—Mellon consents to Beidleman as National delegate for the Dauphin -district, but it was a case of “Hob- :son’s choice.” * . —By way of advice—entirely gra- tuitous—to a Republican friend who is offering to immeolate himself on the sacrificial altar in Centre county we want to say: Keep out of it. . —We don’t quite get the reason why the Vare watchers of the Sen- ate’s recount of the Pennsylvania vote for United States Senator should have quit their job “in a huff.” It seems to us that if they were sure of their ground it wouldn’t make a particle of difference to them how many watch- ers were present for the other side. —We note that the highways in Pennsylvania are to be renumbered. We presume that the change is one of necessity. Probably all the motor- ists had become familiar with the old numbers and might have found time to start inquiring into affairs of State, so they are being given new ones to ponder over while the marker makers and paint dealers run away with more contracts. —A ‘case of miscengenation is rock- ing the Nutmeg State to the point of riot. You ask what miscengenation means? We would likely have asked the same question had we seen it in print before the Hon. Bill Kepler in- troduced 2 bill in the Pennsylvania Legislature that, if it had been en- acted, would have made it unlawful for a white person to marry one of ‘the colored race. —The New York meeting of Penn- sylvania’s Republican potentates ap- parently resulted in giving Eddie Beidleman back a seat at the polit- ical pie counter. They found that the square shootin’ Dauphin dictator was needed more than they thought he was and, incidentally, his rehabilita- tion removes a lot of splinters from the bench Senator. Scott has been sit- ting on for two years. " __It must be admitted that Eddie Cantor, who was taking down forty- five hundred a week, let Flo Zeigfeld down rather hard when he quit the Follies and the show had to close in consequence of his departure. Eddie said he had pleurisy. From what we have read of the case we diagnose it as one of “pipp.” We know the symptoms well, because we get it so often ourselves. However, Zeigfeld hired Eddie because he is one of the few comedians who can “stop the show” and we can’t see that the im- pressario has much come back now that he’s done it. —Who's going to succeed the Hon. Holmes in the Legislature? The Hon. “Holmes wants to. Jim Heverly, form- er County Treasurer, wants to. Frank Mayes, former County Treasurer, wants to. And we are told that some- ‘body wants Robert Walker, of Belle- fonte, to want to. Our ears are ring- ing with rumors of the rise and fall of prestige of Centre county Republi- can leaders at Harrisburg. They are all grist for our mill and that is the reason wc suggest that Andrew Cur- tin Thompson starts now to show that he is the man the people of Cen- tre county want to succeed the Hon. Hclmes in the Legislature. —Well, Paul Whiteman and his band have been back to State Col- lege and we presume there are those who are expecting us to pay our re- spects to him, as we did following the occasion of his first visit there. Un- fortunately Paul has reformed so that what might otherwise have been food for a whole column dissipates into scanty sustenance for a brief para- graph. He has put his laughing don- keys »nd ma-ma dolls on the shelf with Little Boy Blue’s toy dog and tin soldier. We don’t know whether he kissed them when he put them there, but we could almost have syn- chronized an osculatory effort with him when we realized that he had done so. The “Rhapsody in Blue” carried us back to the days when music was something more than saxo- peal, not wholly because of -its sev- eral exquisite passages. It started us thinking again of the transmigration of souls and wondering whether George Brandon might be speaking again to us through the perfect tech- nique of the Whiteman pianist. ¢ —In our “Talks With the Editor” column this week we suspect that a eorrespondent is trying to inveigle us into an academic discussion of the proper use of the prepositions “with” and “to”. Now with and to have al- ways bothered us. Sometimes we re- member that it is proper to “talk with and speak to” but not always. Loi- sette’s memory book doesn’t cover the case. It tells us, for instance, when we want to recall Napoleon to a wool- gathering mind we “must think of Waterloo,” That suggestion, of course, might help those who could think of Waterloo when they couldn’t of Napoleon, but there is no sugges- tion that we have ever heard of that we might fall back on when we get into a quandary as to whether it is “with” or “to.” When we arrive at that point we're the twin brother of the fellow who admitted that he was in no condition to articulate “sarsap- arilla.” However, if our correspond- ent wants to talk “with” the editor the column is open to him and he is taking on some job. If he wants to talk “to” the editor he can do that, too, but we reserve the right to walk out on him whenever we please. y "STATE