INK SLINGS. —It seems that President Cool- idge has no objection to participating in affairs in Mexico. —One of the real reasons that the Black and White Revue was so good was that it featured the Bible all the way through. —The success of the Kendrick ad- ministration will be measured more by the accomplishments of the police in suppressing vice in that city than by the work of any other department. And the policy will succeed or fail in accordance with the determination with which Mayor Kendrick stands behind “Smed” Butler. —The Senate deadlock over the chairmanship of the committee on In- terstate Commerce was broken, on ‘Wednesday, by the election of a Dem- ocrat, Senator Smith, of South Caro- lina, to that powerful position. Six of the Republican insurgents in the Sen- ate voted with the Democrats and ended the deadlock that has existed since December 3rd. Senator Bruce, the Maryland Democrat, voted to the last with the Republicans. —The Mellon tax reduction plan over which the Republican press is trying to work the country into a hys- teria of approbation, will save a mil- lion and a half a year for the person whose income is five million a year and twelve dollars and seventy-five cents for the fellow whose income is four thousand a year. While the vast majority of the people have incomes of less than four thousand a year the Mellon plan saves nothing for them, yet they are the ones who have the votes and are supposed to hurrah over such hokum. —Mrs. Pinchot told the Republican women of Dauphin county, on Tues- day, that her husband needs more laws with which to enforce the Vol- stead act in Pennsylvania. She urged them to help divorce enforcement from politics and to vote for only such nom- inees for the Legislature as will promise to pass all the laws Gif. puts up to them. Cordelia is indeed a wordy lady. With all her fine phrases we don’t believe she would come up in to Centre county and stump for a Democrat who was running on the platform to support her husband to the nth degree in enforcement if there were a wet Republican running for the Legislature against the dry Dem- ocrat. —As she was being taken from the court room in Philadelphia, after hav- ing been convicted of murder in the second degree, Mrs. Kathryn Miller fought with the officers and shrieked: “If Mrs. Rosier could kill two and go free, why must I go to jail?” In that screaming expression of her realiza- tion that there is a penalty to be paid for taking a human life was revealed the danger society exposes itself to every time it lets sentimentality thwart justice. Doubtless reassured by the long list of women who have recently killed and gone free Mrs. Miller thought she could keep any other woman from getting her lover by killing him and escape the conse- quences. But she hasn’t, and, thanks to the courage of a real jury, a cer- tain class of women will realize the danger of totin’ guns and shooting down men whose love they have been unable to gain or retain. —TFire marshall Bob Kline seems to take his job seriously. His report to council on the work of the fire de- partment for 1923 was not only com- prehensive, but interesting, as well. With forty fires that might have de- stroyed $270,650 worth of property handled in such a way that losses to- talling only $11,500 were incurred we think it meet that Marshall Kline or some one should call public attention to what those “bad men,” the Logans and Undines, are really “loafing” around the hose houses all the time for. While they are “loafing” they might be playing a game of pinochle or five hundred—or something else, but if they hadn’t had something to draw them to the side of the appara- tus they might not have saved $260, 050 worth of property from destruc- tion. And Marshall Kline is right in his suggestion that such a record should be an unanswerable argument should local fire insurance policy hold- ers unite in a demand for a reduction in the Bellefonte rate. —Samuel Smed Butler let the cat out of the bag in Philadelphia, on Tuesday, when he told the police of that city that if they do their duty his greatest hour might come by march- ing down Pennsylvania Avenue at the head of the marines when Mayor Ken- drick, of Philadelphia, becomes Presi- dent Kendrick, of the grand old U. S. A. Some may think he let the cat out of the bag. We don’t. He merely re- vealed the cat in the bag. Any one with a mite of political perspicacity might have seen that Kendrick is playing a big game. A smart poli- tician’s game of heads I win, tails you lose. If he reforms Philadelphia, even by sacrificing a lot of his erst- while political friends, he automatic- ally makes himself a potential candi- date for Governor—that is if the east can put over three nominees in suc- cession. If he becomes Governor he can have a grand time fixing up the Philadelphia martyrs or make a rec- ord at Harrisburg that might lead to Washington and there he could dic- tate just what should be done for the political crooks who are running to cover now under the lash of his new Director of Public Safety. Yes, Ken- drick has it coming and going and if he doesn’t take advantage of the situ- ation he’s