Bese Wald
"Bellefonte, Pa., January 19, 1923.
WHATEVER YOU ARE.
If you can’t be a pine at the top of the hill
Be a scrub in the valley—but be
‘The best little scrub at the side of the rill;
Ba a bush if you can’t be a tree.
If you can’t be a bush be a bit of grass,
Some highway to happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a
bass,
But be the liveliest bass in the lake.
We can't all be captains, we've got to be
crew,
There's something for all of us here;
There's big work to do and there's lesser
to do,
And the task we must do is the near.
If you can’t be a highway, then just be a
trail;
If you can’t be the sun be a star,
It isn’t by size that you win or you fail—-
Be the best of whatever you are.
—Selected.
“THE MESS.”
By Margaret H. Barnett.
When cases are tried in court, it
frequently happens that testimony
of the witnesses on one side is direct-
ly contradicted by the witnesses on
the other side. It is the province of the
jury to weigh the evidence, and deter-
mine the facts, in the case, and bring
in a verdict in accordance with the
facts. Sometimes it is a difficult task.
In weighing the evidence in regard
to the condition of our State govern-
ment, a jury would have an easy task,
for there is remarkable agreement
among the witnesses, even those of
different political parties.
There have been investigations, of-
ficial and unofficial, and all the inves-
tigators agree, substantially, in their
findings.
During the campaign recently clos-
ed, the gubernatorial candidates of the
two leading parties, and the candi-
dates for other State offices, all had
the same story to tell. The campaign
speeches of the candidates of one po-
litical party sounded like an echo of
the speeches of the candidates of the
other party.
A few years ago, if one political
party had made a charge of bad gov-
ernment against the other party, the
charge would have been resented and
denied. But in this last campaign,
the charges of the Democrats were
the statements of the Republicans.
These points are not in dispute:
The affairs of the State government
ar> in a “mess.”
The “mess” is a very bad one.
Some one must “clean it up.”
The payrolls of the State carry the
names of many unnecessary job-hold-
ers.
The State government must be re-
organized.
‘The only difference between the two
parties in the recent campaign was as
to which party was best fitted to
“clean up the mess.” Each party claim-
ed that its candidates were the prop-
er ones to do the “cleaning up” work.
These are some of the high points
of the situation in the State:
The people of the State are heavily
taxed, taxed to the limit. The hand of
the tax collector reaches into the cra-
dles of babies, and clutches at the
aged as they are departing into that
“Undiscovered Country,” whence no
traveler returns.
The State is practically bankrupt.
According to a financial plan sug-
gested by Senator George W. Wood-
ward, chairman of the commission on
the reorganization of the State gov-
ernment, it will take twelve years to
put the State on a sound financial ba-
sis.
The public schools of the State are
crippled for lack of funds. In some
parts of the State, the schools were
closed part of last year. In some
places, the teachers were told, at the
end of the term, that they would have
to wait for their salaries, as the State
appropriation had not been paid, and
the school board had already borrow-
ed to the limit allowed by law. When
the schools opened in the fall, state
appropriations due six months before
had not been paid.
Senator Woodward has listed as
“dispensables” a number of persons
and things, whose salaries and cost
aggregate $584,400.
The State has been paying salaries
to job-holders who are without jobs.
There is a story, which is a favorite
one in the capital city, to the effect
that two men, who, for convenience,
may be called A and B, went to the
#Hill” to assume their duties. A said
po 8B, “What is your work?”
‘B weplied, “I am to open certain
doors at certain times of the day.”
And A said, “I am to close those
doors at certain times of the day.”
This story may not be true in the
latter, but it is certainly true in the
spirit. This is evidenced by the cam-
i. p@ign promises of some of the candi-
Qates, that in future, there would be
no “overlapping” of employees, and
that only as many would be employe
as were needed to do the work. As
evidence, also, might be mentioned the
case of a man who was a deputy sher-
iff in one of the counties of the State,
under his own name, and an em-
ployee on the payrolls of the State,
under a different name.
Bt time would fail to tell the whole
story. :
a neylvania has always had its
Governor, its Lieutenant Gogernor, its
Attorney General, with an abundance
of deputies, its Auditor General, and
other officials, But we may adapt the
language of another writer, and say of
‘the Good Ship Pennsylvania, “Who-
ever stood at the wheel, political ex-
pediency steered the ship.” Political
expediency does not concern
with the interests of the people of the
State at large. ; b
This week a new administration be-
gan, The people of the State are
nwaiting anxiously to see whether it
will be new in fact, or new only in
name; whether it will begin a new era grees.
in our State government, or whether
it will be only the same old kind of
government, with a new label.
