Benue Yim INK SLINGS. —This is the kind of weather that makes the coal pile sick and its own- er sicker. —The days are growing noticeably longer and as they lengthen the cold strengthens. —At the same time Pennsylvania’s new Governor was pledging a drive on the “wets” New Jersey’s new chief executive was pledging a drive on the “drys.” —After our experience in shoveling Sunday’s downfall we can assure you that we have no memories that might inspire us to essay a jingle on beau- tiful snow. —Isn’t it the fact that most of our modern governmental processes are conceived and forced into enactment by those who can afford them and paid for by those who can’t. —The only committee assignment we notice given to our new Senator Betts is one on public roads and high- ways. Mr. Beaver has landed as chairman of the House committee on game and is also on the appropria- tions committee. —Mr. Ford has promulgated the idea that the extension of the use of automobiles will gradually eliminate the possibility of wars. Right, O. When everybody owns a Liz. we'll all be too busy tightening up the nuts to give Big Bertha a thought. —We certainly wish Governor Pin- chot well, but at least imagining we know some of the things he’s up against we fear he will find that some of the sheep who are following him so submissively at the start off are not sheep at all, but ravaging wolves. —This Mr. Boyden, who is over on the other side in the capacity of “ob- server” for Uncle Sam, seems to be causing as much commotion as if he were part of the reparations machine- ry. For an administration that will have nothing to do with foreign affairs he seems to be too much of a butter- in to be a good “observer.” —From the published accounts of them the inaugural ceremonies were carried through with about as much pomp and circumstance as usual, not- withstanding the advance announce- ments that they were to be very sim- ple and inexpensive. The inaugural ball was some party, but as a ball it wasn’t in it with the bawl that the “outs” set up in Harrisburg that night. —Years ago Billy Scullin was wont to advertise his sartorial creations in the Tyrone Herald with a quotation that ran “The apparel oft proclaims = Cone acriic 7) O A mace, STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION. BELLEFONTE, PA., JANUARY 19, 1923. NO. 3. Fair Promise to the People. | The personnel of the incoming ad- One Helpful Report. It gives us unusual and it may be asm sacs ——— | First Blood for the Minority. , The Democratic minority in the ministration, in so far as it has been ' added unexpected pleasure to say that House of Representatives at Harris- announced, promises the people of | Pennsylvania an agreeable surprise. | one of the committees appointed by Mr. Pinchot during the recent cam- burg scored a victory at the session on | Monday evening. Under an agree- Most of the officials announced are de- | paign to inquire into “the mess at ment, or at least with the sanction of scribed as “old time friends” of the new Governor which is hardly in it- self an adequate recommendation, for as a matter of fact they are simply blind worshippers of the late Colonel Roosevelt. But they have the unques- tioned merit of being politically “clean” and absolutely free of the taint of the corrupt partisan machine which has been exploiting the public for personal gain and selfish aggrand- izement for a quarter of a century. Even the hold-overs, temporary or permanent, with the probable excep- tion of Dr. Finegan, are easily in this class. During the primary campaign Mr. Pinchot most emphatically condemned the leaders of the machine and by plain implication pledged himself to the elimination of this element from the public life of the Commonwealth. While the campaign for election was pending he appeared equally earnest in his efforts to enlist this sinister force to his support and quite as clearly implied a purpose to continue its leaders in office. As Mr. Henry C. Niles said in his first speech of the campaign, the candidate was deceiv- ing one or the other group of his sup- porters. In common with thousands of others we imagined that the less sophisticated would be the victims; that the .shrewd, calculating and un- | conscionable party bosses would easi- | ly worm the simple-minded altruist into their schemes. 