an it. STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION. VOL. 69. BELLEFONTE, PA., JA Mr. Bok’s $100,000 Prize. As only one of the 22,165 peace plans submitted in response to the re- ward offered by Mr. Edward W. Bok has been given to the public it is im- possible to measure the judgment of the arbiters. The $100,000 offered was an enticement to effort and it is not surprising that the responses were numerous. It may be assumed, moreover, that the award has been properly made. The plan is elaborate and in the main fair. It recommends immediate entrance into the perma- nent court of international justice, not for the reason that it is independent | of the League of Nations, but mem- | bership in the court would be leading in the direction of membership of the League, which is the logical destina- tion. ’ If the author of the plan accepted had been as frank as he is capable he would not have written “that without becoming a member of the League of | Nations as at present constituted, the : United States shall offer to extend its present co-operation with the League and participate in the work of the League as a body of mutual counsel | under conditions.” That implies & | challenge of the value of the League | “as at present constituted” when he must have known that it is as nearly | perfect as it was possible to make it at the time it was written, and was as certain to achieve the purpose for which it was created as human en- | deavor could make it. Palpably he was throwing a tub to the whale of . party prejudice. Even at that, plan No. 1469, which has been unanimously approved by the board of judges, is a carefully thought out and admirably expressed scheme to promote and preserve peace throughout the world in the future. It exposes the fallacy of an “Association of Nations” such as the late President Harding professed to have in mind and reveals the absurdity of President Coolidge’s flippant dismissal of the subject as “a closed incident.” The ratification of the treaty of Versailles and the covenant of the League of Nations by the United States Senate in 1920 would not only have averted the war clouds and economic evils in Europe since but would have restored prosperity in this country three years ago. — After two years of careful con- sideration of the subject chairman W. Harry Baker has declined the office of prothonotary of the Supreme court, and a Philadelphia follower of Roosevelt has been appointed. Won- der what Baker gets that’s better than $10,000 a year for life? Snyder’s Charge Sustained. State Treasurer Snyder is not al- ways accurate in his statements con- cerning Governor Pinchot but his re- cent charge that the Governor has been maintaining a private pay roll seems to be supported by the facts. During the session of the Legislature the Governor asked for an appropria- tion of $250,000 for use at the discre- tion of the Attorney General which was refused. But the usual appro- priation for the personal expenses of the Governor and the maintenance of the executive mansion was made and the Governor used it for the purposes for which the special fund was intend- | million dollars a year. ed. In thus using the money the Gov- | ernor neglected to specify to whom the payments were made. It has been customary for many years to appropriate money for the personal expenses of the Governor and the report of the use of the fund by Governor Brumbaugh caused con- siderable amusement throughout the State. Among other luxuries charg- ed to his account were expensive cigarettes, luxurious soft drinks and the pressing or creasing of the guber- natorial trousers. In this way he ex- hausted nearly the entire amount. Governor Sproul used comparatively little of the amount allowed him. Be- ing a very rich man he probably rea- soned that such expenses as creasing trousers could be met by draughts on his private funds. But he was scru- pulously careful to make an accurate statement of his expenditures. Governor Pinchot is likewise amply able to pay his personal bills out of his abundant resources and conceived the idea that he might safely use the personal appropriation to carry out a plan which failed to appeal to the Legislature. He could have paid the expenses of his enterprise out of his private purse. It was only a trifle more than that paid for his nomina- tion. But he figured that it was pub- lic business and the public had a right to pay for it. How he reconciled his conscience to the evasion if not the actual violation of the law remains to be seen. He has not taken the pub- lic into his confidence on this point. But he certainly threw himself open to censure, roe Doctrine was declared. If Premier Baldwins tenure of | office was as fixed as that of Secretary Hughes he could please himself bet- ter and be less uneasy. The falsity of Secretary Mellon’s profession of tax reform has been ex- posed by a statement of Representa- tive Garner, of Texas, ranking Demo- crat on the House committee on Ways and Means, issued the other day. Mr. Mellon’s plan is admirable for him- self. It would cut his income tax bill down something like $100,000 and work similar advantages to the six