Beworai Yatdpan.
INK SLINGS.
——The great men of Germany are
dying off but there are no signs of
impairment of the health of the late
Kaiser.
— Unless Jack Frost hurries up a
bit the peach growers will not have
the usual excuse for asking high
prices for peaches.
—We are wondering how Cornelia
is taking Gifford’s set back. Especial-
ly are we wondering how much of it
she takes to herself.
———Governor Pinchot states that
he spent less than $50 in his campaign
for delegate, but what he got was
worth a great deal less than fifty.
— If the Cleveland convention
doesn’t last a week those who put up
the expense fund will be cheated, and
if it lasts a week the delegates will be
bored to death.
—We're for Representative Celler’s
bill to increase the pay of Congress-
men. The government ought to make
it possible for others than the rich to
aspire to important offices.
—Somebody beat George Bush to it
last year, but we're offering odds of
three trout to one sucker that his will
be the first straw hat seen on the
streets of Bellefonte this spring.
—It was ever thus. All the poli-
ticians went out to vote at the prima-
ries and all the church people stayed
at home to put the finishing touches
.on the next set of resolutions they
expect to offer. 3
—Besides being required to make
his home in America the Hon. John
Francis Amherst Cecil will probably
have to be bored with clipping ccu-
pons for Cornelia Vanderbilt all the
rest of his life.
—What has become of our friend
Gen. Smed. Butler? Is he getting
ready to fade out of the close-ups in
Philadelphia or are Simmonds, Strand
and Bishop better news stuff these
days than the fighting marine?
—Don’t forget that Kiwanis is still
«driving to put the hospital over the
top. If you are one of those who have
been driving from the back seat why
don’t you send in your pledge for a
hundred or more and get a regular
license.
—Governor Warren T. McCray, of
Indiana, resigned on Tuesday. He
wasn’t tired being Governor of that
great Commonwealth. That wasn’t
the reason, at all. He had been con-
victed of using the United States
mails to defraud and his Uncle Sam-
uel sent him an invitation to visit at
Atlanta for several years.
—Out of the musty past at last has
emerged one, Martin G. Brumbaugh.
We haven’t heard of Martin since he
was having his pants pressed at the
expense of the people of Pennsylva-
nia because they had elected him Gov-
ernor. It appears that Bill Vare has
had him up his sleeve all these years,
for now he wants to make him pro-
thonotary of the courts of Philadel-
phia and there’s likely to be a helluva
fight because the Campbell-Cunning-
ham crowd want anybody else but
Martin.
—We have a terrible obsession.
We'd like to see what a grand Fourth
of July celebration would look like in
this year of Mr. Volstead, 1924. Why
doesn’t the Business Men’s Associa-
tion invite the firemen from contigu-
ous counties to gather here on the
Fourth and have a pee-rade with free
grape juice at every corner? We
haven’t had anything but the “safe
and sane” stuff in Bellefonte “since
“George Washington crossed the
Alps” and it’s time that the kids be
shown-how their dads used to reveal
their patriotism.
—Here we want to thank the per-
son who sent us a marked copy of
Monday’s Harrisburg Patriot. The
Patriot, as you probably know, is the
property of Vance McCormick and
Vance, as all Democrats of Pennsyl-
vania, and elsewhere, know is the
gentleman who essayed the role of re-
organizing the Democratic party in
the State some years ago. Up to the
moment of reading the Patriot’s
plaintive wail over “Democracy in the
Cities” we had been under the impres-
sion that he was perfectly satisfied
with his work. It appears that Joe
Guffey is a bi-partisan Democrat in
Allegheny county—a mere “annex of
a Republican machine”—and that
Judge Eugene Bonniwell is ditto Phila-
delphia county. Guffey and Bonni-
well are the two who made possible
Vance’s superlative job of reorganiza-
tion. Bonniwell is the fellow who
forced the withdrawal of the late
Larue Munson at Allentown with
the threat of old Bill Berry as a third
candidate for Governor. Guffey is the
fellow who turned turtle on his Un-
cle Jim—who made him—and went
over to Vance—with Mitch Palmer—
the ingrate—and formed the trium-
virate of “unselfish, high minded men”
who promised to make “a pure and
militant Democracy” out of what they
called “the bi-partisan organization”
that the elder Guffey and the late
Senator Hall had been running in
Pennsylvania. They did clean things
up—so far as the offices were concern-
ed,—but in the glory of being the one
specially annointed to strut and pos-
ture about the White House and the
other who was made Attorney Gener-
al of a Great Republic, the sanctifi-
cation of the party in Pennsylvania
was forgotten and the Patriot laments
that its friends have back-slidden. We
hate to turn the board with the grain
up, but we haven’t any sympathy with
the gentleman who is sliding now and
howling because the splinters are
puncturing his aesthetic seat.