3 It is more than satisfactory, there- fore, learn that appearances inspire hope of the contrary result. Mr. Woodruff, the new Attorney General, may not be an eminent lawyer but he is no politician at all. Dr. King, the incoming Secretary of the Common- | wealth, may not rate high as a states- . man but he shows no symptoms of a machine politician. Miss Potter, who is to be Commissioner of Public Wel- | fare, has not been conspicuous in | 1 1 . methods. ' other Harrisburg” has made a report that may lead to the substantial improve- ment of conditions and reform. in We refer to the committee “to make a survey of hospitals and institutions receiving State aid.” Mr. Kenneth M. L. Pray, to whom this work was assigned, reports that appropriations to such institu- tions in recent years have been “hap- hazard, unscientific and inequitable, capable of serious political abuse, cal- culated to bring constantly increasing burdens upon the Commonwealth” while preventing a proper system. It has been commonly known for years that the charity appropriations made by the Legislature have been based upon political rather than char- itable service. In one case widely commented upon at the time when the vote of a member was needed to en- act a piece of iniquitous legislation ten thousand dollars were appropriated for a hospital in his district that had no exisence and was not even contem- plated by the people or desired. But it achieved the result and it may safe- ly be said that one-third of the char- ity appropriations made within the last quarter of a century have been predicated upon the same fraudulent basis. They are simply used as cur- rency in the purchase of votes for vicious legislation. Mr. Pray points out various other evils in the existing system of making | charity appropriations which ought to be corrected but probably will not be. Analyzing the work of the last ses- sion, for example, he shows that elev- en institutions were voted appropria- tions “despite the Board’s refusal to recommend anything.” The law pro- vides that a recommendation of the Board of Public Charities is essential to securing an appropriation. But the votes of members concerned in the institution in question were need- ed by the machine and the law was the man.” We thought of that idea | public affajzs but. efficient and | violated to get them. -It-may be that of Billy's when we read of the way | capable as a physician. Paul D. the exposure thus made will work. a that Vare delegation, the Union club, of Philadelphia, was dolled up in the inaugural parade. Knowing some- thing of some of those statesmen who wore the two-quart lids, the oxford coats and brown spats, we are won- dering whether their apparel did pro- claim the men. Our idea of it is that the two-quart lid was only a camou- flage. The pint on the hip would have proclaimed that delegation better. —Anent the discussion as to whether the showing of Fatty Arbuckle films should be permitted again we are wondering just why they should be prohibited. = The formerly popular screen comedian is a moral monster, but so long as he wasn’t found out the public went into ecstacies of de- light at his buffoonery. Tomorrow, if showings of his acts should be re- leased, we venture the assertion that the movies showing them would be crowded, notwithstanding the fact that his trial revealed him to be a character who ought to be shunned into oblivion and reform. Believing this to be the fact we rise to remark that the public morals need jacking up a bit. Wouldn’t we feel much finer and cleaner if we could confidentially say to the producers: Go ahead and show 2s much of Fatty as you like. He will bust you, for no one will go to see such a character perform? Of course we would, but we’re afraid to say such a thing because while we know the kettle’s very black we're un- willing ‘to admit that there are a lot of smudges on the pot also. —We regret the lack of positive assurance on the part of the Governor that Mr. N. R. Buller will be retained as Commissioner of Fisheries. So far as certain phases of his work are con- cerned we feel quite as competent to speak as anybody in Pennsylvania for we have had one out-of-door obsession for forty years and that has been trout fishing. We may be in error but we have a hazy notion that we rode with the first consignment of hatchery trout that was planted in Centre county. They came from Cory and were placed in Benner run on top of the Alleghenies. We have fished the streams of Centre and adjoining counties in the days when they were so full of trout it was no trick to fill a creel in a few hours. We have seen these same streams go down and down until a day’s hard work on a lot of them wouldn't yield more than a doz- en. And then we have seen many of them start to come back through the careful and studied attention of Mr. Buller. He has had a great problem to solve because with automobiles and modern highways he has a hundred fishermen ~pleting the streams where there was but one years ago. We speak because of great interest in trout fishing and we want to say right here that Nathan Buller ought to be a fixture where he is so long as he carries on as well as he has been do- ing. Wright, the Highway Commissioner, | may never have built a road but he never built a political machine either. | The other officials named are men of | experience and charagter and the ma- | chine leaders are literally marooned on a desert island without even a pros- | pect of rescue. It is true that 2 sop has been thrown to Mr. Grundy in the an- | nouncement that his faithful friend, John 8S. Fisher, of Indiana, will be | appointed Secretary of Commerce in | the event such an office is created by | the Legislature. This will be a great | boon to Mr. Grundy if the expectation | is fulfilled. The Secretary of Com- | merce