to eight thousand multimillionaires whose incomes range from half to a But the sav- ing to the twenty or thirty million of small income tax payers would be trifling. Yet the shrewd Secretary imagines that he can fool the vast majority by saving them the few dol- lars on their hard earned incomes. But Representative Garner doesn’t rest with the exposure of this false pretense. He reminds the Secretary that the great burden of taxes which is impoverishing the people of the United States is not on incomes. It is the tariff tax which holds the cost of living on a level that literally works the confiscation of wages, not only on those favored with comforta- ble salaries but the lower paid labor- ers in the industrial life of the coun- try. The single man who earns a thousand dollars a year or the family man who gets twenty-five hundred dollars a year in wages for his work could pay the four per cent. on his in- come if the price of food, clothing and shelter were obtainable at reasonable rates. Mr. Garner cordially endorses the income tax suggested by Mr. Mellon on small incomes but objects to the proposed cut on the tax of the un- earned incomes of the millionaires. It is neither fair nor equitable to those who are robbed of their earnings from labor by the exorbitant prices of every necessity of life, which is the result of tariff legislation enacted by the last Congress in fulfillment of a contract made by the Republican managers with the contributors to the campaign slush fund in 1920. - Everybody is in favor of a tax reduction but the tax on incomes is not the most oppressive tax burden. If you want to relieve a man remove the evil that is hurting most. sens ssl fy ———— ——The change in the shore limit from three to twelve miles may have made some difference in some ways but it has not perceptibly decreased the volume of hootch on the market. New Element in Foreign Policy. In authorizing the sale of war im- plements and munitions to the gov- ernment of Mexico President Coolidge has injected a new and menacing ele- ment into the foreign policy of this country. For more than half a cen- tury Mexico has been a source of trouble to us. Even the Diaz admin- istration was constantly compelled to resist revolutionary enterprises, and since his time force and fraud have chosen the officials and insurrection or rebellion has been the rule. But never before has the government of the United States intervened for or against the administration, however shady its title to authority might be. The policy of self-determination has not until now been violated. The esteemed Philadelphia Record likens the present action of the Wash- ington government to the Holy Alli- ance in resentment of which the Mon- “That al- liance of a Czar, a Kaiser and a King { was animated solely by a desire to preserve the peace,” says our Phila- delphia contemporary. “And it un- dertook to secure peace by precisely the same means as Mr. Coolidge and Mr. Hughes employ. The old Holy Alliance undertook to establish peace in the western hemisphere by assist- ing Spain to subjugate its revolted colonies. The new Holy Alliance un- dertakes to secure peace by enabling Obregon to subjugate de la Huerta.” A more perfect parallel could hardly be drawn. As Woodrow Wilson said in com- menting upon the covenant of the League of Nations, the government of the United States is bound to the principle of self-determination be- cause by asserting that principle it | was established. Every President of the United States since Grant has been importuned to intervene in be- half of the then existing government | of Mexico, menaced by revolutionists, and each in turn declined. President Harding refused to allow government munitions to be sold to Poland and President Wilson allowed only pri- vate transactions in war materials during the world war equally to both combatants up until the declaration of war against Germany. But Cool- idge reverses all Presidents and prec- edents. a_i ———— ——One advantage of the cold wave lies in the fact that it lessons the danger of automobile accidents. ——Secretary Mellon is finding out that all Congressmen can’t be fooled all the time. | agers. While Governor Pinchot remains as silent as a sphinx on the question of his candidacy for President gossip in- dicates that he is not exactly indiffer- ent. The Old Guard managers have been arranging things to suit them- selves, though always leaving to the Governor an option on a seat in the Cleveland convention as delegate-at- large, if he behaves. Good behavior involves more or less stultification, however. It means an agreement to NUARY 11. 