Deworrai
7H
VOL. 69.
STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION.
BELLEFONTE. PA.. MAY 2. 1924.
—
NO. 18.
Small Interest in Politics Shown.
The vote of both parties at the pri-
mary election in Centre county this
year was surprisingly small. On the
Republican side the highest vote was
cast for Senator George Wharton Pep-
per for delegate-at-large and the low-
est for William S. Vare, the Philadel-
phia boss, of the slated candidates.
Governor Pinchot received 288 votes
more than Strassburger and 311 more
than Vare, and Pepper led Secretary
Mellon by 125 votes. On the Demo-
cratic side John A. McSparran, who
was the special object of attack by the
Bonniwell contingent, polled the high-
est vote and Mrs. Renshaw the lowest.
But the highest on either side was
only a fraction of the voting strength
of the parties.
These totals indicate an unusual
lact of interest in politics by the elec-
torate. It is true that the primary
date comes at a time when men and
women engaged in agricultural pur-
suits are busy with their own affairs.
But the meager vote can hardly be as-
cribed to that cause. The population
of towns is sufficiently large in the
county to have brought out a larger
vote if there had been even a casual
interest in the results. It is therefore
a subject of regret that a larger vote
was not polled. It is an additional
source of regret that the greatest
measure of delinquency is on the
Democratic side. The Republican vote
is more than twice as large as the
Democratic vote.
What is the cause of this indiffer-
ence to the obligations of citizenship?
With the scandals in Washington and
the bickerings among the Republicans
in Pennsylvania it would seem that
the Democratic men and women of
Centre county ought to be aroused to
their duty at this time. On the eve of
a Presidential campaign every Demo-
cratic voter ought to be alert to the
opportunity of rescuing both the
State and Nation from the plunderers
who are betraying the people in every
direction. Fortunately we have nom-
inated an excellent ticket and there is
yet time to organize, spread the gos-
pel of truth and patriotism and do a
full share in the work of redeeming
Pennsylvania and the country.
——Of course the Republican man-
agers have selected a banker to sound
the key note at the Cleveland conven-
tion. Only a banker knows what the
Republicans expect to accomplish.
“Hoist on His Own Petard.”
Governor Pinchot is organizing a
campaign of reprisals, according to
current political gossip. He has sum-
moned into a conference to be held at
Harrisburg on May 7th the mayors of
all the cities of the Commonwealth
for the ostensible purpose of “saving
the State’s soul.” Because of his de-
feat for the honorary office of dele-
gate-at-large to the Cleveland conven-
tion the Governor is persuaded that
Pennsylvania is under the control of
the “forces of evil.” He is the vic-
tim of “a conspiracy of liquor and
gang politics,” and the object of his
proposed conference is to rescue the
people from the great danger by
which they are thus menaced. He
will enforce righteousness in public
life.
As a matter of fact Governor Pin-
chot was “hoist on his own petard.”
He acquired the office of Governor on
the false pretense that if elected he
would “clean up the mess” which cor-
rupt and profligate preceding admin-
istrations had created. Instead of ful-
filling that pledge he opened negotia-
tions with “the gang” as soon as the
opportunity offered to co-operate with
the bosses in the hope of thus promot-
ing his own selfish ambitions. This
action alienated the decent element of
the party which he had deceived, and
when the bosses threw him overboard
he was left a helpless victim of his
own covetousness. An attempt now to
punish the liquor interests for his own
perfidy will fail, as it ought to fail.
