Democratic watchman. (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1855-1940, August 04, 1922, Image 1
INK SLINGS. —Anyway when the Senate adopt- | ed the wool schedule in its new tariff bill it didn’t pull the wool over any- body’s eyes. —So far as we are concerned the rod and tackle are laid away and our private bootlegger will have to earn an honest living until April 15th, 1923. —With Chautauqua and a carnival company playing opposition here this week our intelligencia are between the devil and the deep blue sea deciding between love and duty. —Let us keep in mind that a lot of people are pledged to raise a lot of money for the hospital in October and that we owe it to ourselves to help them keep their pledge. —What has become of the old-fash- ioned mother whose skirt was long and voluminous enough for her little boy or girl to hide behind when stran- gers came into the home? —This is the season when the gold- en bantam, the country gentleman and the shoe peg hold the centre of the table by day and their consumers hold the centre of their torsos by night. —Bobbed hair and short skirts are passing. We don’t mean our office window, for there are plenty of them passing there every day, only the poor dears don’t know that they are out of style. —Have you noticed how few flies there have been thus far this season and can you tell us; is the scarcity due to natural conditions or the consist- ent campaign of swatting that was inaugurated several years ago. —If you have never been the leader of any great movement. If you have never had the crowds following you and feel that something has been missing in your life just watch which way the most people are going and jump in ahead of them. —Henry Ford’s idea of invading Mexico with shops that will give the people something more to do than re- sort to banditry seems to have made quite an impression on those who don’t know that the average Mexican ab- hors work and does it only long enough to keep himself supplied with pulque. —The Republican party might get away with the passage of a tariff bill hat will increase the cost of the cheapest woolen suit a poor man can buy at least three dollars, but if it does the poor man deserves to be poor. He has his ballot. It is his to defend himself with it and if he votes to keep a lot of wool-growing Senators and a Congress and a President in power to back them up he has no reasonable cause for complaint. —If there are one hundred guaran- tors for Chautauqua they will prob- ably be called upon to pay ten dollars each to take up the estimated deficit. The guarantors took a chance last season and now will be called upon to pay for what the other Chautauquans are getting. This thing of taking a chance and paying for what you don’t get is much discussed in Bellefonte these days. It is somewhat in the way of playing a paddle wheel. At least we dope it out so. —Almost before we thought last week’s “Watchman” could possibly have reached its readers claims began to come in for the “brown derby.” As a matter of fact we didn’t know there were so many geod spellers in the community and our ignorance was so blissful that we never thought of in- quiring in advance whether the gen- tleman to whom we gave it some months ago for making the most noise with his Lizzie would be willing to part with the trophy. Be his wishes what they may a gentleman who runs a Shop in Bellefonte, and advertises a department that he knows as little about and has as little to do with as we, is entitled to the “brown derby.” Mr. Charles Schlow is now its pos- sessor, but if you guess what depart- ment we have referred to we’ll give it to you instanter. Here’s a chance for Dr. Frank, of Millheim, who seemed so disappointed when he couldn’t get it away from his fellow practitioner, to gratify his ambition. —It may not be the opinion of oth- ers but ours is that those railroad of- ficials did exactly the right thing when they almost unanimously reject- ed the President’s plan to end the strike of railroad workers. The men went out at a time when they were drawing better pay and working shorters hours than almost any other class that could be named. Others who had not been so well placed be- fore came to carry on the work of transportation on which the welfare of the entire country depends. They learned the work under very trying and menacing conditions and by the aid they have been able to give the loyal employees of the companies the mails and necessaries of life have been transported. Why should those men be discharged now to make positions for those who quit voluntarily? Why should the men who stuck to their posts be asked to sacrifice the senior- ity rights, which amount to much with railroaders, they have gained through their loyalty? The President asked the railroad officials to double- cross the men who believed in their fairness and they refused. A request of the President is tantamount to a command, but whether it come from the President or me it must be rea- STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION. BELLEFONTE, PA., AUGUST 4. 