Bowral fe _ INK SLINGS. —Poor Prof. Seymour, of Yale. He probably didn’t know he was building a Glass—House. ——1It’s small wonder Ban Johnson is sick. It would make any baseball man sick to be compelled to go up against Judge Landis. ——They may pull off the secret vote in the Senate this time but op- position to secrecy is increasing and before long it will be out of order. ——1It is said that one William S. Vare, of Pennsylvania, watched the Senate proceedings with absorbed in- terest while the case of Smith, of Illi- nois, was pending. —Now we know why Queen Marie 80 suddenly cut her visit to us short and hurried home. She got the tip that her own brat was intriguing to do to her just what Keneshaw Moun- tain Landis has done to Ban John- son. —=Since that meeting of base-ball magnates in Chicago, on Saturday, we have had to revise our notion of what an irresistible body does when it meets an immovable force. We always thought they called it a “draw,” but since Ban Johnson “took the air” we have lost a bit of faith in the irresisti- ble bedy. —The admission of Brother Dor- worth into the Holy-of-Holies of the Fisher administration is another evi- dence of the fact that a new boss is in the making for Centre county Re- publicanism. He is one of the five members the Governor has selected from his Cabinet as his most intimate advisers. It is a signal honor for Mr. Dorworth, but it’s an awful pill for some of the home folks whom we shall not mention at this time. —If it is true that sixty five per cent of the soft coal now being marketed is coming from non-union mines the “bogy” of a general strike on April 1, that is being held up before the con- sumer, is nearly all “bogy.” It seems ‘to us that the union miner himseif should be more alarmed about it than the consumer of soft coal. We write with only a meager knowledge of con- ditions in the Central Pennsylvania fields when we say that many opera- tions here are at a standstill because of the constant squabbling over union rates and all the while the non union fields have been busy getting and hold- ing the business that once was ours. —It must have been an awful blow to Frank A. Vanderlip when he went down to Washington to tell President Wilson that the Federal Reserve sys- tem, then in the making, was all wrong, to be refused even @h audience ‘with the President. To a president of the National City such an attitude would be incomprehensible. Yet the Federal Reserve system was put through a Democratic Congress by a Democratic President, in spite of the condemnation of the American Bank- ers Association and, today, who is the banker to stand up and say that it was not the greatest piece of financial leg- islation ever enacted by this or any other country? —We have been riding that “rela- tive” idea rather hard of late. It came into our mind that night we were trying to make something out of a local clergyman’s distress over the failure of the bally-hoo for “an old fashioned church sociable”. We have always been that way. When we get an idea it seems to dominate every- thing until another comes along to edge it out. Nothing having come up to this moment we hark back to last Thursday night, when, as you will recall, we had been put out of business by ammonia fumes from a busted re- frigeration plant next door. Driven to the street for air just long enough to miss the mails and make everybody about the shop mad—which we were particularly nothing else but. Well it was some where near eight-thirty when we finally saw our way to a bite of supper. The streets were icy and a hill was between us and what might be in the warming oven of the kitchen stove. What we craved right then was a cigarette. A cigarette more than anything else in the world and there were but three pennies in the jeans, just twelve short of the price of our favorite brand. That was our financial status on the night of Janu- ary 20, in this year of Coolidge pros- perity 1927, when Leander Green breezed in to “borrow (?) a quarter.” Poor old Leander. Proprietor of one and often a very potential vote when “the old blind horse” made councilmen and school directors in our beloved West ward of Bellefonte. Leander’s present address is the borough home. He is comfortable, warm and happy there and doesn’t need to give a darn when the “seven o'clock whistle blows.” His idea was incipiently Einsteinish. It was relativity. He thought us rich because we happened to be the boss of a four storied busi- ness enterprise on High street and couldn’t conceive the problem we were wrestling with to make up the twelve cents needful to buy a pack of cigar- * ettes to help us up the icy homeward hill. Leander wanted the quarter to hire a taxi to haul him to the poor house. We wanted twelve cents to buy a cigarette to dope our jaded nerves out of thought of where the taxes to keep Leander’s home going are to come from. God, how full the world is of and how happy the Leanders ought to be. Almost we envy them. Br » \ [Tell y 7H 72. VOL. The Governor’s Inaugural Address. Governor Fisher strikes a popular note in his inaugural message in his declaration that he is opposed to new taxes, “unless justified by emergen- cies.” For some years the favorite in- door sport of our Legislators has been searching for new subjects of taxa- BELLE STATE RIGHTS AN D FEDERAL UNION. FONTE, PA.. JANUARY 28. 