will function in matters of | trade and industry and “the power be- | hind the throne” of that functionary will be a potent force in the consid- eration of labor legislation and wel- fare matters, It is Mr. Grundy’s “long suit” and it may be assumed that it will afford ample recompense for the labor and expense he invested in the fight to nominate Mr. Pinchot. But it is far from realization: as yet. The machine; may refuse to create the opportunity. —If we happened to be a member of Governor Pinchot’s staff of advisers we would tell him to get all his big ideas across during this session of the Legislature. Past experience has fairly well established the fact that a Governor's ability to do.things doesn’t amount to much the last two years of his term. ——That faithful animal, the horse, has been more in evidence on the streets of Bellefonte this week than usual. Many farmers who live off of the main highways have been compel- led to resort to the sled and sleigh as their means of travel since the deep snowfall of Sunday. ——In the beginning Governor Pin- chot should fix in his mind the fact that an absurd ambition to be Presi- dent wrecked his two immediate pred- ecessors in office. ——Governor Pinchot is probably treating Senator Bill Vare by the au- tosuggestion process. He never could have worked brother Ed that way. The cost of living may have dropped eleven per cent. in some other place but in “this neck of woods” there are no evidences of the fact. Si ——Let us hope that the growing custom of giving jail sentences to reckless and drunken automobile driv- ers will continue to increase. —— A ———————— ——We don’t suppose it has ever occurred to you, but it is only 86 days until the opening of the trout fishing season. correction of the methods of dispens- ing State charities but there is no certainty of it. ———Every right thinking citizen fa- vors the rigid enforcement of the pro- hibition legislation as well as other laws, but some question the wisdom of bankrupting the country in order to make a false pretense of enforcement. Budget the Only Sure Cure. Dr. Clyde L. King, who is to be Secretary of the Commonwealth as well as budget director if such an of- fice is created, in the new adminis- tration, has just made his report as chairman of the “Pinchot committee on the finances of Pennsylvania,” and it affords plenty of food for reflec- tion on the part of the new Governor. The most important feature of the report is a statement that the State is short in cash to the extent of $28,- 200,000, and that the only hope for a correction of this evil lies in a bud- get, the absence of which in the past is responsible for the trouble. But it has to be the right kind of a budget to accomplish the needed result. It must give the Governor control of in- come as well as expenditures. Auditor General Lewis estimated the revenues for the next appropria- tion period at $112,000,000, which Dr. King believes may be increased to $115,000,000. But of course that will not make up the deficit now existing unless the expenditures are greatly cut down. To achieve this result he suggests the limitation of appropria- tions to $90,000,000 which would al- low $25,000,000 to apply on the old debts. The other three millions, he intimates, may be provided by getting rid of the sinecures in office, the sur- plus. officials and “such employees as put party service above public service, or who work part time for full pay.” But that will be a cruel operation. As a matter of fact, under the ma- chine system of dispensing party spoils, those “who put party service above public service” are most favor- ed and working part time for full pay is the general rule on Capitol Hill. Possibly Mr. Pinchot will be able to change this custom of long standing, and there may be a remote chance that he will enforce his declared rule for a full time day in all the depart- ments. But it will be a radical, even a revolutionary change, and will drive the machine managers to expedi- ents that may work grave disappoint- ments to the new Governor and his well-meaning budget director that is to be. We sincerely hope he may suc- ceed, however. ———The intimate friends of Presi- dent Harding declare that it will be impossible to defeat him for the nom- ination in 1924, which makes betting on a Democratic victory that year like tarine conde fom a baby. Governor Pinchot, Representative Ed- , monds, of Philadelphia, offered a reso- ‘lution providing for important chang- es in the rules of the House. The os- _ tensible purpose of the movement was . to curb the power of the old machine ‘in controlling legislation in commit- (tee. But the real effect of the altera- tion would have been to minimize the - power of the minority over legislation ‘alike in the committees and on the ‘floor. It was promptly opposed by : Representative Rhodes, of Monroe, i Democratic leader, and defeated. The question was probably not of . great importance but the result re- | vealed the fact that even a minority of ' less than one-fifth of the membership can accomplish results