RIGHTS AND FEDERAL UNION. VOL. 73. Grave Charges Against Pennsylvania. In response to a letter from former Governor Pinchot, Senator Hiram Johnson, of California, last week ad- dressed the Senate on his resolution providing for a thorough investiga- tion of labor conditions in the bitu- minous coal fields of Pennsylvania. In his letter Mr. Pinchot placed much of the blame for existing evils on the Mellon family, and Secretary of La- bor Davis puts the burden mainly on the operators who failed to attend conferences called for the purpose of conciliation. After reading the state- ments Senator Johnson declared that “in Pennsylvania, today, there are so- cial revolution and economic warfare. Worse, far worse, in that great Com- monwealth there are the dark evils of bloody warfare—sickness, suffering, hardship, privation, want and hunger and the ever attendant infamies of wrong, oppression and tyranny.” As might have been expected the Senator representing Pennsylvania promptly entered a plea of confession and avoidance. “No one could exag- gerate conditions in Pennsylvania,” he said, “and all I ask is that any in. quiry. to be made be a fair and thor- ough one. There must be some re- lief from the situation but let us not jump at conclusions about the caus- es.” Referring to Governor Pinchot’s statement that “coal and iron” police are responsible for much of the suf- fering Senator Reed added that Gov- ernor Fisher “is investigating this phase of the situation.” He assumed much the same attitude during the last session of Congress with respect to the investigation of frauds in the election of Vare. He professed to be willing and anxious to expose fraud but invoked every expedient, even a filibuster, disastrous to important leg- islation, to prevent it. Senator Johnson’s resolution was introduced a year ago and Senator Reed promised cordial support and sympathy with its purpose. His limp- ing alibi now is that Governor Fisher is making an investigation of the subject. The suffering wives and chil- dren of the Pittsburgh Coal company’s evicted miners will find little comfort in that assurance. One day last month Governor Fisher commissioned upward of “8000 coal and iron“police< men for service in the bituminous coal sections of Pennsylvania, and that after complaint had been made against the atrocities perpetrated by them. Senator Reed justifies their ! employment because State policemen are in service in most States. But there is a vast difference between | “State” and “Coal and Iron” police. | State police are amenable to law | while coal and iron police ohey only orders of bosses. a —Next Tuesday will be Valentine | day. A Vicious Deal in Offices. On Monday of last week W. L. Mel- lon, chairman of the Republican State committee; John S. Fisher, Governor of Pennsylvania, and William S. Vare, discredited United States Senator- elect, met in conference in New York and completed the most vicious polit- ical deal ever perpetrated in the country. It involves the abdication by Governor Fisher of the most import- ant function of his office and confer- ring upon Mr. Vare, whom he had previously denounced as representing nothing in public life but a beer mug, the power to appoint a Senator to represent Pennsylvania in the highest deliberative body in the world. It would be impossible to imagine a more disgraceful incident. David A. Reed, who now represents the Mellon banks, the Gulf Oil com- pany, the Steel trust, the Aluminum trust and other corporate interests in the Senate, aspires to re-election. His fidelity to his corporate clients and in- difference to public interests has aroused such opposition that it has been believed that any opponent would defeat him. Friends of Justice Gephart, of the Supreme court, had been urging him to enter the race and Vare had been encouraging his ambi- tion. With Vare’s support he would have become a candidate and Reed would have been defeated. At the New York conference Vare stated his terms and the Governor and the chair- man of the State committee had to agree to them. Thus the political agencies in au- thority are contributing to the cor- ruption of public life. One faction has offices to sell and another has what serves as currency to buy and both are influenced by sinister pur- poses. The Mellons need a Repre- sentative on the floor of the Senate and Vare’s Philadelphia machine has power to defeat their plan. So they get together in New York and strike a bargain just as a bunch of Hucksters deal for a carload of potatoes. The interests of the people get no consideration.” The in- terests of the two machines are con- sired only. Another Oil Magnate Defiant. The oil millionaires continue their | defiant attitude respecting the inves- tigation of the Teapot Dome lease to Sinclair. Robert W. Stewart, chair- man of the board of the Standard Oil company of Indiana, was before the Senate committee on Public Lands, last week, and refused to answer per- tinent questions concerning the opera- tions