1927. No Violation of State Rights. | All the Senators who supported the | claim of Smith, of Illinois, to a seat States Senate, on Thursday, refused to i in the body based their argument on that provision of the constitution which guarantees two Senators to each | State. It would be hard to imagine | anything more absurd. Senator Reed, Smith and Vare Condemned. By a vote of 48 to 33 the United allow Frank L. Smith, of Illinois, to take the oath of office as Senator designate under appointment by Gov- { ernor Small, to fill a vacancy. The | objection to Mr. Smith was that he tion. There has been no incentive to | of Pennsylvania, quoted Article 5 of | had corruptly used an excessive slush economy of administration for the rea- son that money could be found to meet any requirement. If the Governor means to literally cut out all new propositions for taxation, he will be rendering valuable service to the State. But if he means simply to ful- fill an agreement made before the election that there will be no tax levy on manufacturing corporations it will work disappointment. The Governor’s inaugural address had the merit of brevity and it had other good points. He promises to im- prove the budget system so as to make it capable of even better results than Governor Pinchot obtained from it. His intentions with respect to the highways are admirably expressed in the statement that “construction of the State highway system must be | kept moving.” Within the last four years great results have been achieved. Pennsylvania is now well up toward the lead in road construction and it should be kept there. The construc- tion and maintenance of such high- ways cost money, but they are worth all they cost and the people are will- ing to pay the price. It goes without saying that Penn- sylvania will not permit deterioration in the standard of the public schools and Governor Fisher's assurance that he is in sympathy with the best mod- ern methods in education is gratify- ing. It is equally encouraging to know that he is earnestly in favor of ballot reform legislation. Let us hope that he will press this reform during the present session of the Legislature, while the influence of expectation is working full time. It is also gratify- ing to learn that the Governor is in favor of law enforcement. The Leg- islature may give him the support in that direction which it refused his predecessor in office; Governor Pin- chot. 2 ye at ——Senator Shipstead wants to know something about Nicaragua loans and come to think about it that is a pertinent subject. { The Mexican Muddle Clearing. On Friday the Senate committee on Foreign Relations adopted by a vote | the resolution ! of thirteen to three, previcusly introduced by Senator Robinson, of Arkansas. This resolu- tion provided for arbitration of the oil and land controversy in Mexico. The President had expressed a willingness to adopt that form of adjustment and Secretary Kellogg had said he “would welcome an expression from the Sen- ate on the subject.” But neither of them seems pleased with the consum- mation of the plan. After the action of the Senate committee the President declared that “the American people do not understand the questions at is- sue. Small collateral issues have con- fused the public mind and obscured the greater one.” The main question appears to have been certain concessions in oil proper- ties made years ago to certain Amer- ican adventurers. In the course of a redrafting of the land laws of Mexico the legality of some of these contracts has become involved in doubt and the Mexican authorities indicated a pur- pose to revoke them when the time for putting the new law in force arrived. The administration seems to have adopted the policy of protecting the concessionaires, right or wrong. The Robinson resolution provides for the arbitration of the claims guaranteeing to all concerned full and complete jus- tice. It will avert war, which seemed imminent only a few weeks ago, with- out humiliating a weak nation. Of course the Nicaragua affair was a jesture to frighten the timid and the Soviet invasion a smoke screen. With the clearing away of the Mexican muddle the confusion with respect to Nicaragua will blow away. What reason the President and Secretary of State had for presenting it to public view may never be known. There is no way to make the President “show cause.” But whatever the purpose was it has failed, and left those re- sponsible for it humiliated before the country and the world as no other President has been in the history of the country. - The American people are not as stupid as Mr. Coolidge imagines. They understand the ques- tion in dispute as well as he does. ————— ge ——1It may be necessary to send a few American marines to settle the exciting trouble in China. mee ett ei ——XKing Ferdinand, of Rumania, is about to abdicate and at that he doesn’t give up much. | the constitution which declares that i “no State, without its consent, shall be | deprived of its equal suffrage in the | Senate.” But when any State sends lan unfit man it clearly gives the other . States the right to assume it has ecn- sented to abridgment of its suffrage. The right to reject an applicant for | membership has always been recog- | nized, and the right of expulsion has never been disputed. Mr. Smith, of Illinois, acquired his claim to the seat by the most brazen expenditure of money. A large part of the slush fund employed to compass his election was contributed by public utility corporations, of which he had | control as president of the Public Ser- vice board. This fact marked him as a type of man morally delinquent. Placing men like him in posts of honor i set a bad example to the electorate and work injury to the public service. Mr. Vare, of Pennsylvania, occupies precisely the same position. Therefore if Smith, of Illinois, and Vare, of Pennsylvania, are refused seats in the Senate it will be for the reason that Illinois and Pennsylvania have relin- quished their right to equal suffrage. The southern Senators who hold that each State has the sovereign right to choose whomever it pleases for Senator, and that challenging that right is attacking the doctrine of State Rights, are equally wrong. The most ardent advocate of State Rights would hardly claim that Pennsylvania or Illi- the Senate. So long as States exercise their right to choose by picking out fit men who have acquired the public favor in a proper way, there ought to be no objection to the choice, and there probably never will be. But when men unfit to associate with the sitting Senators and whose admission would be a < reproach alike to the | Senate and the country their rejection ! violates no State Rights. ——The Duke of York is having a ‘fine time in Jamaica, which indicates that the Prince of Wales is not the | only popular figure in British Royal- ty. ! lp s—— Ballot Frauds in Pittsburgh. After a rather long drawn out legal , battle two Pittsburgh election officers , were convicted of making a false and | fraudulent return of the election held {on November 2, 1926, and called for | sentence on Monday morning. They, | with other members of the election | board, had been charged with con- | spiracy but acquitted on that charge. { For making a false return of the vote ‘they were each sentenced to pay a fine of “$100.00 and costs and paroled for one year.” Whether the parole | gave them a year in which to pay the | fine is not stated in the report of the i court proceedings. It may be assumed | that the victims will not be “handled rough,” however. In handing this mild rebuke to the | prisoners whe had made false returns | of a vote the Judge expressed the hope ; that “it would be a lesson to them and members of election hoards through- out the State.” What sort of a lesson does the court expect to draw from it? It might easily be pointed to as evi- dence that the making of false returns of elections is a trifling offense. If they had stolen a loaf of bread a jail sentence might have followed. But simply stealing a man’s seat in the General Assembly gets them a fine of $100.00 and a parole. whatever that means. favor, anyway. Of course votes of a community were stolen but the people don’t count much in Pittsburgh elec- tions. Governor Pinchot appraised ballot stealing as the most serious crime against the public. Debauching the ballot is certainly striking at the fountain of popular government. But sentences of a fine that is probably paid by the party ma- | chine will not go far toward correct- ing the evil. When the courts come to imposing penalties commensurate with the gravity of the offense those mental cripples and moral degenerates who serve the party machine in that way will draw from the sentence of the court a lesson that will carry a deter- rent influence. nate eps ——The Smithsonian Institute is trying to find out when the use of fire for heating purposes was begun while the rest of us are trying to find out why the price of coal is so high. —————— i ——————————— ——Ban Johnson saves his face but at the expense of his health. nois has a right to send a burglar to Probably the loser wasn‘t in | Other statesmen : have classed it in the rank of treason. | (fund to procure his nomination for the term beginning on the 4th of | March, next. It was not charged that "his appointment for the short term "had been corruptly obtained. But a majority of the Senators held that in the corruption in the primary election in the summer of last year there was involved such a measure of moral tur- pitude as to disqualify him from mem- , bership of the Senate. ' The case of William S. Vare, of Pennsylvania, which will come up for consideration upon the assembling of the New Congress