"In a short time the new Legislature
will function. For the first time In
d | to old age.
itself |
the history of the State, it is appro-
priate to address the Legislature as
“ladies and gentlemen.”
And so, ladies and gentlemen of
the present Legislature, you will as-
sume your duties at a time when your
State needs your help to free her from
the evils from which she is suffering.
You will have a great opportunity to
do a great work for a great Common-
wealth. There are two hundred and
fifty-eight of you, and you will,
doubt, accomplish much.
Our government is divided into
three departments, legislative, execu-
tive and judicial. Your department is
the basis of the other two. You make
the laws which the executives execute.
You make the laws which the judges
interpret. Realizing the importance
of your work as Legislators, you will
take it more seriously than such work
has been taken in the past.
When you take your oath of office,
you will swear that you will “Support,
obey and defend the Constitution of
the United States and the Constitu-
tion of this Commonwealth.” The puxr-
pose and aim of the Federal Consti-
tution, as set forth in the preamble,
is, in part, “To establish justice, in-
sure domestic tranquility, * * ;
promote the general welfare.” The
preamble of the Constitution of Penn-
sylvania is, “We, the people of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
grateful to Almighty God for the
blessings of civil and religious liberty,
and humbly invoking His guidance, do
ordain and establish this Constitu-
tion.”
These two preambles should give
the keynote of all legislative enact-
ments,—justice, the general welfare,
sought under the guidance of God.
You will no doubt make these aims
the guiding principle of your career
as Legislators.
You will take as your motto those
words of Lincoln in his second inaugu-
ral, “In firmness for the right, as
God gives us to see the right,” instead
of that which seems to have been the
motto heretofore, “For political expe-
diency, as the bosses give us to see it.”
You will remember that you repre-
sent all your constituents, all the men
and women of your various districts,
not merely a few who have constitut-
ed themselves “The Organization.”
You will legislate in the interest of
your constituents.
You will study all bills that come
before you carefully, and your vote on
a bill will register the result of this
careful study.
You will handle the peoples’ money
as carefully as you would your own.
The Legislature of 1921 gave the
State the Woner Act, which the North
American has pronounced “The most
vicious piece of legislation passed in
our day.” You will give the State a
better enforcement act.
You will have the last word on any
reorganization plan which the com-
mission appointed for the purpose
may submit. You will study the mat-
ter carefully, and be ready to act on
it intelligently. 3
Instead of bending your energies to
find “new sources of revenue” for the
State, you will endeavor to eliminate
old sources of graft.
The cost of administering the gov-
ernment seems to be represented by
X in the State’s problem—at least so
it seems to the people of the State.
You will ascertain the numerical val-
ue of this unknown quantity, a very
necessary step, if there is to be a real
“cleaning up.”
At least, we hope you will.
no
State Health Laws Enforced.
Seven members of a school board in
Westmoreland county recently entered
pleas of guilty to a charge of violat-
ing the vaccination law of Pennsylva-
nia, and were sentenced to pay fines
of $10.00 each. They permitted the
entrance of children to school without
a certificate of successful vaccination
against smallpox, and paid no atten-
tion to orders from the State Health
Department that they comply with
the law.
Col. Wm. J. Crookston, chief of the
division of school health, says there
are other school directors and teachers
who have ignored the vaccination
law, and in every instance follow-up
work is under way. Where prompt
compliance with the law is not forth-
coming, prosecutions will be brought.
“Twenty-two cases of smallpox in
one section of Philadelphia, which, ac-
cording to health authorities there,
are all traceable to one neglected case,
is sufficient warning that strict en-
forcement of the State vaccination
law must be carried out,” he contin-
ued.
“To afford proper protection
throughout the State, we can permit
no violation of the law by school au-
thorities anywhere.”
— Figures from the census bu-
reau show that the average length of
life in the United States during the
last decade increased several years.
Out of the 1,000,000 deaths occurring
within the twenty-four States under
registration by the bureau containing
about 74 per cent. of the country’s
population less than 13,000 were due
In 1920 the average life
was b4 years for females and 56 for
males. Kansas leads the list with an
average of 59 years for males and 60
for females. Among cities Washing-
males and 59 for females, while New
York comes low in the list.
served that areas having large colored
population usually have a high death
rate.