of the mushroom Canadian cor- poration which is said to have made vast profits out of the transaction. It has been shown by the evidence of | other witnesses that the $325,000 paid to the then Secretary of the Navy, Albert B. Fall, came from that source, and it is suspected large sums drawn from the same fountain trickled into the pockets of other government of- ficials. While negotiations for the lease of the oil reserve were pending this Can- adian corporation was organized. It purchased from oil corporations con- trolled by Stewart and Sinclair up- ward of three million barrels of oil at $1.50 a barrel and before any mon- ey had been paid or oil moved sold it back to the corporations controlled by Stewart and Sinclair for $1.75 a bar- rel. Immediately after this very profitable transaction was completed the Canadian corporation was dis- solved and about the time the investi- gation of the lease of Teapot Dome was begun all books and records of the corporation were barned and all evidence of its activities destroyed. It is believed Mr. Stewart could tell the story. Ei = Harry Sinclair, associated with Stewart in the transaction, has al- ready been convicted of contempt of the Senate for refusal to answer sim- ilar inquiries more than two “years ago, but thus far he has escaped the penalty. Stewart is now threatened with prosecution for the same offense but doesn’t seem to mind it. These rich rascals imagine that they are im- mune to punishment and the fact that Fall and Sinclair are still at liberty justifies their confidence in some de- gree. The civil courts have been len- ient with them. The leases corruptly made to Sinclair and Doheney have been revoked and a large part of the profits exacted : sriminal courts seem to be impotent if not worse. —Republican Chairman Butler is threatening to take his National con- vention away from Kansas City. Probably they gave him a bad check. Mr. Beck’s Absurd Claim. It may be safely predicted that the House Committee on Elections will report in favor of seating James M. Beck as a Representative for the First district of Pennsylvania. It has been clearly shown that he was not an “in- habitant” of Pennsylvania, as ex- pressed in the constitution at the time of his election. But the committee will be influenced by partisan prej- udice as the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections was, the oth- er day, when it voted to summarily dismiss the petition of William B. Wilson in the Vare contest. The cer- tainty of an appeal to the Senate caused a reversal in that case but there is no terror in such a course in the House. That body is “joined to its idols.” Mr. Beck set up the claim that his residence in Washington did not make him an “inhabitant” for the reason that it began in pursuance of his duty as an officer of the government. So long as he remained in the employ- ment of the government at Washing- , ton that is true. But he ceased to be an officer of the government some’ yearsiago and since that has been an inhabitant of New York and New Jer- sey in turn and a qualified voter in New Jersey. He became a repatriat- ed inhabitant of Pennsylvania only af- | ter he had entered into a questionable bargain with William S. Vare to take his place as a Representative in Con- gress for a district that Mr. Vare professes to own and control. All these facts were clearly pre- | sented to the House Committee on’ Elections by Representative Everett Kent. It was admitted by Mr. Beck that since his separation from official life in Washington he has lived in New York and voted in New Jersey | and that he was registered in z Phil- adelphia club, until very recently, as a non-resident member. It is not claimed by any business or profes- ional resident of Washington that he may reside and pursue his business or profession there and still be an “in- habitant” of the State in which he was born. But that is the basis upon which Mr. Beck claims to represent a | Pennsylvania constituency in Con- gress, and party exigencies will en- able him to get away with it. —Lindbergh at an altitude of 7,-! 600 feet writes “I have just come out exacted from them: But the ; BELLEFONTE. PA.. FEBRUARY 10. 1928. Trouble in Pan-American Congress. The Pan-American Congress, in Havana, is not moving in the manner desired by the administration in Washington or as smoothly as the royal welcome to the President in. dicated. Mr. Coolidge’s glittering speech made little impression on the Southern delegates and the Hughes’ oration, redolent with sympathy and profuse in promise, was accepted at a considerable discount from its face ! value. But the delegates proceeded with the organization of the confer- ence as if they were hopeful of a. The representa- | magnificent success. tives of Cuba, Nicaragua and Peru had been carefully coached in their roles and the preliminary proceedings were all that could be desired. ! © But when the real work of the Con- gress was taken up the atmosphere changed as rapidly as the