He “has been weighed in the balance
and found wanting.”
Governor Pinchot was elected by
fraudulent voting and corrupt returns
in Philadelphia and Allegheny county.
During the recent session of the Leg-
islature he was urged to ask for leg-
islation that would prevent a recur-
rence of such crime. But he refused
to even suggest such legislation.
Fraudulent voting had helped him
once and he probably hoped it would
again. When the “gang” placed his
name on the slate as one of its candi-
dates for delegate-at-large he fondly
believed this expectation would be ful-
filled. But his hope has been disap-
pointed. The forces that elected him
in 1922 became the instrument which
defeated him in 1924 and “left him
naked to his enemies.”
I —— A ———— i ———
——Coolidge will never convince a
discerning public that he favors hon-
est government so long as’ he keeps
Slemp on his staff.
— pm — A — ——.
——An independent ticket made up
of Johnson and Pinchot would be
! amusing but not very formidable.
Democrats Will Win in Senate.
The Republican majority in the
Senate has practically agreed to
abandon the fight for the Mellon tax
bill. Senator Smoot admits that it is
impossible to get a majority for it
even with the influence of President
Coolidge behind it. At present he is
bending his energies to prevent the
substitution of the Democratic meas-
ure and to that end has indicated a
willingness to accept the Longworth
substitute. But the progressives are
not inclined to help him out of his
troubles. They favor the Garrett bill.
The Mellon bill makes a decrease in
the tax rates on $200,000 incomes or
over from fifty to twenty-five per
cent. The Garrett bill cuts it to forty-
four per cent. and the Longworth
compromise fixes it at thirty-seven
and a half.
The Garrett bill was offered in the
House of Representatives as a substi-
tute for the Mellon bill and in com-
mittee of the whole the Progressives
voted for the substitute. But Long-
worth, Republican House floor leader
by processes of trading and other sin-
ister methods, induced them to accept
the compromise. He couldn’t bear
the idea of letting the Democrats car-
ry off so great a victory as to enact
their bill in preference to that of their
own finance minister cordially endors-
ed by their President. By a margin
of one or two votes the substitute was
adopted on the final vote and the floor
leader imagined he had “saved his
face.” But the Senate Finance com-
mittee restored the Mellon bill and
for a time confidently expected to en-
act it into law.
A few days of discussion has re-
vealed to Senator Smoot the hopeless-
ness of this expectation, however. The
Progressives of the Senate are less
inclined to accept promises of person-
al advantage to themselves as a con-
sideration for the betrayal of the peo-
ple. The difference of seven per cent.
in the levy of a tax on big incomes ap-
peals to them and they have turned
a deaf ear to the Smoot blandish-
ments. The Smoot plan is to begin
with the Mellon proposition of twen-
ty-five per cent. and progress upward
to the Longworth level of thirty-seven
and a half per cent. But the Demo-
crats and Progressives are adamant.
They will stick to the end for the Gar-
rett rate and are fully confident that
the majority will be compelled to
yield.
mm fp
There have been no pay roll
robberies in Philadelphia within sev-
en weeks. Probably Vare has had the
bandits on his pay roll during the
greater part of that time.
Coolidge on the Defensive.
Some weeks ago Henry Ford some-
what ostentatiously announced that he
favors President Coolidge for election
to the Presidency next fall, and the
whole country was surprised. Cool-
idge is farther away from the ideal
which Mr. Ford has professed than
any man in public life. Speculation
as to the cause of his conversion took
wide range. It was generally known
that Mr. Ford was seeking favors
from the government that could be
given by no one other than the Pres-
ident, and the most venturesome sug-
gested that possibly this might have
had something to do with the mat-
ter. Recent developments justify this
conjecture.