1924. Garner Exposes the Mellon Fraud. | Governor Pinchot and Party Man- { that wheat prices were low last vote on such questions as are brought before the convention, including can- | didates for President and Vice Presi- | dent, as the managers favor, and look | pleasant. If he desires to speak on | any subject he will be required to sub- mit his manuscript to the managers. The Governor does not take kindly to such conditions but he may be com- pelled to submit. The exigencies of the machine are such that absolute harmony must be preserved and a dis- cordant note from a man in the stand- ing of the Governor of Pennsylvania would be disastrous to the Old Guard plans. There is an alternative, of course, but it would be a hazardous enterprise. It would be an offensive alliance with Senator Hiram Johnson, of California, and a determination to “buck the line” from the beginning. The Governor and Mr. Johnson have had two or three conferences already and it is suspected that such an alli- ance has been under consideration. But nobody except them knows what has happened. There is a good deal of friendly in- terest among the Republicans of Penn- sylvania, for Senator Johnson. He was the “guide, philosopher and friend” of the late Colonel Roosevelt and that makes a strong appeal in Pennsylvania. If Pinchot would cast his “bar’l” in with Johnson’s lung power there might develop a condition that would revolutionize the Republi- can party of the State. A failure might be fatal to future hopes but any hopes which Mr. Pinchot may have for the future are futile anyway, and therefore he has everything to gain and nothing to lose by forming such a combination. In any event every “#¥rting between the Governor and the Senator sends a spasm into the hearts of the managers. —Up to this moment those Centre countians who have been fortunate enough to fly to the balmy coasts of Florida for the winter have little on the rest of us who have to stay at home and work. Thus far the weath- er here has been about as pleasant as any one could desire. Our “Backwoods.” The report that a Centre county woman visiting Northumberland the other day received her first glimpse of a trolley car will not be surprising to those who have traversed the moun- tain sections of Pennsylvania some distance from the railroads. Condi- tions may be found there quite as primitive as any in the South. The currents of modern life have swept by these people. The customs and ‘the manner of speech of their settler an- cestors largely prevail. The people lead lives of simplicity. They have no fine clothes and their houses are small, but most of them live substan- tially, if not luxuriously and there is very little abject poverty. They are sturdy and independent and much bet- ter informed on questions of the day than they are familiar with city ways and fashions. There may be many such as this Centre county woman who have not seen a trolley car sim- ply because they never have been in- terested enough outside of their own local affairs to go exploring into the great outside world.—Wednesday’s Harrisburg Telegraph. It would be folly to either deny or affirm the truth of the above story. Doubtless there are in all rural com- munities persons who have not seen a trolley car or even been many miles away from their home environment. The simple life is more to their taste than the Great White Way, but they are exceptions rather than the rule. And there are probably more people living in cities who are woefully ig- norant of the beauties and grandeur of the vast rural communities. Pat Harrison, of Mississippi, “carries coals to New Castle.” That is, he told the people of Pittsburgh, the other evening, just what he thinks of Secretary Mellon, of that city. — A new model A Duplex print- ing press has been installed in The Times office, at State College, which has a capacity of three thousand eight page papers per hour. —— The slate makers now put Con- gressman Vare on the list of dele~ gates-at-large, which proves that they are afraid of a Pinchot combi- nation. ——Now that Sousa has been deco- rated with the degree of Doctor of Music let us hope that he will do | something to jaz. NO. 2. Sowing Less Wheat. | From the Philadelphia Record. Thirty-seven countries produced 352,000 bushels of wheat more in 1923 than in 1922. That amount, which is but little more than ten per cent. of last year’s crop, does not appear a | great surplus, and it might easily be offset by a larger carry-over to the crop year 1923-1924. But the fact is ear, and as the world’s crop was nearly 12 per cent. above that of the previous year it is natural to put the two to- gether and infer that the low price was due to the large supply. At any rate, it is inevitable that the individual farmer should reason so. If the wheat he sold last summer and fall did not pay expenses he would as a matter of course raise less for this year, and turn to something that could probably be more profitably marketed, or let his land lie idle for a season. He would at least save the cost of fertilizer and cultivation and harvesting. And the farmers in at least three countries, according to our Depart- ment of Agriculture, have cut down their wheat acreage. Taking this country, Canada and Rumania togeth- er they have reduced their wheat area nearly 14 per cent. Most of this has been made in this country. There is little reason for the reduction in Ru- mania, and Canada has vast areas of new and cheap ground, and the rapid increase of its grain exports which has occurred in the last fifteen or twenty years is likely to continue a long time. From year to year there may be fluctuations in the acreage, but on the whole it is likely to