tempera- ture of the weather in this latitude. Committees were appointed to con- ‘ sider the various subjects to be treat- ‘ed and some of them seem to have been packed to serve the purposes of , Washington. For example, the com- mittee on international law made a report practically justifying the ex- isting conditions in Nicaragua and when submitted to the Congress it was vehemently denounced by an ov- erwhelming majority of the delegates. Mr. Hughes, who is rapidly earning the title of the great American prom- iser, praised it fulsomely and one or two others gave it qualified endorse- ment. But the majority condemned it emphatically. The truth is that the people of the . United States, as well as those of the ' several Republics of the Rio Grande, [are opposed to such intervention as is now being forced upon the people of { Nicaragua, and so long as this coun- ‘try persists in it the spirit of resist- ance will assert itself in the Carib- bean States. The doctrine of self- determination expresses the true sen- timent of self-respecting peovle ev- erywhere, and regulating policiex and controlling elections by alien bayonets is the antithesis of this. The Panama Congress may be able to point a path to compromise on this questicn which will save the face of the Washington administration, but the Hughes plan will not prevail. ; Tip i —In the regular report of the busi- ness meeting of borough council, on Monday evening, mention is made of the request of Robert F. Hunter for a franchise for furnishing gas to resi- dents of Bellefonte from a plant to be erected at or near the Pleasant , Gap railroad station. The magnitude ,of Mr. Hunter’s undertaking can be better appreciated by the fact that the estimated cost of the plant, main pipe lines to Bellefonte, Lemont and State College, as well as service lines into homes of prospective customers, is close to half a million dollars, and is more likely to exceed that sum than fall below the estimate. To contruct such a plant, lay the pipe lines, ‘ete, will maturally give em- ployment to quite a number of work- men and Mr. Hunter expects to em- ploy local labor so far as possible. As it is his desire to have the plant built and pipe lines laid during the coming summer there is prospect for jobs for most of the men who are now out of work in this vicinity. | —Probably those Pan-American delegates remembered that Charles E. Hughes solemnly assured the Amer- ican people in 1920 that the surest way to get the United States into the League of Nations was by voting for Harding for President. —~The Milton girl who recently ad- vertised for a husband with $10,000 says she “is a good cook and does not mind washing dishes.” That sort of a woman is cheap at any price. i: —Secretary Kellogg says he is will- ing to join with all other governments in the world to abolish submarines. Mr. Kellogg knows that is an entirely safe proposition. —Workmen in Barcelona are quit- ting their employment as a protest against the income tax. Most people will think that a poor way of meet- ing the issue. —President Coolidge is perfectly willing to let all newspapers praise his administration and all other ad- ministrations in power. —Grundy will go to the convention as a district delegate but there is no record of a pledge to obey the big boss in the voting. —————— re ———— | —Automobile builders and dealers are about the only people who can get folks to pay for looking at their | wares, —As a neighborhood landmark “the | Another Soft Coal Inquiry in Pros- pect in Congress. From the Philadelphia Record. Reciting acccunts of shocking dis- tress and charges of alleged cppres- sion of labor in the soft coal fields of central and western Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, Senator Johnson, of California, offered three weeks ago a resolution providing for a Senate inquiry. The demand gained only moderate support, but it has re- ceived unexpected indorsement from Senator Reed, of Pittsburgh, and this assent from a representative of the operator’s point of view indicates that the investigation will be made. | That the prelonged strike has led to deplorable results is nowhere dis- i puted. Senator Reed admitted that . miners in some sections “are living ! under conditions in which no Amer- i ican ought to live,” and he declared . that the market price of coal had | fallen until neither operators nor | workers could exist, with inevitable impoverishment of their communities. More explicitly, the Johnson resolu- ‘tion charges that miners and their families evicted from their homes are suffering from exposure and starva- tion; that wage contracts have been cishonored; that railroad companies have conspired to cripple organized labor by depressing prices and boy- cotting mines employing union work- ers and that injunctions have been un- justly used to suppress peaceful and legitimate activities by the strikers. i = Undeniably the situation is serious enough to justify a searching inquiry, and such action by the