if it is united, courageous and vigilant. Representa- tive Edmonds, who is a bitter partisan, making a pretense of reform purposes, imagined his motion would go through without opposition or resistance. Ac- cording to the press reports of the in- cident both the author of the resolu- tion and the Speaker of the House were greatly surprised that opposition developed and as one of the corres- pondents states “consternation over- took Speaker Goodnough, Edmonds and other Republican leaders when they found the resolution was lost.” Of course the resolution will be adopted ultimately for the majority will make the matter a “party ques- tion” and dragoon most of the mem- bers of the party into voting for it. But the temporary victory was of great value to the minority for it proved that there is not only perfect harmony among the Democrats in the body but that they are intelligent and alert. If that condition continues throughout the session many a piece of vicious legislation may be defeated, not temporarily, but permanently. Such incidents, moreover, hearten the Democrats throughout the State and 1 put pep in the rank and file as It was a splendid achievement. ——1It is now Governor Pinchot and almost an entirely new set of cabinet officers. Of course there is no good reason why Centre county shouldn’t get the same kind of treatment from the new administration as any other county in the State, but those who claim to know are predicting that no new state highway work will be done in this county this year. Governor Pinchot’s Inaugural. In his inaugural address delivered to a frigid audience in a freezing at- mosphere, on Tuesday, Governor Pin- chot devoted practically all of his time and attention to prohibition. At the outset he reiterated his primary cam- paign platform and renewed his pledge to fulfill it. He declared he will appoint no one to public office whom he knows to be unfit, and that he will stay in Harrisburg and “be on the job.” His first work will be the readjustment of the finances, the sec- ond the reorganization of the State government and the third the enforce- ment of prohibition. Manifestly the greatest of these is prohibition. By the readjustment of finances he means the payment of overdue debts. “Appropriations in Pennsylvania have exceeded revenues in the last few years,” he says, “therefore we have accumulated liabilities amounting to millions which must be paid off before the State can meet its bills as they fall due.” His remedy for this evil is the budget and a determination to ap- prove no appropriations in excess of the revenues. Nothing could be sim- pler. the revenues, how will the govern- ment function? He leaves this rath- er difficult problem for the Legislature to solve. As a matter of fact, however, he gives the old machine as little com- fort in his inaugural declarations as in his appointments to office. The program he announces as expressing his policies and purposes will simply destroy the machine unless it defeats and destroys him. ' Of course in such a conflict of party interests the sym- pathies of all good citizens will be with the Governor, and we sincerely hope that the public will promptly give him asurances of earnest and active support in order to strengthen his determination to engage in the fight. We shall watch the battle with much interest. —Just naturally Secretary Wood- ward doesn’t relish being legislated out of a job—so the fight is on at Har- risburg at least’ twenty-four hours ahead of the date we had set for its announcement. ——The explorer who has discov ered bread 2400 years old ought to oven r hospite] for dyspentics. Need of a “Brutal Friend.” From the Philadelphia Record. There is general unanimity in the belief that the election results last No- vember were an admonition to the Harding Administration that the men and women voters of the country were not in accord with the President and his advisers, constitutional and other- wise, and they were intent upon lim- iting his powers for carrying out pol- icies disapproved by them. An analy- sis of the returns reveals the fact that what the voters set out to do they ac- tually accomplish. Still, the President had the old Congress at his beck and . call, or at least so he believed, when iin an evil hour he listened to the voice But if the old bills absorb all | {in Reed, of Missouri, b ote 6, commited the ‘country. to's that compe of chairman Lasker, of the Shipping Board, who persuaded him to call the special session in order to put through the Ship Subsidy bill. The special session ended without results, and in the seven weeks that remain of the regular short term there is almost no possibility that Mr. Harding can hope to have the subsidy bill, in any form, reach his desk for signature. Meanwhile it has been announced semi-officially that a Federal Judge in Tennessee is to be promoted to the Supreme court, practically on the en- dorsement of Chief Justice Taft, thus enabling that worthy, but not progres- sive, jurist to pick his own colleagues. The actual appointment has not been made—it seems to be held in abeyance —but there is no indication of a Change in the President’s determina- ion. He has yielded to the demands of the farmers’ bloc in the Senate and has refused to recognize the faithful and efficient service of Governor Hard- ing in the Federal Reserve Board by reappointment, not only casting his namesake out of the Board, but per- mitting the farm bloc to make a selec- tion of Harding’s successor, who hap- pens to be Mr. Crissinger, Comptrol- ler of the Currency and the President’s old friend and neighbor. 