1922. NO. 30. Wool Schedule Raised a Storm. Senator Caraway’s resolution of in- quiry as to “whether any Senator is or has been financially or profession- ally interested in the production, man- ufacture or sale of any article or ar- ticles mentioned in either of the said tariff bills” reveals not only the rea- sons for, but the purpose of, the so- called “agricultural bloc” in the Unit- ed States Senate. The resolution was suggested to the Arkansas Senator by repeated statements of newspapers that Senators who are insisting on high rates of tariff taxes on wool and wool products are largely interested in sheep culture in the western States, and that their support of the wool schedule is in violation of an unwrit- ten law and a Senate rule which for- bids Senators to vote on questions in which they are financially interested. The resolution which was introduc- ed by Senator Caraway, on Saturday, “raised a storm in the Senate,” to quote the headlines of an esteemed contemporary. Republican Senator Wadsworth, of New York, objected not only to present consideration of the measure but to its introduction and Senator Gooding, of Idaho, chair- man of the agricultural bloc, threat- ened to resign his Senatorial seat if it is adopted. He admitted that he owns a few sheep, as flocks are measured in the west, but protested that he has voted for equally high rates of tariff taxation on products of eastern man- ufacturers. In other words he kept? faith with the Senators representing the manufacturing States who had agreed to help him if he would help them. It was a, mutual agreement to pluck the public for the benefit of predatory groups. The radical Republican New York Herald and several other influential Republican newspapers have charged that those Senators who are insisting on the Fordney wool schedule are not only sheep breeders but that they have formed a pool which controls the industry and are trying to fleece the consumers of the product by imposing prohibitory tariff taxes on wool im- portations. If this be true it is a grave crime against the public. An. investigation such as is contemplated in the Caraway resolution would re- veal the fact if it exists, and the strenuous opposition to its adoption by the Senators accused by implica- tion justifies the belief that it does exist. For that reason the resolution ought to be pressed to passage even though Senator Gooding does resign. — Take it from us, Harry Baker knows exactly how and when to “tramp on the gas” for campaign funds and where the funds are. Public Offices and the Constitution. With the beginning of the Sproul administration Gifford Pinchot eager- ly jumped at the opportunity to get on the State pay roll as Commissioner of Forestry at a salary of $5000 a year. Most of the rest of us were equally delighted because he had a reputation for ability and zeal as a Forester and for probity and punctilliousness as an official. But he had hardly warmed the chair in his office when he began importuning the Legislature to in- crease his salary. After much per- sonal effort he succeeded in getting a bill enacted into law which fixed the compensation of the Forester at $8000 a year. But the constitution was in the way. It prohibits the increase of salary of an officer while in commis- sion. Those who follow the gossip of poli- tics will remember an incident that occurred in Washington during Pres- ident Cleveland’s first term. Tim Campbell, a rough and ready Bowery barkeeper, had been elected to Con- gress by one of the East side districts. He was very popular, easy going and entirely indifferent to moral princi- ples and practices. One morning he appeared at the White House to ask what seemed to him an unimportant favor. The President assured him that it would be a pleasure to oblige bim in anything within reason but ex- pressed regret that he couldn’t do what Mr. Campbell asked for the rea- son that it was forbidden by the con- stitution. “Ach,” said Tim, “phat’s the constitution among friends.” To a man of the Grover Cleveland type an oath to “support, obey and de- fend the constitution” is a matter of grave importance. It is a moral obli- gation which cannot be cast off as if it were an old hat. But to Tim Camp- bell it meant nothing and apparently it bears the same weight on the minds of Gifford Pinchot and William C. Sproul, for by the trick of resigning in the morning and getting a reappoint- ment in the afternoon the legal ob- jection was disposed of and the moral obligation ignored. Senators Vare, Eyer and Leslie viewed the matter from the same angle, no doubt, for the reappointment was promptly confirm- sonable and fair before it can be com- plied with. ed. The late Samuel Salter and for- | mer State Treasurer Kephart proba- Will Pennsylvania Republicans Submit. Senator Townsend, of Michigan, who is a candidate for re-election, is meeting with vigorous and dangerous opposition at the primary because he supported the movement to seat his colleague, Senator Newberry, who had previously been