on the 4th of | March, is precisely like that of Mr. Smith. According to sworn evidence | taken before the Slush Fund commit- i tee of the Senate some $800,000 were | spent in behalf of Vare. In the case | of Smith objection was raised that a ‘large part of his fund was contributed | by the Public Service corporations and that Smith was president of the Pub- | lic Service board. But it is known | that a large portion of the Vare slush ‘fund was levied off municipal em- ployees and bootleggers of Philadel- | phia. The law forbids the collection |of campaign funds from one and morals forbid the other. We sincerely believe that if all the votes cast for William B. Wilson had been counted for him, and only the legal votes cast for Vare had been counted for him, the certificate of election would have gone to Mr. Wil- son and it would have been a regular certificate that would have gone to { Washington. It may not be possible to develop the facts, and though Vare will not be seated, it may devolve on the Governor to fill the vacancy. But some good will have come out of the political Nazareth, for it will admon- ish rich men to refrain from attempts fo bys seats in the United States Sen- ate. - Senate will not stand for plutoerats who are without qualifica- tion other than money. | —In 1925 fire losses in Pennsyl- vania aggregated $30,173,327, accord- ing to figures just released by the na- tional Board of Fire Underwriters. It was an increase of 14 per cent. over Ithe losses from the same cause in 1924. Pennsylvania is third among | the forty-eight States in this respect. ' The leading orignating cause of the {fires is given as “matches and smok- 'ing.” Possibly if every community had such capable fire departments as | we can boast there would not be such | appalling losses. | —_——— ——The refusal of the United States | Senate to confirm the appointment of | the Hon. Cyrus E. Woods as a member | of the Interstate Commerce Commis- sion is disappointing to his many . Centre county friends, but will not les- | sen their admiration for him one bit. i It wasn’t the Cyrus Woods we know ' who was rejected. It was a Cyrus Woods whom a lot of Senators don’t | know. Incidentally, Mr. Woods is now i spoken of as a possibility on the Penn- , Sylvania Public Service Commission. | | It isn’t much wonder that there | are three times as many musicians as ‘there are dentists. Most every one i prefers the sound of a musical instru- ment, no matter how poorly it is play- : ed, to the buzz of a dentists’s drill. i ———— i ——————— ——China appears to be “election- eerin’ for a ‘lickin’ again and the Boxer rebellion is still within the ; memory of middle-aged men and i women. i | ——M. Millerand, ex-President of | France, needn’t feel so bad because of his defeat for Senator. Our own Eddie Beidleman has also been “elimi- nated.” ! They are doing surgical opera- tions to music in a certain New York ‘hospital and probably the appendix i will be removed to jazz time. ——The collection of State proc- lamations by the Congressional li- brary will take up room and may be useful in other ways. The discovery of rich ores in the Apennine mountains will be a great boon to Italy and incidentally a help to Mussolini. ——-A Reading man died the other day while pitching quoits in a church cellar. Maybe that isn’t a good place to pitch quoits. I ———— pc ————— ——Next Tuesday will be ground- hog day. He'll decide the weather to follow. : NO. 4. The Sovereignty of Phantoms. From the Pittsburgh Post. With the recognition that there nev- : er was a people in history more jeal- ious of their sovereignty than Ameri- | cans, the significance of the fact that most Pennsylvanians simply laugh at the efforts of the few who would strain Constitutional interpretation to the point of making it appear that this State would lose its sovereignty if “Boss” Vare of Philadelphia is not given a seat in the Senate on his pur- ported plurality padded with the | “votes” of dead men and other phan- toms will scarcely be lost. The obvious fact is that Pennsyl- vanians do not take seriously the at- tempt to draw a picture of Constitu- tionality favorable to Vare One of the significant demonstrations of this was the laugh that was raised over the State by some who voted for Vare under the fetish of “party regularity” as well as by those who were openly against him when Governor Pinchot gave him that “trick certificate” of election; a laugh by those who ordin- arily are against Pinchot as well as those who profess a liking for him. It was a reminder that the majority sentiment of the State is against Vare; that some who voted for him simply for party reasons would be as tickled as many of his avowed oppon- ents to see him lose in the end. The picture of Constitutionality that most Pennsylvanians draw does not have to do with the splitting of legal hairs over the authority of the Senate as the judge of the election and quali- ifications of its members, but of the sanctity that should be around the bal- lot box. Where any