Mr. Ford publishes a weekly news-
paper called the Dearborn Independ-
ent. The main purpose of its exist-
ence has been to “bait” the jews and
puff the automobile magnate. The
Washington correspondent of this
newspaper recently had an interview
with the President and published in
his subsequent Washington letter that
Mr. Coolidge is “trying” to put over
the lease of Muscle Shoals to Mr.
Ford. The President has entered an
emphatic denial of this statement but
the correspondent reiterates it and
gives circumstantial details which are
very persuading. In other words, he
declares that while it is not his pur-
pose to get into controversy with the
President, what he said in the begin-
ning is absolutely true.
There is a good deal of feeling in
the public mind against the lease of
this property of the government to
Mr. Ford or anybody else. Some men
whe have given thought to the sub-
ject believe that turning it over to
Ford would be very much like turn-
ing the Teapot oil reserve over to
Harry Sinclair. It is in the shape of
an utility that ought to be conserved
for the future, they say, and the
story of Mr. Ford’s newspaper cor-
respondent gives a sinister cast to the
present relations between Ford and
the President. In any event it puts
Coolidge on the defensive, but as he
has no opposition it will not impair
his chances of nomination.
If the Russian “reds” had got
Harry Daugherty a couple of years
ago this country would be better off
now.
sn —— A ———
—Get your job work done here.
Charles F. Murphy.
There must have been a great deal
more good than bad in the make-up
of the late Charles F. Murphy, whose
funeral in New York on Monday,
brought together in the common pur-
pose of mourning distinguished men
of all walks of life, all creeds in re-
ligion and all faiths in politics. He
had been for many years the head of
a political = organization which was
anathema with or without reason to
millions of people. He was in politics
for profit and made an immense for-
tune by the manipulation of the gov-
ernment of the city in which he lived.
But. incidentally he gave the city
good government and was as zealous
in the achievement of that result as
he was selfish in gathering the spoils.
Mr. Murphy inherited the enmities
of his predecessors in the control of
the Tammany society as well as the
power and opportunities the control
afforded. Kelley and Croker were
hard as well as selfish bosses, and
their exactions gave Tammany a bad
name. Murphy had less advantage in
education than either of them but he
brought to the service acquired as
their successor a measure of finesse
beyond either. He was conciliatory
rather than domineering and compell-
ed adherence to and respect for Tam-
many that could not have been hoped
for while Kelley and Croker were in
control. In fact there was less oppo-
sition to Tammany in recent years
than during the half century before
he became chief.
A fair appraisement of Charles F.
Murphy’s influence in public affairs
leaves a balance of credit in his favor.
In local politics he was a friend as
well as a tribune of the people. He
gave them the best that was possible
under the circumstances. It was only
when he ventured outside of the area
of municipal affairs that he became
mischievous. In national affairs he
affiliated with the worst element of
the party. In 1912 he bitterly oppos-
ed the nomination of Wilson and in
subsequent contests his influence has
been unwholesome. But he was never
perfidious and the efforts of the Tam-
many society have invariably been
for the nominee. It is to be hoped
that his successor will be worthy.
———— A ————.
~ ——The State Highway Depart-
ment began oiling operations in Cen-
tre county this week, the first road to
be covered being the highway from
Bellefonte to the Huntingdon county
line by way of State College.
Getting Close to the Starkeys.
—Several weeks ago we published
a compilation of “old stuff” taken
from the “Democratic Whig,” which
was published in Bellefonte in 1856.
The article seems to have awakened
memories all over the United States.
From coast to coast and Canada to
the Gulf have come letters expressing
interest in the days of long ago in
Centre county. While all of them
have been pleasing to us nene have
intrigued us quite so much as the co-
incidental Starkey letters, one from
Florida, the other from New Mexico,
that we referred to last week. Up to
Saturday morning the Starkeys re-
mained a mystery. None of the older
folks to whom we talked seemed to
have heard anything about their early
status in Bellefonte. Then came the
venerable John P. Harris. Venerable
only in years, for his mind and spirit
are just as active as they were half a
century ago. He knew the Starkeys.