convicted of buy- ing votes. Mr. Townsend was before that incident one of the most popular public men in the State. Outside of that not a word has been said against him. But the Newberry affair was so rotten that the people of Michigan are disgusted and are now trying to pun- | ish Townsend for his part in it. They believe, and with reason, that if Townsend had remained silent on the subject the Republican majority in the Senate would not have voted to seat Newberry. Harry New, of Indiana, a popular favorite of the people of that State, was defeated for renomination a month ago for the reason that he had voted to seat Newberry. Senator Mc- Cumber, of North Dakota, who has been nominated without opposition twice and three times elected by large majorities, was defeated for renomi- nation two weeks ago because he vot- ed to seat Newberry. The sitting Re- publican Senator for Iowa was defeat- ed for nomination by a rank socialist because the Republican party favored the seating of Newberry. Yet the corrupt Republican machine has the hardihood to ask the people of Penn- sylvania to vote for George Wharton Pepper, who cast his first vote in the Senate in favor of seating Newberry. Are the voters of Pennsylvania less exacting of moral standards in high public office than those of Indiana, Michigan and Iowa? Townsend had some reason for his action in the New- berry case. He lived in the same State and many of his friends were Newberry’s friends. New had some excuse. He was an old Senator, a party leader and the party needed Newberry’s vote in the fight against Wilson. But Pepper had no such rea- son. It was on his part simply a vol- untary descent to the low level of cor- rupt politics, a gesture in the ambi- tion to “spit in the eye of a bull dog” to please his new master, Senator Vare. His nomination is an insult to the public morals of Pennsylvania. Will the voters stand for it? ————— eee. ——Come to think of it if all Sen- ators would refrain from voting on questions in which they have financial interests it would be impossible to get a quorum on any question. ——————— a e—— Lloyd George Appraises the l.eague. In an address delivered in London, the other day, Lloyd George, Premier of Great Britain, and acknowledged to be the most important figure in the public life of the world, declared that the security of Christian civilization depends upon the League of Nations created by the Peace Congress which assembled at Versailles after the great world war. In his view Mr. George is supported by the leading statesmen of all other civilized coun- tries. The covenant of the League of Nations, largely the work of Wood- row Wilson, is the expression of the highest ideals of the human mind for the noblest purpose, that of securing peace and prosperity to mankind. When the government of the United States, influenced by partisan bigotry and personal malice, refused to ratify the covenant and become a part of the League of Nations the sublime pur- poses of the great minds assembled at Versailles were damaged but not de- stroyed. It was expected by Wood- row Wilson and his colleagues in that great Congress that the United States of America would take the lead in the administration of this greatest of all enterprises as it had in the creation of it, but this hope was disappointed by the perverse refusal of the United States Senate to ratify. The League is functioning, however, notwithstand- ‘ing the backset, and Lloyd George correctly appraises its work. There have been other conferences since that of Versailles from which good results were expected. That held in Washington made some pre- tense of achievement and has been the subject of fulsome eulogy and ex- cessive boasting. But it has accom- plished nothing except the destruction of property through the medium of scrapping perfectly good ships and relieving Great Britain of some ex- pensive work in the far east. The conferences at Geneva and the Hague have proved absolutely futile and as Premier Lloyd George states the hope of civilization lies in the League of Nations into which this country will go as soon as reason takes the place of malice in the minds of our Sena- tors. ——The source of the trouble with the German mark lies in the fact that until recently Germany treated the whole world as if it were “an easy bly coincided. mark.” Money Plenty but Votes Scarce. No reasoning man or- woman in Pennsylvania will be deceived by the published and apparently inspired statement that the Republican organ- ization is having trouble to raise a campaign fund of half a million dol- lars, or any other amount that chair- man Baker may think he wants. The predatory interests of the State are vitally concerned in the defeat of John A. McSparran for Governor. The monopolists who have set out to impoverish the farmers, enslave labor and restore corporate control in Penn- sylvania understand that the election of Mr. McSparran will write a mourn- ful epitaph for their expectations. If the election of Gifford Pinchot can be | bought they will supply the money