commissioner isn’t per-
haps entirely what it is cracked up to be.
—While Mr. and Mrs. Wilbur Raup, of
Shamokin, were visiting at Williamsport,
thieves forced an entrance to their home
and stripped it of everything but the fur-
niture. The loot taken included table lin-
ens, silverware, cut glass, rugs and cloth-
ing. Even the kitchen utensils and light
globes were removed. ;
|
|
—The blue denim craze has the histori
borough of Northumberland in its grip.
Whole classes of Sunday school students
fave pledged to wear overalls. The ush-
ers of St. John’s Lutheran church will be
so clad. High school studenes have ap-
peared in overalls in classes and half the
employees of the big Pennsylvania Rail-
road yards have had them on.
—State Highway Department officials
have given notice that no contractor is to
be permitted to charge automobile drivers
for being permitted to go through sections
under construction or repair. This action
follows discovery that a foreman on a
contract on the Lincoln highway in Ful-
ton county had been charging for the
privilege. The money was ordered re-
turned.
—Charles F. Desch, a veteran of the
world war, a bridegroom of one month and
a brakeman on the Pittsburgh division was
fatally injured by falling from a west-
bound freight train at Portage, on Satur-
day, dying fifteen minutes later of the in-
juries sustained. The accident occurred at
the eastern end of the bridge at Portage.
Desch sustained a fractured skull and had
his right hand cut off.
—Badly burned in moath, throat and
lungs by ammonia fumes, Samuel M.
Baumgartner, aged 60 years, tinsmith, of
Altoona, died on Thursday of last week.
He was repairing the refrigerator system
in a meat market when the ammonia pipe
burst. He was unconscious before he
could be rescued by Charles Stadler, wear-
ing a gas mask. Baumgartner was a for-
mer patrolman and constable.
—A gas well which is said to be produc-
ing 100,000 feet of gas daily was brought
in by the Indian Gas company, a Brook-
ville company, on the Cyphert farm near
Emerickville on Tuesday of last week. It
is thought the well will produce consider-
ably more gas when a lower sand is reach-
ed. This is the second producing well
sunk by the Indian people within a week,
a big strike having been made on the
Haines farm a week ago.
—Henry Jones, an employee of the
White Pine sanitorium, in Franklin coum-
| ty, pleaded guilty to larceny dim wourt at . =
Chambersburg on Monday. He confessed
to stealing materials from the sanitorium
and shipping them to Philadelphia where
his wife disposed of the goods. He had
been carrying on the business over a long
period. Judge Gillam sentenced him to the
eastern penitentiary for not less than two
and a half years nor more than three and a
half years.
—What some people regard as a heaven-
sent relief has made Greensburg a Mecca
for thirsty prospectors from all over west-
ern Pennsylvania. Reports of the exist-
ence of a “whiskey rock” on the big Heff-
i dale farm near that city caused a rush of
| strangers that makes the town look like
' a boom community of the old west. Ac-
cording to the report, a chip from the rock,
when dissolved in water, makes a pint of
hard stuff with a real kick. The farm is
big and has many rocks.
Withdrawing $1500, representing her
years of hard work and frugality, from an
Allentown bank preparatory to her depar-
ture for her home in Austria to look up
relatives from whom she had not heard
since the war started six years ago, Annie
Wasco, of Ormrod, put the money in a
trunk in her bedroom. Saturday night her
home was visited by two robbers who
threw the trunk out of the window, then
rifled it, leaving only a few dollars. The
woman fought the robbers, but was soon
overpowered. Mrs. Wasco made all the
money by working in a Coplay cigar fac-
tory.
— The State Department of Education
has made announcement of the retirement
| of Professor David Milton Lotz, of Dun-
| cansville, one of the pioneer school teach-
! ers of Blair county, on pension. Mr. Lotz
i is 75 years old and has taught 55 terms of
school, most of which were in Duncans-
ville borough and the surrounding town-
ships. He began before the Civil war and,
being a soldier for a number of years, the
| time he was off then was his only abate-
ment of the profession. Mr. Lotz is a
well preserved man for his years and will
take life easy for the remainder of his
journey through life.
— Local statisticians at Chester, Pa., fig-
ure that the railroad strike cost Chester
three quarters of a million dollars. More
than 600 men were absent from their posts
in Chester during the strike, meaning a
loss in wages of about $25,000. While a
number of the merchants boosted the price
of their goods and secured additional rev-
| enue in this way, many others were una-
ble to make sales because they could not
get the merchandise. The only feature of
the strike that in any way appealed to lo-
cal tradesmen was the fact that it kept a
number of people from going out of town
te make necessary purchases.
— Before national prohibition, Billy, pet
goat of the Keystone Coal company mine
No. 2, near Greensburg, ‘Westmoreland
county, acquired a fondness for drinks
with a kick. Whenever the miners had a
party, Billy was not allowed to go away
thirsty. On Sunday, while nobody was in
the company office, Billy entered and
knocked a fire extinguisher from the wall.
The chemical contents flowed over the
floor. Billy tasted the liquid, evidently
liked it and lapped it up clean. Then he
attacked everything in sight, which hap-
pened to be chairs, tables, desks and type-
writers. Investigating the series of crash-
es, Superintendent Mull was chased up the
nearest telephone pole. An offensive force
was organized. It overpowered and tied
the goat.