In 1844 pater Starkey kept a grog
shop on “Strichnine” corner, where
the Cadillac garage now stands. The
two other centres of libation in the
town then were the William Ward
place in the Pennsylvania house, re-
placed later by the Brockerhoff hotel;
and Samuel Morrison’s shop on west
Bishop street. We know that there
were the makin’s of an anti-saloon
league even then, for didn’t one of the
excerpts from the “Democratic Whig”
tell of the Temperance meetings at
Pine Grove Mills, Harrisonville and
other places. Mr. Harris recalls that
the wets and drys fought so well away
back in the forties that they even had
marching songs and it is the chorus
of one of them that he repeated that
has caused all this paragraph. It ties
the Starkeys definitely to Bellefonte
and adds another interesting little
sidelight on the doings here long be-
fore most of us were born. The song
ran something like this:
“There are three grog shops in this town
Ward, Morrison and Starkey,
Where many a white man goes to drink
Also many a darkey.”
rp —— pr.
——Philipsburg people effected an
organization last week for the pur-
pose of having a big celebration on
the Fourth of July. While they have
not yet determined the extent to which
they will go they are giving notice
that it will be one of the biggest cel-
ebrations ever held in that town.
——— fp ———————————
—We’ve had the April showers.
Now let us have the May flowers.
— A ———————
—Subscribe for the “Watchman.”
“Unwarranted Intrusion.”
1
From the Philadelphia Reeord.
There is no doubt about the animus
of Senator Couzens, and the committee
created to investigate the Internal
Revenue Bureau ought to have engag-
ed an attorney at the public expense,
or not to have engaged any. That Mr.
Couzens is enormously rich is no rea-
son for putting the authority of the
Senate at his command for the inves-
tigation of a high official against
whom he hopes a lawyer with some
fame as an investigator can find some-
thing.
But the President does not make it
clear, and he never can make it clear,
what information a Senate committee
may seek in an executive department,
and what it may not. If the Secre-
tary of the Treasury were using his
position to favor corporations in which
he is a stockholder the fact ought to
be known. The Senate ought to have
created a committee without reason-
able ground, but the Senate has a
right to investigate such a subject if
it thinks there is reason for the opin-
ion.
Mr. Coolidge singles out as improp-
er the request for a list of the com-
panies in which the Secretary of the
Treasury was alleged to be interested,
and he says “it is recognized, both by
law and by custom, that there is cer-
tain confidential information which it
would be detrimental to the public
service to reveal.” That is the posi-
tion Mr. Daugherty took when a Sen-
ate committee called for certain files
from the Department of Justice, but it
didn’t save him. Mr. Coolidge at once
called for his resignation because he
would not give the committee the doe
uments it called far, though Mr.
Daugherty cited law and custom to
justify his refusal.
It would be very difficult to frame
any definition of the inquisitorial
rights of the Senate which would jus-
tify the Presidents demand for Mr.
Daugherty’s resignation and his pro-
test against the investigation of Mr.
Mellon’s corporations.
Mr. Mellon tells the President: “I
have aided in obtaining from them
(corporations in which he has inter-
ests )the waiver of their right to pri-
| vacy and in the delivery of their in-
come tax returns in complete details
to the committee.” Then what is the
use of saying anything about it? Mr.
Mellon might have stood upon the law
and custom governing the privacy of
the tax returns. But after giving the
information, the protest, anil the im-
plied threat of resignation if the in-
vestigation shall go on, appear to be
too late to have much force.
We are under no misapprehensions
about Mr. Couzens’ motives. He had
an acrimonious controversy with the
Secretary, in the course of which the
latter emphasized the fact that the
former has put all of his vast fortune
into tax-exempt securities. There-
upon Mr. Couzens institutes this in-
vestigation of the Secretary, hoping
to find in the Internal Revenue Bu-
reau some evidence that Mr. Mellon
was giving official help to companies
in which he is interested; and he of-
fers to pay the cost of hiring Mr. Hen-
ey to poke into the office records. The
Senate ought not to undertake an in-
vestigation that would not justify the
expenditure of public money. It
makes itself a tool for Mr. Couzens’
private revenge by authorizing the
engagement of an investigator who is
to be paid by Mr. Couzens.