cheerfully and freely. Our faith in the election of John A. MecSparran is based upon the belief that the votes of citizens of Pennsyl- vania cannot be bought at any price. Recent exposures of corruption and malfeasance in office at Harrisburg have so aroused the public conscience that appeals to prejudice and tributes to cupidity will be equally unavailing. The conditions of the treasury as re- vealed by the half-hearted investiga- tion recently held exist in every other department of the State government, and the $40,000,000 deficit in the treasury is the exact and logical con- sequence of corruption. The voters understand this and know that Gifford Pinchot, who participated in the de- bauchery for nearly four years, has the same interest in concealing the facts as the others. But John A. MeSparran has no po- litical or personal friends to shield from just punishment for these crimes. He has no interests to con- serve by whitewashing criminals who have been participants in this orgie of vice. The half million dollars which will be freely contributed to prevent the election of Mr. McSparran and to buy the election of Gifford Pinchot will fail of its purpose this year be- cause there will be few votes to buy. Mr. Pinchot’s generous contribution to the corruption fund will be wasted. The voters of Pennsylvania have started on a crusade to clean house this year and they will make a com- plete job of it. The fruit is ripe and it will be properly picked and careful- ly preserved. Of course Senator Wooding, of Idaho, voted for high rates of tariff taxation on all other subjects in the measure. If he hadn’t the ancient ad- age that “there is honor among thieves” would be worthless. ee Enthusiastic Meeting of Democratic County Committee. Upwards of fifty members of the Democratic county committee attend- ed a meeting held in the grand jury room in the court house last Friday evening. Candidates present includ- ed Col. Fred B. Kerr, J. Frank Sny- der and William I. Betts, all of Clear- field, and Miss Zoe Meek, of Clarence. Judge Allison O. Smith, of Clearfield, was also in attendance. Every candi- date was enthusiastic in the belief that this is a Democratic year and that all that is necessary to assure success of the entire Democratic tick- et is confidence in the rank and file of the party and a full vote at the polls in November. While active work in the campaign has not yet been start- ed, it is the intention of the commit- tee to prosecute a vigorous fight with success as the coveted goal. —About the next time champion Benny Leonard goes out to defend his crown he won’t defend it. He’s wob- bling and another like Lew Tendler will put him out. A good man is not good long in the fighting game. ——Harry Baker, Republican State chairman, isn’t worrying: about a campaign fund. All he is striving to achieve is the making of a list that will produce the result without offend- ing the reformers. ——The allied powers may have some substantial reason for objecting, but so far as we are concerned Greece may occupy Constantinople whenever she feels inclined to do so. ——— A A ti, ——Senator McCumber declares that the newspapers defeated the re- election of Taft but refrains from an expression as to what influenced his own defeat. mi npr ——Even if Senator Gooding should resign his seat we have hopes that the “government at Washington” would still live. ni i rei") So long as the bootlegging bus- iness continues to prosper there will be no modification of the prohibition laws. —————— oe, ——Plainly those western Senators are trying to “pull the wool over the eyes” of the country. The Wool Philistines. . From the Philadelphia Record. “We are in the hands of the wool Philistines. They have us by the throat and protection has run mad. Perhaps it is wiser to take our medi- cine and turn our faces toward Provi- dence.” These are the sad words with which Senator Nelson, Republican from Min- nesota, gave up the fight against the preposterous rates of duty on wool, the most shameless graft for the ben- efit of large financial interests in which several of the Senators are pe- cuniarily concerned. Senator Len- { root, of Wisconsin, announced that he would call for one test vote and, being beaten on that, would offer no further opposition to the protectionist jugger- naut. Providence is reputed to be merci- ful to the lame and indulgent toward the lazy. But there is not a particle of reason for the criminal or the im- becile to look for favors from that source. The criminal gets what he is entitled to; the way of the transgres- sor is hard. The imbecile—well, you are sorry for him, but you can’t run the universe for his convenience. This Fordney-McCumber tariff is both criminal and imbecile. It pro- poses, on wool and woolens alone, and there are plenty of other items, to tax the American people $200,000,000 a vear in order to put $40,000,000 in the pockets of the great sheep-growing corporations of Idaho, Utah, Arizona and a few other States which have a great deal of land cheap enough to use for pasturage. There