political machine attempts to make a farce of the bal- lot box it may expect only derisive laughter when its seeks to use the very Constitution it has violated as a shield between itself and retribution. It takes clean hands to make an effec- tive appeal to the Constitution. What the people of Pennsylvania and the country generally want to know is the extent to which Vare’s claim to election rests upon the “sov- ereignty” of the dead and other phan- toms with which the voting. lists of | Philadelphia and sections of some oth- er cities of the State were padded, and also the extent to which Wilson was denied an honest count of the votes cast for him. The picture of Vareism slicks with the great majority © vanians is the ugly one presented of it in the primary campaign by some of the eminent Republicans of the State it is now looking to save it. Those who now attempt to picture Vare as a martyr of an attempt to mis- construe the Constitution make them- selves look worse than ridiculous. The Vare machine itself, with its vot- ing of dead men and other phantoms, is the only menace to the Constitution in this case. : ————— Being Governor of Pennsylvania. By Melville H. James in the Harrisburg Telegraph. One of the press associatios the other day referred somewhat proudly to the fact that Pennsylvania pays its Governor $18,000. At the risk of be- ing called a liar this column remarks that the Governor of Pennsylvania earns $18,000 before he takes office, in the annoyance and perplexities to which he is subjected by the ladies and gentlemen who remind him every two or three minutes that they elected him. The first year he earns $95,000 were his compensation on the piece- work basis. The second and third years he is entitled to twice that sum. The fourth year $18,000 is about right. In other words, the people of Pennsylvania squander $72,000 on a Governor in four years, but he goes through an experience the cash value of which is $321,000. Which he does not get. The honor! you say. Quite empty. Did the Governor of Pennsyl- vania possess the concentrated virtues of the twelve apostles, the political acumen of Penrose, the Camerons and Quay, the charity of the Salvation Army, the forbearance of the Man of Galilee, the foresight of Merlin, the assurance of the German Emperor, the lineage of the King of England, the knowledge of a five-foot-shelf-of- books—did he possess all these qualifi- cations! he would still retire in four years with the unqualified consent and approval of the majority of the elec- torate. Where the Big Money Goes. From the Philadelphia Record. An interesting case has been begun before the Supreme Court of New York, in which minority stockholders of a certain large corporation have brought action to prevent the presi- dent and vice president of that organi- zation receiving the increase in salary granted to both executives by the board of directors. The two men are now drawing annual salaries of $125,- 000 respectively. Their pay before the increase was $80,000 and $40,000 rc- spectively; and that, say these minor- ity stockholders who have taken the case to Court, is plenty. It will be the business of the Court to pass upon the contention of the complainants, and it will be interesting if the Court will go into the matter deep enough to determine how the other employees of the corporation fared in the matter of increased pay. We who are the plain public, and who get no such fabulous pay, are always intensely curious to’ know how those of the princely wage get that way, and why ? ennsyl- | SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE. —Plans of the State of Pennsylvania for a bridge across the west branch of the Susquehanna river near Hyner, were ap- proved on Tuesday at the War Department, at Washington. ——Carl Sherman, after being missing from bis home at Kinzua for several days, was found frozen to death along the public road a short distance from the pumphouse on an oil lease where he was employed. He was last seen alive when taken in a car by friends to the lease, on his way to work. —Twenty minutes after he was jailed following a hearing in domestic relations court, John Sura, thirty, Blackmans Patch, Luzerne county, died suddenly. A hem- orrhage, was responsible, officials reported, Sura was taken before Judge Coughlin and charged by his wife with neglect and ex- cessive drinking. —Charging her husband attacked and threatened to kill her during an argument in their home on Sunday, Mrs. Elizabeth Shultz, of Lancaster, preferred charges of assault and battery, with intent to kill, and nonsupport against him. She col- lapsed in Alderman John Burkhart's office after signing the complaint. —A mine cave directly under the garage of Mrs. Arna Yeworski, 567 Lee street, Ply- mouth, swallowed a roadster last Friday. The cavein occurred in the Ross workings of the Washington colliery, Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal company. No trace can be found of the car as the cave has been partly filled with dirt and