This however, does not alter the
fact that the President protests a Sen-
ate committee’s examination of pa-
pers in the Internal Revenue Bureau,
but dismisses an Attorney General be-
cause he will not give a Senate com-
mittee access to the files of the De-
partment of Justice.
K. K. K. Activities Attracting Atten-
tion,
From the Philadelphia Public Ledger.
Ku Klux Klan activities since the
Lilly murders are attracting closer
attention from the police of this and
adjoinings States, and in several re-
cent cases wholesome restraint has
been imposed upon would-be demon-
strators. At Pottstown a State troop-
er compelled the mob to take off their
disguises, and at Atlantic City the fire
hose was made ready to douse the
participants in a cantemplated assem-
bly of klansmen. Once the members
of this secret organization get it into
their heads that mass gatherings of
masked and hooded men, the burning
of crosses and the discharge of explo-
sives and the like are in direct viola-
tion of law, they will be less disposed
to seek to regulate society by their
own secret and sinister methods. The
disguises they affect afford a tempta-
tion to the lawless and offer immuni-
ty from detection that are inimical to
public order. A few more Judges like
those in Cambria county, more instan-
ces of resolute action by the police,
and the country would hear less and
less of cross-burnings and open-air
“initiations” by the K. K. K.
They’re Still Human in the Ozarks.
From the St. Louis Globe-Democrat.
A Democratic candidate has 5000
“campaign thimbles” for distribution
among women voters in the Ozark re-
gion, and doubtless in that region
there are still a considerable number
Yo know what the things are used
or.
rr ———— A —————————
——General Pershing declines the
second place on the ticket with Cool-
idge. He doesn’t care to give a pub-
lic exhibition of the tail wagging the
dog.
SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE.
—Ten mere arrests of striking miners
and their wives at Vintondale were made
Saturday night on charges of rioting in
connection with an alleged assault on min-
ers who are working, and all entered bail
in $5C" each for their appearance at court.
—John Boone, aged 78 years, a direct de-
scendant of Daniel Boone, died on Sunday
morning at Avoca, a suburb of Wilkes-
Barre. He was born in Kentucky but had
lived in Luzerne county since boyhood. In
the Civil war he served in the 77th and
142nd Pennsylvania regiments.
—William A. Singer, 2 months old son of
Charles Singer, a coal miner, suffocated on
Sunday while en route from Cambria coun-
ty to Philipsburg with his parents in an
automobile, near Tyrone. Coroner Chester
Rothrock, of Blair county, was of the
opinion the child was too heavily bundled.
—The State board of revenue and finance
may invest the $500,000 Pennsylvania State
College agricultural land grant funds in
county, city, borough or school district
bonds in Pennsylvania and the bonds of
other States and cities. Attorney General
Woodruff, held in an opinion made public
last Saturday.
—A 200-pound rock hurled into the air
from a blast at the Cranberry stripping of
the Pennsylvania Quarry and Construction
company, at Hazleton last Thursday,
crashed through the roof of the home of
John Markoskey, taking with it a bed
from the second story and landing it in
the kitchen a few feet from the stove.
Mrs. Markoskey and three children escap-
ed into the yard. The house was badly
damaged.
—The peoples of the earth are in a good
way to freeze to death and that right soon,
according to W. O. Altman, of Mead Run,
McKean county, naturalist, weather prog-
nosticator and woodsman, unless oil and
gas is stopped being taken from the bow-
els of the earth. He predicts in fifty years
there won't be folks enough left to tell the
story because of the removai 6f the sub-
stances which Keeps the home fires burn- -
ing underneath the ground.
—John Descalzi, a pioneer Italian of the
Pittsburgh district, amassed a fortune of
$90,000 through the sale of bananas; if was.
disclosed last week when his will was filed
for probate. When Descalzi went to that
city in the early seventies, he opened
Pittsburgh's first banana market. The
first shipment of bananas to Pittsburgh
was consigned to Descalzi in 1880. The
fortune was left to the widow during her
life, and at her death is to be distributed
among Descalzi's six children.