never was a more glaring case of robbing een- sumers for the enrichment of a small group of capitalists. It is imbecile because only two vears ago the Republican National convention recognized that the tariff was not the winning card it had been for the Republican party, that seven vears of a Democratic revenue tariff had afforded the country a liberal ed- ucation, and in the platform framed at Chicago it let the tariff go with a brief and perfunctory mention which was most disappointing to the high protectionists. The Republicans in Congress are rushing on to this open switch with the signal of the last con- vention set against them. The warning signals had also been set against them. The Payne-Aldrich tariff of 1909 beat the Republicans in the Presidential election in 19127 The immediate cause of that result was the quarrel over Theodore Roosevelt, but the more intelligent Republicans, some of whom have said so in this de- bate, know that the Payne-Aldrich tariff made it impossible for any Re- publican to win in 1912. And further back there was another warning signal set against the fools who are now at the throttle in the Re- publican locomotive. The McKinley tariff of 1890 gave the Democrats the largest majority in the House of Rep- resentatives any party had had since the Civil war. The Republicans said that meant nothing; when the coun- try got accustomed to the McKinley tariff it would like it. After the coun- try had had two years’ experience of the McKinley tariff it expressed its opinion of it by electing Grover Cleve- land President a second time, with the help of half a dozen normally Repub- lican States. _ When protection has lost much of its charm for the country the Repub- licans in Congress pass a tariff bill higher than ever, and more crude than any previous one in imposing taxes on raw materials. The voters will do the rest in November. “Protection has run mad,” says Senator Nelson, and, it may be added, whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Why a Coal Peace is in Sight. Irom the New York World, July 26. President John L. Lewis and the sub-chiefs of the United Mine Work- ers of America announce that they will soon issue a call for a peace con- ference with the mine operators and they predict that within thirty days their men will be back in the mines. We have no doubt of it. By the end of thirty days the re- serve stocks of coal when the strike began on April 1 will have been ex- hausted. Cold weather will then be coming on to add its imperious de- mands already facing perilously low supplies. Inadequate already, the non- union mines will then be far more in- adequate to meet the country’s coal needs. The union mines will thus be in a position to exact their own prices and demand will be in such a panic as to make normal prices appear an al- most unbelievable memory. The un- ion miners will then sit in with the operators at a “peace conference” and peace will be easily arranged on the basis of a division of the famine prices with miners. The coal-consum- ing public will do the paying. It will not be the first time that a labor conflict in the coal industry has been fought at great cost to the pub- lic and has ended with the public as the chief if not the only loser in the final calculation. Whenever it has brought increased wages to the min- ers it has invariably brought prices and profits to the mine owners more greatly increased. The game is all well enough for them, but the Ameri- can public is getting exceedingly tired of holding up its end. A national in- quiry into the industry with a view to its organization on a publicly regula- tive basis is imperatively demanded. ——The “Watchman” gives all the news while it is news. 'SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE. —A wish that he die suddenly often ex- pressed to his family was fulfilled when Charles Wilhelm, of York county, fell dead in the yard of his home at Freysville on Friday morning. He was 60 years old. —Dr. W. H. Follmer, of Williamsport, has received word that his son, Cyrus ‘B. Follmer, has been appointed vice consul at Lyons, France. The young man is a world war veteran, having served in the Bucknell Ambulance Unit. — William G. Wallick, of Wrightsville, holds a unique record as a night watch- man. He has watched at the plant of the Susquehanna Casting company for 2048 consecutive nights without a vacation since he went on his job. He is on watch twelve hours each night and seven nights a week. —Thomas Miller, residing about two miles from Mahaffey, was found dead Thursday evening in the orchard of his farm, hanging from an apple tree with a cow chain around his neck. Mrs. Miller and children had left on an early train Thursday morning to visit friends in Clearfield. —State Registrar Ben G. Eynon has es- timated that the State will save about $25,000 by the ruling of the Postoffice De- partment that automobile license tags can be sent as fourth-class mail matter. The State has been sending them by parcel post four or five years, and the postage bill last