1g In the handling of our foreign rela- tions it has been apparent for months that President Harding has been all at sea. Just to cite a single and recent instance: Ambassador Harvey was called from London for conference and has been in Washington at the elbow of Secretary Hughes, with the net re- sult that the Senate, under the lead- ership of the irreconcilable Senator 57 led dential action a later in ordering American ome from German soil. : hesitations and delays, the eva- sions and compromises, the shortcom- Ings and failures of the Harding Ad- ministration up to date might have been avoided or minimized if the President had only adhered to his New Year’s resolution of 1921, when he wrote a letter to H. H. Kohlsaat, the Chicago publisher, who has perform- ed certain personal and confidential services for every President from the days of McKinley. On January 2 of that year, before Mr. Harding became President, he wrote to Mr. Kohlsaat saying that he would be “very glad to have you accept for a full term of service the extremely important office which you have so aptly suggested. I have no doubt it is highly important and extremely valuable to have a bru- tal friend. I am sure it is exceeding- ly Important to have some source of unfailing truth.” If Mr. Kohlsaat’s health will not permit him to B® to Washington and to the White House and proceed to carry out his promise to act as the President’s “brutal friend,” he should make way for some other person com- petent to tell Mr. Harding what’s what, and especially what's wrong with his Administration. EE s The The Mer Rouge Horror. From the New York Evening World. The extravagant imagination of Ed- gar Allen Poe’s tales of horror is fair- ly outdone in the matter-of-fact news accounts of the Mer Rouge outrage in Louisiana. Even Poe could have learned some- thing from the restraint exercised by the investigating attorneys in develop- ing the conclusions of the pathologists who examined the bodies of the vie- Ss. But the terrible inhumanity of the tragedy is there. The tendency is for the imagination to exaggerate it, if that is possible. Perhaps it is too soon to lay this definitely at the doer of the Ku Klux Klan as an Sigahization. But, as the Evening World has pointed out, it is fair to blame the spirit of Ku-Klux- ism which the Klan has raised and fos- ‘tered. Ku Kluxism is a thing inexpress- ibly horrible and terrible. It is the unforeseen fruit of the seeds of hate, intolerance, bigotry and secrecy by the organizers of the Klan. In Louisiana we are witnessing its working out in deeds of sheer and in- describable horror. The revulsion of every well-intentioned but misguided Klansman should result in his resig- nation from the organization, not be- cause the Atlanta organization has been proved responsible for this medi- eval nightmare revealed at Mer Rouge, but rather because the Klan is responsible for the mental atmosphere in whieh such deeds thrive. — Governor Pinchot declared in his inaugural address that his “will be a dry administration.” Does he im- agine there will be no real stuff in the committee ronms during the session o” the Legislatuie? i SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE. —A charter has been obtained for the | Bankers’ Mortgage Company of Altoona, | to be capitalized at $500,000. | —Freeland fire companies have offered to | motorize the apparatus at their own ex- | Dense if council will grant permission. | —The Lavino Furnace company gave { orders for the resumption of operation at i its Lebanon Valley blast furnace at Leb- anon. —While his wife was momentarily ab- sent from his room, Guy E. Johns, an Al- toona store manager, killed himself with a revolver. —The closing of the estate of John Mul- dering, of Berwick, whose death at the age of 94 years occurred several months ago and who worked most of his life as a day laborer, shows he left an estate of $80,000. —Just as he was about to board a train for Washington, D. C., Arelius H. Cow- an, of that city was arrested at Connells- ville on a warrant charging embezzlement of $30,000 from the Uniontown Grocery company of that city, of which he was manager. —Wanted by federal officers on the charge of stealing American Express com- pany checks, valued at $600 at the Hotel Sterling, at Wilkes-Barre, J. C. Williams was arrested by captain of police Sim- mers at Easton, on Saturday, after he stepped off a train from Philadelphia. —=Seven children were injured, three ser- iously, when a ten year old pupil tried to pry open