expand for many years. Population does not increase as rapidly in the Dominion as it does here, the supply of unoccupied land is so great that not much in- crease in prices is to be expected, and the climate is such as to make wheat almost the only possible staple crop. The Department does not indicate variations in other countries in wheat area, but a reduction of more than 7,- 000,000 acres in the three countries named can hardly fail to be reflected in next year’s harvest. There may be reductions of area in other countries, but ours is the only one where there has been loud complaint of low prices, and early reports from Argentina and Australia are more suggestive of in- creased than decreased area. The world’s rye crop was a little larger last year than in 1922, and in some countries rye and wheak are al- most interchangeable. The barley and cats crops last year were much larger than those of 1922, and while they are not much used for bread, they are cereals the use of which reduces the demand for bread. The increased crops of rye, barley and oats would weaken the demand for wheat at a time when wheat was in increased supply. Corn also is in some measure a bread grain and the world’s crop last year was larger than that of 1922. Taking the five cereals in the aggre- | gate, the production in 1923 was 1,- 128,000 bushels greater than in 1922. Accept No Substitutes. From the Philadelphia Public Ledger. Legislatures, Parliaments and Con- gresses must be able to govern them- selves in order efficiently to carry on the business of governing a State or a Nation. Popular government through the two-party system has worked out with considerable success in the Unit- ed States, virtually always assuring the rule of the majority. But whether we are satisfied with the system or not, it is the last word in democratic government that no efficacious alter- native has been evolved. In view of the tendency toward the breakdown of party lines and the mul- tiplying of parties, especially in Eu- ropean countries, this last fact can- not be too strongly emphasized. It would be dangerous folly to start throwing away our old clothes, even though they may not quite fit, before we are rather certain of a new suit. ‘These sound views are expressed by Secretary of Commerce Hoover in a letterto Wm. Allen White, the Kan- sas editor. As Mr. Hoover suggests, the only solution so far discovered for the breakdown of the two-party sys- tem has been the dictatorship, and a dictatorship is unthinkable in the United States. In Italy an experiment will proba- bly be made within the next year to test the efficacy of plurality rule. Un- der a new electoral law, the largest of a number of parties will automatical- ly control at least three-fifths of the seats in the Chamber of Deputies. In Great Britain a Labor govern- ment, representing not even a plural- ity of the voters, is about to come in- to power. Certain political writers are of the opinion that, as the thrice- split Parliament fairly represents the divisions in British public opinion, the Parliament should be forced to run the government under such conditions. As Mr. Hoover observes, our own Congress has become slightly infect- ed with the disease that has crippled European Parliaments. Strict party discipline and acceptance of party re- sponsibility are the vitally necessary remedies if the disease is to be prop- erly checked. ni cpp mine me —— ——The insurgent war in the Unit- ed States Senate seems to have sub- sided and Senator Cummins enjoys both choice jobs. : ~The Old Guard seems confident but if Gif. and Hi, get together there may be trouble yet, “you bet.” | SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE. — The silk throwing mill owned by E. R. Wingard, of Selinsgrove, and located at Independence, a mile below that place, was burned to the gorund last Thursday. The loss will reach $50,000, of which $15,000 was silk owned by a New York firm and £35,000 on the building. — Wallace Minnich, a Pennsylvania train eperator, stood en the second floor of his tower at Columbia, Pa. directing the movements of trains while firemen fought flames that raged beneath him on the first floor. The fire originated from an over- heated stove. Although nearly suffocat= ed he escaped injury. — Thrown from a car in which he was riding, in a collision with another machine, Emanuel Neff, aged about 38 years, a res- ident of Mill Creek, Huntingdon county, was so badly injured that he died a few minutes after the accident. His skull was fractured. Five other men in the car, all of Mill Creek, escaped with more or less severe injuries. —“Gossip and you die,” were the words written upon a slip of paper placed by burglars upon the cash register in the large grocery store of J. C. Prettyleaf, of Lewistown, when they left the store early last Friday morning after stealing all the cash from the register amounting to about $7. Entrance was gained by chiseling and cutting a glass plate front from a door of the store. —Concurrent with the new year, trustees of the Robert Packer hospital at Sayre, announce they have insured the life of chief surgeon Donald Guthrie for $100,000 in