Senate might be useful in attracting public opinion to the problem. But the truth is that i the underlying conditions and the causes thereof have been notorious for years, and that the proposed in- i vestigation can yield no new informa- tion or make more urgent the need for drastic remedies. Nearly five years ago, in fact, an exhaustive survey was made by the Federal Coal Commission; but its comprehensive recommendations have been ignored by Congress, although President Coolidge in half a dozen messages has urged legislative ac- tion. The Department of Labor like- wise has intervened, but the confer- ence it held a few months ago accom- plished nothing because the most pow- erful operating interests refused to participate in it. Thus the dismal and hopeless struggle has continued, with vast numbers of workers suffer- ; iig misery, the Tony veaker companies drifting into bankruptcy and the stronger barely sustaining themselves in a chaotic market. The fundamental cause of all the trouble is that the soft coal industry is overdeveloped and over manned, with 3000 mines and 250,000 miners ! in excess of bituminous consumption requirements. Unless the proposed inquiry leads to the complete reorgan- ization, which alone can remedy over- production, underemployment, low wages and a profitless market, it x be just another futile investiga- ion. ———————— —— Looking Toward 1936. From the Philadelphia Public Ledger. Rear Admiral Hilary P. Jones says that he “gathered the impression” at Geneva last summer that the Wash- ington naval-limitation treaty would be allowed to expire in 1936. There is much reason to believe that one or more of the Powers involved would favor such a course. France and Italy have never been satisfied with it. This was plainly shown by their i refusal to go to Geneva. | But it is the other three Powers ! i whose adhesion to the idea of naval limitation is most vital to. the peace of _the world. . Two of them, the United States and Japan, have ex- pressed themselves as reasonably sat- isfied. Neither would be disposed to terminate the Washington treaty, de- - spite the fact that it could not be ex- | tended and supplemented at the Ge- ‘neva conference. It is Great Britain which is the uncertain factor. The British have shown plainly their dissatisfaction with the idea of equality with the United States, even , though parity is confined to capital i ships. They do not like it and never - have liked it. Eight years from now, i perhaps, they will have decided that they can’t endure it any longer. But ‘in the next eight years the United States may have an effective sea : power equal, if not superior, to that of Great Britain. This might make the British change their tune. | | ! Everybody’s Newspaper. : From the Harrisburg Telegraph. i Hopwood, able editor of the Cleve- land Plain Dealer, is right when he says the only successful newspaper is , “everybody’s newspaper.” | He cites the fact that we all have three great instincts—the instinct of self-preservation, the instinct of race perpetuation (sex interest), and ‘the instinct of property and home preser- vation. Any newspaper which goes wild on {any one of these “interest-centers” is not a good newspaper. Any newspa- | per which ignores any one of them is {not a good newspaper. Newspapers must serve all, interest all, face the facts, tell the truth. No editor has the right or the in- telligence to set himself up ‘as the of the clouds.” How Herbert Hoover black barn” is no more. It has turned infallible judge of what the people must envy him. yellow. should or should not be told. BE —_——___ | SPAWLS FROM THE KEYSTONE. —Frederick Herman, of Sunbury, drove his truck_ in front of a Reading passenger train at Lewisburg last Thursday night. It. ‘was reduced to junk, and when the crew went to look for the corpse they found Herman sitting among the debris, not having suffered even a scratch. —Hal Hughes, who is in charge of the Salvation Army barracks, at Hazleton has forsaken the role of an oil magnate for service as a captain in the corps and he also has given up good chances of star- ring in baseball and basketball circles for the cause which he has made his life work. —One of the most unusual acicdents re- ported in Shamokin for several months befell Mrs. George Shuey on Monday. She was being led from her sick bed to bid good-by to a daughter who was leaving for the hospital when she fell into the arms of relatives. She fractured her right leg near the hip. ' —Coming in contact with a high tension electric line, while descending a steel tower in the mountain back of Seward, Chalmer Bracken, 17, of Johnstown, was killed. He was hurled forty feet to the ground and landed at the feet of eight of his companions, whp had watched him climb to the top of the tower: to blow a bugle. The boys were on a hiking trip: —J. Walter Sharp, aged 75, a resident of Castanea township, adjoining Lock Haven, died suddenly of heart disease when he was attacked by the malady in an acute form