year was $100,000. —A marriage license was issued in Brad- ford county last week which will unite two large families. The coming bride, Mary E. Bird, has pine living sons, eenough for a baseball team, while the bridegroom, Andrew B. Bailey, has a fam- ily of seven. Starting married life with sixteen children is believed to be a record for that county. —An application for a pardon has been made to the State Board in behalf of An- tonio Aaron, sentenced from Jefferson county in 1915 to serve from ten to twelve years in the western penitentiary after he had pleaded to second degree murder. The hearing on the application has been set for September 20, and friends of the prisoner are developing a strong petition to be laid before the pardon board. —George Rudolph, of Skunk Hollow, Jefferson county, was killed late Wednes- day night by a hunter who mistook him for a ground-hog, according to county au- thorities. Rudolph, they said, was lying in the grass when the hunter mistook his brown cap for a ground-hog and fired, the charge entering the victim's face and chest. No arrests will be made, they added, as the shooting was considered purely acci- dental. —Fires were lighted last week under tank No. 1, of the American Window Glass company’s big plant at Kane, and within three weeks 200 more men will start work there. Three hundred men are already at work, and when the additional tank is blown in the number at work will be the largest at any time since the boom days of 1920. The American Window Glass com- pany uses natural gas for fuel and is not bothered by the coal strike. —Councilman D. E. Dampman, of Read- ing, has tested a lot of coal bricks made of Schuylkill river culm merely by mixing water with them and then drying the bricks; others with a slight mixture of cement. They burned freely and left practically no ash. The river channel and banks in the vicinity of Reading are al- most blocked with the mine waste, esti- mated at millions of tons. It is fine as sand and almost pure carbon. Some of the culm is smeared with oil from steel plants, and burns all the more freely. —After brandishing a shotgun and ter- rorizing a large part of Elk county for more than two weeks, Percy Greer, of Johnsonburg, said to be insane, has been captured. He walked into the office of ditsrict attorney McFarland, at Ridgway, and demanded a conference with that of- ficial when he was taken into custody. He had disposed of his shotgun and was tak- en peaceably. He was immediately hur- ried to the state sanitorium at Warren. He was but recently released from the western penitentiary at Pittsburgh, it is said. —In an effort to escape payment of tax- es, many foreign-speaking women of Ha- zleton are declining to give their names to the assessors, according to Kelly Andre- uzzi, one of the members of the board en- gaged in compiling a list of voters. Police assistance has been asked by Andreuzzi in forcing women to comply with the law. In Hazleton housewives are assessed at a very low figure and their county and State taxes do not run over 50 cents a year, but all are required to pay a $5 per capita tax to the school board. This has aroused considerable opposition. —Watson Jackson and Isaiah Lewis, members of the Negro congregation of the Calvary Baptist church, of Chester, on Saturday were held without bail by alder- man Berry on charges of assault and bat- tery and highway robbery, preferred by the Rev. K. C. Morrison, formerly of Bos- ton, who went to Chester to adjust the tangled affairs of the church. At a con- gregational meeting last week Mr. Morri- son made an earnest plea for co-operation. When he was leaving the church two mem- bers beat him over the head and took his wallet containing $221, — Morris D. Zendt, agent of the Phila- delphia and Reading railway at Souder- ton, on the Bethlehem branch, is the claife ant for the world’s record for continuous service on one job. Forty-seven years ago he took up the duties he performs today. In that time Mr. Zendt has sold 12,000,000 tickets, checked 3,500,000 pieces of baggage and watched 735,000 trains pass his win- dow. When many a now-seasoned engi- neer was still a boy in knee breeches, “Old Man Zenda” as the train crews on the Bethlehem branch call him, was in the railroad business. Mr. Zendt is 69 years old, almost the age of retirement. —Becoming frantic when he learned that a $3000 check in his possession was worth- less, Peter Foy, of Harrisburg, on Sunday night ran from his room in a Pittsburgh hotel, where he had been staying a week, and although six men, including a police- man, tried to overtake him, he made his way to the Allegheny river, leaped into the water and drowned. Paul Evis, pro- prietor of the place where Foy was stay- ing, told the police that Foy came to Pittsburgh from Harrisburg to buy an interest in a rooming house. He displayed a check for $5000 which he had received in a business transaction in Harrisburg. When he learned that the check was worthless, Evis said, Foy apparently lost his mental balance and committed suicide.