—A negro who gave the name of Miles
Walker, was arrested early Sunday morn-
ing in the Pennsylvania railroad train
shed at Altoona when he was discovered
riding a freight train by patrolman Yost,
of the Middle division police. When
searched he was foud to have four quarts
of whiskey in his pockets. The case was
turned over to the state police by the rail-
road officers and a charge of transporting
liquor was made against him in lieu of
the charge of illegal train riding.
—One of the oddest compensation claims
ever brought to the attention of adjusters
was filed at Jamestown, Pa., on Saturday,
by J. C. Baker, of that place, an employee
of the A. McMullen company, contractors.
According to the testimony, Baker was
crossing the Erie tracks to start a gas en-
gine when one of a flock of English spar-
rows, frightened by a passing automobile,
flew, hitting him in the eye. Claim was
allowed for five days’ lay-off, with a con-
tinuation in case the vision of the eye be-
comes affected later.
—Ku Klux Klan men from Kennett
Square, Hanortown and other places met
in secret Saturday night, at the home of a
member in West Chester. A supper fol-
lowed the meeting. Nearly a hundred
were present. Before the meeting was
opened a large cross was burned on the
property of Harry Townsend, near the
colored quarter. Grapevines valued at $200
were destroyed by the flames and an alarm
called out the firemen. While posses and
police searched for the guilty persons, the
Klan members were in session. :
—Joseph Lascoskie, of Mount Carmel,
met with a severe mishap while at work
in the mines at Natalie, last Friday. He
was dressing off a shot when a lump of
coal fell from the top and struck him with
considerable force on the right thigh, dis-
charging thirteen dual caps in his overalls
pocket. The force of the explosion shat-
tered his right leg and inflicted serious
abdominal injuries. He was given first aid
at the colliery and removed to the State
hospital at Fountain Springs, where it is
said he has a chance for recovery.
—A big tannery owned by the Elk Tan-
ning Co., at Ridgway, has closed down
and several hundred men thrown into idle-
ness. It is stated that the tannery is clos-
ed for an indefinite period, possibly per-
manently. Some of the employees had
been holding their positions as long ag
thirty-five years. For the first time in the
history of the three tanneries at Sheffield,
Pa., all three have shut down, throwing
many men out of work. It is not known
when they will resume operations. The
poor condition of the leather market is ex-
cuse for the shut downs.
—Y¥ollowing the discovery of a shortage
of $23,000 in the State bank at East Pros-
pect, York county, BE. L. Burg, cashier, and
Roy K. Stitler, a depositor of the bank and
keeper of a general store at East Prospect,
were arrested on Saturday charged with
conspiracy. They were held in $15,000
bail each. The discovery was made by a
bank examiner Saturday. Burg is alleged
to have permitted Sitler to overdraw the
Sitler account $23,000. Burg was charged
with misappropriation of the bank's funds,
false entries and perjury in swearing to an
incorrect bank statement. Peter G. Cam-
eron, secretary of banking, announces there
is no danger of the bank being closed. He
says the shortage has been taken care of,
a bonding company having paid $10,000
and the bank directors having made good
the other $13,000.
— Members of the Rothrock Memorial
Commission appointed to select a bouldet
for the bronze tablet which will be placed
in the public square in McVeytown, in
commemmoration of Dr. Joseph T. Roth-
rock, “father of forestry,” in Pennsylva-
nia, met at Lewistown last week and se-
lected a boulder of rare quality found on
a range of the Seven mountains, near Mil-
roy. The boulder is 7% feet high, 3 feet
from side to side and 30 inches thick and
weighs five tons. Bids are now being ask-
ed to transport the boulder from the moun-
tain to McVeytown where the tablet bear-
ing a reproduction of the photograph of
Dr. Rothrock showing him in one of his
characteristic poses leaning against a rock
with his gun and a dog by his side, will
be placed upon the boulder, prior to its
dedication within th enext three months.