as he was walking near his home, Friday night. He entered a filling station nearby and asked for liniment, but died before a doctor could be summoned. He worked for the Pennsylvania and New York Central railroads and was a carpen- ter and marble and granite worker. —James H. Elliott, of Toledo, Ohio, was sentenced to spend from two to ‘four years in the Clearfield county jail! and pay fines totalling $500 for passing worth- less checks, when he was tried ‘before Judge Chase at Clearfield on Monday, of last week. Elliott had located in DuBois several months ago and when he attempt- ed to step out he essayed to pay his way with checks that had no funds back of them, which procedure brought him into the toils of the law. —Two Franklin countians, John Ham- mond, of Stony Point, and Cornelius Hockenberry, of Doylesburg, paid fines of $100 each to State Game Board officials for illegal collection of bounty on furs. The pair were arrested by. C. B. Baum, division supervisor, and Game Protector R. O. Dunkle. It was said that both are fur dealers and took advantage of their busi- ness to collect State bounty on furs they purchased. About a dozen weasels were involved, it was said. —Mrs. Adah H. Kauffman, aged 28, former clerk for the Exchange bank, at Franklin, Pa., was convicted of embezzle- ment last Thursday. It was testified that she transferred $4174 from inactive ac- dgounts to the credit of her husband, John Kauffman. She was acquitted on a charge of having taken $6725 from a cash draw- er. The husband, charged with conspir- acy in connection with the transfer of the money to his account, will be tried later. He is in jail in default of $5,000 bail. —TFor representing himself as a mem- ber of various churches, fire companies and several charity organizations in ob- “tating merchandise and “funds through fraudulent check transactions, Lester Me- Sherry, 27 years old, was sentenced at York, Pa., on Monday to serve three years on pleading guilty to charges of false pretense and passing bogus checks. He was also sentenced to pay a fine of $100 on each of the three pleas. The swindle . netted McSherry, he admitted, about $172 in cash and a supply of merchandise and articles for which he had absolutely no use. —Six persons are being held in the Blair county jail on charges of burglary, robbery and felonious assault at the home of R. L. Wilt, at Duncansville. Mrs. Wilt, alone in the house, was bound and gagged, kerosene was poured on her hair and she was threatened with death until the bur- glars were told the hiding place of $3,200 i in cash, Liberty bonds and stocks. Mrs. | wilt was found unconscious some hours later. Persons familiar with the family are believed responsible, as the Wilts only recently received the stocks and bonds, which were duplicates of others destroyed in a fire. —A search for relatives of Walter Dud- ley, former soldier, who was found dazed on the streets of Harrisburg some days ago and has been unable to give an ac- count of his relatives, has been instituted i by the Veterans Bureau, Red Cross, and | Harrisburg Chapter of War Mothers. Ma- 1 jor H. H. Barnhart, head of the veterans | bureau, had written to two soldiers near ‘Baltimore who were reported to have been “buddies” of the world war veteran but no definite data concerning his home has’ been obtained. Dudley is being cared for by the American Rescue Workers at their home in Harrisburg. —After a search that had extended over two weeks, James Rieg, 14-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Rieg., of 206 South avenue, DuBois, has been located. Young Rieg walked into a police station in East Pittsburgh Thursday night at 7:30 o'clock and asked for a night's lodging and was imemdiately recognized by Pittsburgh po- lice as the missing DuBois boy. His re- quest for lodging was granted and Pitts- of Police R. R. Love, of DuBois, who in turn called the boy's father and advised him that his boy was safe in the Pittsburgh bastile. Mr. Rieg left early Friday morn- ing for Pittsburgh to take charge of his son. —James Clayton McKinley, correspond- ence school detective and alleged finger- print expert, of Lewistown, has presented his resignation to the courts of Miffin county. The resignation was accepted without comment, and McKinley is no longer a private detective. Ten days ago he conceived a publicity stunt at the me- tropolis of the Kishacoquillas valley, Belleville, in which he faked a note, staged a burlesque on a bank holdup and kept business men out of bed the greater part of the night. McKinley warned business men of the town that “a job” was going to be pulled by robbers in Belleville, so that scores of them remained at their places of business to lay in wait for the burglar. At two o'clock in the morning a shot was fired and McKinley says he was attacked by three men on the street. Later he confessed that it was purely a “hoax” and that he had ruined a perfect. ly good overcoat by firing a bullet through it to give color to his story. :