surface water. —Harrisburg pelice are holding five negroes as suspects following an attack on Miss Ruth Smiley, Lemoyne, a school teacher, in that city last Friday. Miss Smiley was walking to the Foose school building when she was attacked. Her screams attracted John Gunderman, the Janitor, who went to her rescue. She is confined to her home suffering from shock and nervousness. —James A. Battles and Miss Bess Cam- by, Pittsburgh election officers, convicted last week of making a false return of the vote in a legislative contest at the May primary, were each fined $100 and costs and paroled for one year in criminal court on Monday. Two women clerks of the election board were acquitted of a similar charge and all four defendants were found not guilty of conspiracy. —Advertisements for bids for the Federal building at Lewistown, of two stories and reinforced concrete construction, costing $108,000, have been ordered by the super- vising architect of the Treasury at Wash- ington, D. C., according to a telegram from Representative Edward M. Beers, of the Eighteenth district. The first floor of the building will be devoted to postoffice work and the second floor will be given over to farm and other meetings and activities. —An explosion wrecked the home and store of Alex Duijan on North Shaver street. Mount Union, last Friday at 12.25 o'clock, scattering the wreckage over an area of 150 yards. The house was occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Dauijan and their five small children, all of whom escaped ser- ious injury. Chief of Police Creamer went to the scene shortly after the explosion and an investigation shows that a heavy charge of dynamite had been placed under the steps leading to the store. —The entire plant of the Baldwin loco- motive works, Tociited at Broad ana Spring Garden streets, near the heart of Philadel- phia, for more than half a century, will have been moved to Eddystone, a Delaware county suburb, by the middle of next sum- mer. In moving to the new site, which covers 600 acres of ground, Samuel M. Vauclain, president, said the plant would have “plenty of room for expansion” and that the concern was “determined to go after the world’s business.” —The dead, charred body of Mrs. Nellie Smyser Ripple, 35, wife of Raymond Rip- ple, lies at her home in Orbisonia, where she took her own life from saturating her clothing and body with kerosene oil, and applied matches. She died several hours after committing the deed. It is said that Mrs. Ripple brooded over alleged mistreat- ment of herself and her three children. She had been a saleslady in the Shapiro department store, at Orbisonia, before her marriage. The oldest of her three sur- viving children, is a son, aged fourteen. —Siston Miller, of Orwigsburg, recently discovered an ancient Bible in the loft of his home, for which he was offered $8,000 to-day. The offer was refused, as the only other similar Bible recently was sold in England for $10,000. The books were printed in England in 1635, and when the other copy was sold it was said it was the only one in existence. Experts pronounced the loeal Bible genuine beyond doubt. It has been in possession of the Miller family for more than a century and it was not known until this week that it had any value. —Steve Wingo, 40, a miner, was shot and killed by a gang of robbers who invaded his home near Uniontown, on Saturday night. The robbers, thre» in number, first confronted Mrs. Wingo, on the first floor of the house, and while one covered her with a revolver, the others went to the second floor where Wingo was shot after a scuffle. Money hidden on the second floor was taken by the robbers who es- caped in an automobile. County authori- ties hope to trace the trio through buttons ripped from their clothing during the fight with Wingo. : —George S. Pash, aged 46, of Braddock, died on Sunday in the Braddock General hospital from blood poisoning resulting from a bite on his left hand inflicted by a man he was trying to aid. Last Menday Bash found a man so under the influence of liquor that he stumbled. He extended a hand to help him and the intoxicated man bit it so hard that blood oozed from the wound. The hand began to swell the next day and a physiciafi found infection was spreading through the system and beinz unable to check the flow of poison the man died as the result. —Tear gas bombs subdued Milton Ger- hart, of Black Horse, Lancaster county, after his proficiency with a shotgun and revolver had scared officers of the Adams- town police force, who, in desperation, summoned Chief of Police McCould, of Ephrata, to capture the man. Gerhart, ac- cording to officers, imagined he was a big- game hunter after consuming quantities of home-made wine. Grabbing a shotgun, he chased his family from the house, and practiced marksmanship with the family’s egg supply as the targets. Police say he also pulverized lanps and other objects in the home. He was fined $2 at a magis- trate’s hearing on a charge of disorderly conduct. ~~