favor of the hospital to safeguard against possible loss of his highly valued services. While the amount is considera- ble, Doctor Guthrie's services have much higher value to the institution than any pecuniary sum which might be named. —Dr. Leon H. Bernd, of Philadelphia, a widely known surgeon, died suddenly, last Wednesday, while playing hand-ball in the squash court of the University of Pennsylvania. Heart disease was the cause. Dr. Bernd was born in Macon, Ga., 48 years ago. He served in France during the world war as a major in the 305th re- gerve cavalry. For ten years he was pro- fessor of surgery at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. —Benjamin Bernstein, a Shamokin mer- chant, has brought suit in the Northum- berland county Common Pleas court at Sunbury, seeking $25,000 damages from the Philadelphia and Reading Railway compa- ny for injuries he says he suffered in a grade crossing accident. According to the plaintiff's statement, he was on foot at the time and heard no warning signal of any kind. He claims a permanent injury and asks the amount stated as sufficient remu- neration. —Said to have brooded over poor health, Joseph Klavis, a miner, of Scranton, com- mitted suicide on Wednesday in a little shack where he lived alone. He fastened an army rifle to a chair, tied one end of a cord to the trigger and a tobacco can to the other end of the cord. He then sat on a chair facing the rifie on a level with his heart, reached out with his toe and press- ed on the can, which pulled the trigger. The rifle ball literally blew the man’s heart out and tore away part of the house wall —William Dreppard, a baggage agent for the Pennsylvania railroad at the Lan- cagter station, frustrated an alleged swind- ling plot, it is believed, through detecting a peculiar odor emanating from a trunk unclaimed several weeks after it had ar- rived at the baggage room. In the trunk was a quantity of valuable furs. Insur- ance officials were notified and identi- fied the furs as part of those believed stol- en a few weeks before from the Superior Fur company of Canton, Ohio. Their val- ue, he said, was $15,000. —Five young bandits. stripped Jacob Moveinski, 50 years old, a storekeeper of Plymouth, of his clothes and holding him near a red hot stove, threatened to tor- ture him if he did not reveal where his money was hidden. The man pleaded that all the money he had was in his coat and the bandits finally took the $180 they found there and left after again pushing him against the stove and then beating him up. They waved their revolvers at the storekeeper and threatened to return and shoot him if he gave the alarm. : —General Charles Miller, nationally known oil man and manufacturer, of Franklin, on Sunday achieved an honor’ which is probably without precedent in the United States. For the fifty-first con- secutive year he was unanimously elected president of the Miller Bible class and sus perintendent of the First Baptist Sunday school of that city. He is on the job. every Sunday. He is now past 70 years of . age. Three years before going to Frank- lin he was assistant superintendent of a. Sunday school in Buffalo, which makes his fifty-fourth year in such an executive position. Francis” Kerstetter, a farmer residing several miles east of Sunbury, was proba- bly fatally injured Saturday when gored by an infuriated steer when about to lead the animal from its stall in the barn to sell it to John Lesher, a Treverton butch- er. The sale of the steer was arranged be- tween Kerstetter and Lesher at the home of Kerstetter, after which they proceeded to the barn. As the owner stepped into the stall to lead the animal out, he was charged and pinned against the side of the small enclosure. He had been gored four or five times before his cries brought help from his son and Lesher. —Charged with neglect of duty and maintaining a public nuisance through failure to keep a sewer open, president of council | Fisher and councilmen Stiner, Yorks, Baker, Hughes, Creveling and Sny- der, of Bloomsburg, were arrested on Sat- urday and each held under $300 bail for February court. The information was laid by William Hutton, convicted in court on a charge of maintaining a nuisance, and on whom sentence soon is to be im- posed. Hutton was convicted for alleged failure to keep a small sewer leading to the public sewer open and in his action he alleges the blockade of the public sewer caused the trouble in the private one, — National banks throughout the State will be affected by the announcement of Attorney General Woodruff in a letter to James Francis Burke, general counsel for the Pittsburgh Clearing House Associa~ tion, that no more efforts will be made to escheat to the Commonwealth moneys in bank the depositors of which. have not claimed it within fourteen years. The de~ cision of the United States Supreme court, which recently declared a similar law in California unconstitutional, is taken as the guide of the Pennsylvania authorities. Approximately $500,000 is said to have been paid into the State Treasury, but the State authorities do not feel there is any legal way for them to refund the money.