California Fruit Trees Bud Three
Months Early.
San Bernardinc, Cal.—Decidious
fruit trees and grape vines through-
out San Bernardino county are strai-
ing to bud three months ahead of na-
ture’s schedule. Since December 18th
there have been 18 days in which
the maximum temperature did not
drop helow 70 degrees and for four
about the 90 degree mark, including
‘one day of summer weather at 92 de-
Growers and vineyardists are
uneasy over the situation, fearing that
one frosty night would kill next year’s
crop.
ee —————————
—Read your own “Watchman.”
ton leads with an average of 53 for
days the thermometer has hovered |
FARM NOTES.
—The roots of all plants in friable,
well-drained soils run far deeper than
the casual observer would suppose.
Any one who will examine the sides
of a newly dug well will not regard
five feet in depth as an unreasonable
extent of root pasturage for our culti-
vated plants, especially top-rooted clo-
vers.
There are several advantages of a
cover crop, among them being the pre-
vention of mechanical loss of soil by
washing or blowing away, the catch-
ing of soluble fertility which might
leach from the soil if no plants were
present, the addition of humus to the
soil, the root solution of inert plant
food which is thus made more availa-
ble and, providing the legumes are
used, another and most important ad-
vantage is the fixation of free nitro-
gen from the air.
—The soil is tilled to eradicate
weeds, to conserve moisture and to
make available plant food. Probably
if it were not for the presence of
weeds there would be very little culti-
vation done. It does not require a
great philosopher to see that a corn-
field choked by quack grass and mus-
tard would be benefited by the culti-
vator. Comparatively few have come
into the knowledge that the same
treatment makes rain less indispensa-
ble, and fewer still have come to see
that cultivation makes inert plant food
available.
There is a great field for growing
such crops as rye, rape, crimson clo-
ver and the like, which may be ob-
the regular crop is harvested. Most
long-cultivated soils have deteriorat-
ed more owing to bad mechanical con-
dition consequent upon the loss of hu-
mus than the exhaustion of the plant
food. A crop on the ground is a
strong safeguard against the loss of
manure by leaching, and this rule is
at least simple and practicable: Ap-
plications of soluble manures are best
made to the growing crop or on lands
where a crop will soon appear.
—~Can the value of a woman on the
farm be figured in dollars and cents?
Since the time when the first hardy
pioneers pushed their way over the un-
charted forests of the Alleghenies,
praises of the loyal wife and the
daughters of the man who wrested his
living from the soil have been sung
in song and story.
The Society of Farm Women of
Pennsylvania, at their fourth annual
convention to be held in connection
with the seventh annual State Farm
Products show to be held in Harric-
burg the week of January 23, will en-
deavor to place the value of the farm
woman on the cold basis of dollars
and cents.
The farm women, whose sessions
will be open to all women attending
the farm show, have on their program
for Wednesday morning, January 24,
this subject, “What is the farm wom-
an’s value to the farm in dollars and
cents?” It will be a round table dis-
cussion and the women assigned to
discuss it include Mrs. Harry Hagar,
Cambria county; Mrs. George G.
C. Brubaker, Lancaster county; Miss
May Hoover, Somerset county, and
Mrs. H. C. Johnson, Warren county.
—If all the fertility in the first foot
lands which would not grow 100 suec-
cessive crops of corn or wheat and
many soils would grow several hun-
dred. Besides, in addition to the plant
food in the layers of soil, the roots of
the potential wealth of the soil is
practically inexhaustible.
But a very small part of this wealth
is readily available. Most of it is
locked up in very stable combinations.
but serious diminution of available
plant food is woefully common.
Land is made more fertile by (1)
the direct addition of plant food,
either by means of farm manures or
by commercial fertilizer; (2) the me-
chanical improvement of the land by
culture and drainage, the effect of
these operations being both to set free
fertility and to allow a more ready
penetration of the soil by the roots of
the plants; (3) by the use of cover
crops and crops for green manuring
and the growing of leguminous plants.
By the use of this system it is sought
to supply humus to the soil to bring
up fertility from lower depths, and in
a case of leguminous plants te fix the
free nitrogen of the air; (4) by the
yearly addition of small quantities of
nitrogen in the form of ammonia and
nitric acid contained in the rain and
Snow.
—More than 6,000 exhibits of farm
products will be entered in the sev-
enth annual State Farm Products
show to be held at Harrisburg, the
week of January 23. This number
may even be surpassed, as indicated
by the number of entries that have
already been received by the Pennsyl-
vania Department of Agriculture and
the various county farm agents.