a dynamite signal torpedo in one of the rooms of the Adah school, near Brownsville, last Wednesday. One boy will probably lose the sight of his right eye and two others suffered mutilated fin- gers. The others were injured in the stam- pede rushing for exits. —The Adelaide silk mills, of Allentown, as announced by Albert Tilt, general man- ager of the plant, will manufacture 10,000,- 000 yards of silk dress goods. The mills of the company in Allentown and Pottsville will be put on full time at once. The or- der, said to be the largest ever given at a mill in tkis country, involves more than $20,000,000, it is announced. Two thousand operators will be affected. —Sam Andraes, who was convicted last June at criminal court in Hollidaysburg, charged with dynamiting the home of Joseph Aluise, of Williamsburg, and who was denied a new trial by the Blair coun- ty court, was on Monday morning sentenc-’ ed by Judge Baldridge to a term of im- prisonment in the western penitentiary of not less than three nor more than four years, and to pay a fine of $100 and costs of prosecution. —Recovery of a gunny sack containing 1000 silver dollars, from the cellar of a house in Bradford occupied by the late Fred Smith, has brought the total amount of cash found hidden about the premises to $3500. Currency and bills amounting to about $4500 had been previously found hid- den in a clock. Smith was a widewer and had lived alone since the death of his wife four years ago. He had followed his oe- cupation as a carpenter and ten days ago was stricken with an attack of heart dis- ease and died. —John Cesario and Fred Yesula, twelve year old boys of McAdoo, who took their fathers’ dinner cans to them at the Dick strippings, were buried under an ava- ter, was hurt trying to save them. Both | of the boys were squeezed badly and may be internally hurt. Workmen shoveled the salt off them in time to save them from being suffocated. Salt is used by the car- load at the daylight mines to keep tracks free from snow. —Westmoreland county authorities on Saturday were advised by the Cleveland police of the arrest in that city of Joseph Torreno, wanted at Greensburg in connee- tion with the death of Michael Misosla four years ago. Traced throughout the country since the killing, he was located in Cleveland and the Westmoreland county authorities asked the police to hold him. An officer went to Cleveland on Saturday to take the man back to Greensburg. Mis- osla was stabbed to death in Torreno's home at Scottdale in 1918. ; —A titled waitress has been found in Pittsburgh. She is the Baroness Rose Van BorsKassay, formerly of the imperial court of Austria, new of the William Penn hotel staff. Papers in her possession indicate she was born in Budapest and is 33 years old. At the outbreak of the war she fled to the United States and became Miss Rose Von Bors-Kassay. Her fortune also was swept away, and in an effort to earn a liv- ing in this country she sang on the con- cert stage. She became stranded in Pitts- burgh recently and became a waitress. -—Charged with conspiring, cheating and defrauding John H. Thomas and William Kanetsky, of Shamokin, out of $3025 and $1500, respectively, the officers of the Pro- gressive Cement and Tile Sales Corpora- tion, operating at Pottsville, Shamokin, Williamsport and Harrisburg, were ar- raigned before a local justice, and held un- der $5000 bail each. The money was paid as the purchase price for building lots and after repeated requests for deeds, suit was brought. Other purchasers of lots and stockholders in the corporation plan sim- ilar action. —Martin Burke, of Pittsburgh, sentenced at Cleveland, recently, to serve thirteen months in the Atlanta penitentiary for vio- lating the prohibition laws, was murdered at his home in the Smoky city on Satur- day night by a man who escaped in an au- tomobile bearing an Ohio license plate. The city motorcycle squad is guarding all roads leading into Ohio. Burke was seat- ed in the parlor of his home in South Fairmont avenue discussing a business deal with a friend when the doorbell rang. As he opened the door a man placed a pis- tol against his stomach, said, “I've got you now,’ ’and fired. Burke fell and the mur- derer ran down the steps and jumped into a waiting automobile. —The riverside residence of Mrs. Lyman D. Gilbert, 205 North Front street, Harris- burg, will be the headquarters of the Penn- sylvania League of Women Voters during the session of the Legislature. Mrs. Gil- bert, who left on Sunday for a trip to Aus- tralia, has turned the house over to the League, and it will be used as a place of conference on League and legislative mat- ters. Among those who moved into the house on Monday were Mrs. J. O. Miller, of Pittsburgh, president of the League; Miss Martha G. Thomas, of Whitford. Chester county, a member of the House and treasurer of the League; Mrs. Harriet Hubbs, of Philadelphia; Mrs. Lawrence Lewis Smith, of Haverford, and possibly Miss Alice M. RBentlay, of Moeadvilie, onoth- er member of the lots, the storage house. John Parry, a carpen-