The corn and apple shows to be
held in connection with the Agricul-
ture week, will be the largest that
have ever been held in the eastern
section of the United States. No less
than fifteen county exhibits of apples
| will be made, or more than three
It is ob- |
times the number of such exhibits
ever entered at a previous show.
The 6,000 exhibits of farm products
will represent every county in the
State, not a single county being with-
out an exhibit of some kind. The
products will include everything that
is grown on the farm and this great
number of entries has been secured,
not so much on account of the cash
| value of the prizes, as the distinction
that goes with winning a ribbon at
the State show. A State show ribbon
is the highest honor that a farmer in
Pennsylvania may secure for his
prize winning products.
With even more space than was
available for last year’s show, a num-
ber of departments will be cramped
for space this year, notably the ap-
ple and corn sections.
Every indication points to the fact
, that this year’s show will establish a
‘new record that will stand for some
vears to come.
tained at a very small expense after’
Strosnider, Greene county; Mrs. Da-
vid Rees, Washington county; Mrs. J. |
of soil were avaliable there are few :
plants may extend to a depth of sev-
eral feet, which is a guarantee that
Real soil exhaustion is a misnomer, !
.
SOMETIMES DO REAL INJURY.
Workers Peculiar in Balking at What
is Branded as Philanthropic—In-
stances of Gifts that Failed of Pur-
pose.
B. Rickard Spillane, in the Philadelphia
Public Ledge.
Money misapplied does little good
and sometimes real harm.
The record would go to show that
the man who knows how to accumu-
late a fortune does not always know
how to leave it.
Jay Gould was immensely rich, a
wizard at making money. Practically
his whole estate went to his family.
Since then every major property he
controlled, with one or two exceptions,
has known bankruptcy, and his heirs
have been in almost continuous litiga-
tion.
A. T. Stewart, greatest retail mer-
chant of his time, whose business was
taken over by John Wanamaker, left
the bulk of his fortune for a working
girls’ hotel in New York and for a
Cathedral and other developments at
Garden City. Working girls wouldn’t
patronize the working girls’ hotel and
it was transformed into the Park Av-
enue Hotel of today. Stewart, man
of wealth, is forgotten, but two immi-
grant boys who worked in his store
are not. One became a Supreme court
justice in New York; the other ranks
as one of the greatest living orators.
The litigation over Stewart’s will cost
millions of dollars.
Russell Sage left about $80,000,000.
! Part of it was applied to building a
“model” residential community for
persons of modest means. A real es-
tate company has it now.
George Peabody, master merchant
in America and later master merchant
in England, made many contributions
for public benefit, but the largest of
all, that for “model” homes for Lon-
don’s workers, brought little or no
I good.
| Workers are peculiar in balking at
what is branded as philanthropic.
Stephen Girard, richest man in
America at the time of his death and
one of the wisest men of his period,
meant that his fortune should be em-
ployed for the good of mankind. The
| estate today includes large stretches
i of coal lands, many business buildings
{in Philadelphia, together with the
i Girard development in South Philadel-
phia and Girard College.
| In the college the estate does excel-
| lent work. The dwellings of the Gi-
rard “Farm”—nearly 400 in all—are
; admirably built and their rental cost
iis based at 4 per cent. net return to
| the estate, which furnishes not only
ihe heat and light, but other facili-
ies.
But the estate gets a heavy revenue
from its coal lands. The higher the
price of coal the more the estate re-
ceives. Its income from this source
exceeds $2,000,000 a year. And yet
Girard never meant to levy such trib-
ute on the public, for one provision of
his will is for the income from $10,-
000 to be applied each year to the fur-
nishing of fuel to the poor of Phila-
delphia.
We hear much of Girard but little
of Robert Richard Randall, yet they
were not unlike. Randall was of both
‘land and sea, and, like Girard, knew
t how to feather his nest. When, about
125 years ago, he felt he didn’t have
much longer to live, he went to Alex-
ander Hamilton for advice. The great
statesman said, in effect: “Captain,
you have been something of a priva-
teer. You have some money and you
have some land. You are unmarried.
Out of ships and sailors you have
made what you possess. Why not
- show your gratitude and provide a ha-
‘ven, a home for the aged and the
broken among those who go down to
the sea in ships?”
So it is today we have Sailors’
Snug-Harbor—world famed, and just-
ly so, the most remarkable institution
| of its character in the world. And
! what do you suppose Randall’s farm,
, which was worth perhaps $50,000 in
- Hamilton's time, is worth today ? Per-
haps $50,000,000. It was in that sec-
tion around what now is Broadway
and Tenth street, New York.
D. O. Mills provided for model ten-
| ements and Mills hotels, so-called.
| The model “tenements” were
swamped with clever persons who saw
opportunity to get good quarters at
low rental. They have done no geod
for tenement dwellers. The Mills ho-
tels, however, have proved of real
{
i
|
|
i
Andrey Carnegie spent many mil-
lions on libraries.
i John D. Rockefeller has spent a tre-
: mendous sum in solving the problems
connected with human ailments.
Rockefeller’s work has been better
directed than Carnegie’s and is more
unselfish.
: What generally of the millionaires
' and multi-millionaires of today ?
i The crop is not so big as in the war-
boom period, but it is greatly in excess
! of that of ten years back and is like-
i ly to keep swelling year by year. And
two men of today—Henry Ford and
Rockefeller-—probably have as much
as any ten multi-millionaires had ten
year ago. Fortunes are getting big-
ger. Their proper handling after the
death of those who made them grows
more important. It is with apprecia-
tion of this fact, no doubt, that Rock-
efeller has given earnest attention to
the reduction of his wealth by intelli-
gent distribution now rather ‘than
trusting wholly to courts or executors.
The Dilatory Worker.
We probably all know people who
seem to be, as they express it, “always
in a rush,” yet who are always just a
little late. They find apparently al-
most a pleasurable excitement in put-
ting off till the last moment the per-
formance of necessary tasks and then
executing them under high pressure.
No doubt there is something stimulat-
ing in having to accomplish certain
results within a given time, but a
good many persons in allotting their
time seem to mistake the harassing
for the stimulating.
Every teacher knows that, if on
a Tuesday he assigns a task to be
completed by the following Tues-
i
BENEFACTIONS MISAPPLIED
day, a considerable percentage of the
class will begin work upon it on Mon-
day evening. He knows too that there
is a very small fraction of the class
who will set to work upon it immedi-
ately. He can soon tell which of his
pupils are the forehanded and which
the dilatory workers. It may be tha:
the forehanded workers will not al-
ways do the best work. Some of the
dull pupils are suré to be among the
forehanded ones; they have found
that they have to be, in order-to keep
up at all; and often among the dila-
tory pupils there are the brightest
minds. But if not overcome the hab-'
it of dilatoriness will eventually slow
up a naturally bright and active mind
and the habit of forehandedness, if
maintained, will often quicken a dull
one.—Ex.
—— eee.
——It isn’t too late to send the
“Watchman” to that friend of yours.
|
HOOD’S SARSAPARILLA.
The Economy of
Hood’s Sarsaparilla
Appeals to every family in these
days. From no other medicine can you
get so much real medicinal effect as
from this. It is a highly concentrated
extract of several valuable medicinal
ingredients, pure and wholesome. The
dose is small, only a teaspoonful three
times a day.
Hood’s Sarsaparilla is a wonderful
tonic medicine for the blood, stom-
ach, liver and kidneys, prompt in giv-
ing relief. It is pleasant to take,
agreeable to the stomach, gives a
thrill of new life. Why not try it? %
7-35
GASTORIA
For Infants and Children.
5s A CTD Mothers Know That
i _ALGOH
AVegetablePreparal
imilating theFood
fing the Stomachs and Bowels
|" Thereby Promoting Digestion
Cheerfulness and Rest ConfaitS|
: Morphine not]
: neither Opiam, NARGOTIC
A helpful Remedy fof
{ Bears the
{ Signature
Genuine Castoria
Always
of
Use
For Over
Thirty Years
GASTORIA
THE CENTAUR COMPANY, NEW YORK CITY.
ination and Diarr
Cart and
Loss OF SL ey.
resirfting therefrom TET" 4
08 8 mmm—"
FooSimile Signature of
er SRT TU
Cg 40 CENTS
:
Exact Copy of Wrapper.
?
ie
All Suits, all Overcoats--Men’s and
td fl el NS ANI NAPS
®
Boys’--at a reduction of 25 percent.
AAA AA ON ANS SSIS AAS IEA SSSA SNA
These reductions begin Saturday
TC
January 6 and positively end Jan-
uary 20
Don’t miss this sale—it’s an oppor-
tunity for real saving
It’s at, Fauble’s