Wt)££Df OFJ.rPANKLIN 3£LLM 1 (s^§~~~ tnr I ■""-WASHINGTON. President WTaft has reappointed Maj. Gen. J. Franklin Bell as chief of the general staff, Bell has held this office for JBrSfrH some years, and it is un tt/Ajt&l derstood that at the end of another year of service \ in the position, he will be succeeded by Maj. Gen. y_Carg>iJ Leonard Wood. Some second Kipling should write of one of the deeds of J. Franklin Bell. The general went over to the Philippines as a first lieutenant of the Seventh calavry He had not been in the islands long before he was putin command of a volunteer force composed almost wholly of regulars whose terms of enlistment had ex pired, but who were willing to take on a short term of duty to help in the clearing up of the work which they aided in starting. Back m one of the provinces was a band of Tagalogs who had given the government forces all kinds of trou ble. One of their chief villages was "located," and Gen. Bell with his fol lowing of old campaigners took the trail for its capture. The command ing officer had been through cam paigns against the Sioux, the Apaches, and other tribes of the mountains and plains, and taken more than one leaf from the book of knowledge of savage warfare. Guides led the force to the vicin ity of the Tagalog village. Night fell and the Tagalogs were all unsus picious of the approach of the white enemy. At three o'clock in the morn ing, when sleep always hangs heavy on the eyes, Bell led his men toward the village. The Tagalogs had sentinels posted along an outlying line. After the manner of the people of the plains the soldiers crept silently between the pickets, only one of whom was vigi lant enough to detect the presence of tne enemy. He was silenced before he had a chance to startle the air with a cry or a ■hot. Straight into the village went Bell at the head of his men. Dawn streaks wore beginning to show in the sky, but the warriors were asleep past the ordinary waking, for were not the sen tinels posted, and were they not bound by every tradition of tribal honor to be awake and watch ful? Lieut. Bell had given his men orders. The vil lage was cordoned with troops and there wasn't a mousehole of escape. Bell has a whimsical humor. In the very heart of the Tagalog village •as an old muzzle-loading brass cannon, a trophy taken by the Tagalogs from the Spaniards of an other day, and which the natives were hoping to use against the equally hated Americans. Bell detailed a loading party of three men. The three became boys again, and they rammed the piece full of powder and grass wadding, after the man ner of loading a Fourth of July cannon on the Tillage green in the home land. The light of coming day was strong enough for the conducting of operations. A lanyard was pulled and the brazen piece roared out its reveille. The sound of it shook the foundations of the Ta galog huts; it roused the warrior sleepers as would the cracking of doomsday. They came armed, but naked to the fray. The Tagalogs iooked on bayonet points and down gun barrels and sur render came instanter. Gen. J. Franklin Bell is the youngest officer who ever held the position of chief of staff. He is a genial general and he is willing to talk when he properly may on the subjects touching hia profession. As the joker put it, he is a Bell who knows when to ring off. He avoids the sins of silence and of speech, wherein he shows that he is wiser in his generation than some of his prede cessors were in their generation. When his promotion came the chief of staff jumpej irom a captaincy to a brigadier general ship, and his tremendous rank stride did not bring forth one word of criticism from soldier or civi lian. Since then he has become a major general. The army officers who were jumped said that •Bt ll carni'd his promotion, and that if other pro motions were, like his, based solely on service quality, there would be no heart burnings under the blouses. When the Seventh cavalry, in which Gen. 1/ell jwas then a lieutenant, reached the Philippines, ':he Spanish troops were still in possesion, for jDewey had reduced the fleet, but not Manila city and its immediate defenses. Information was 'wanted concerning the Spanish earthworks. Lieut. Bell volunteered to get it. He didn't tell any one powerful swimmer. On that night he swam the entire distance around the bay, landing now and then to get a closer look at the enemy's water front fortifications. He did this unseen of any sentinel. If discovery had come it meant almost certain death to the swimmer. He came back to his starting point with full knowledge of the strength of the Spaniards in heavy guns, and when the time for the assault came, the infor mation was of i>riceless service. Gen. Bell was called on while in the Philip pines to end the war in Batangas. He ended it, and in ending it he took the only course possible —a course that the civilians at a distance from' the fighting denounced as altogether too severe. Bell was called a second Weyler, and a second duke of Alva, but when full knowledge came of his operations and of the craft and horrid cruelty of the natives whom he was lighting, criticism died. Of his experience and of the criticism he said in a letter to a frieftd: "Knowing my dispcpition and kindly feeling toward the natives full well, you will have no dif ficulty in understanding that *.he necessity for se vere measures has been a source of distress to me. The only consolation I can derive is by keeping rny thoughts on the end and object in view. When one has worked faithfully, consci entiously, and unselfishly for his country four years, without relaxation or rest, it is somewhat discouraging, not to say distressing, to find that even some of his own countrymen appear to have no confidence in his motives, judgment or integ-i rity." 1 There is no use in mincing words; Gen. Bell is considered one of the most daring and dashing officers in the American service. He wears a medal of honor for charging "single-handed and alone," a body of armed Filipinos. He was shot at repeatedly from every quarter, but in army parlance: "They didn't get him," but he got sev en of them, not dead, but alive, and he led back to the American lines, his septet of prisoners, all' cowering under his pointed pistol, though every man jack of them was armed. If war were to come there is no army doubt, although he is far from being the ranking officer of the service, that Gen. Bell would be given the chief command of the field forces. * • # ♦ * ♦ It needs neither the bearing nor the uniform of Lieut. Gen. Adna It. Chaffee (retired), to show that he is a soldier. You can see it in his face. His expression is at once mild and aggressive, and the eye is purposeful. Gen. Chaffee's name comes most readily to the lips when one is asked to name a typical American soldier. The former chief of staff of the army was CAMERON COUNTY PRESS, THURSDAY JUNE 24, 1909. how he was going to get it. His meth od was daring and aovel. Under cover of the darkness he went to the water front, stripped off his clothes and plunged in. He 13 a once private in the ranks. For two years he was an enlisted mail, serving in the regulars. He joined in 1861, choosing the cavalry arm of the service, and to it he remained faithful through all the years of his duty. He iS one of the finest riders that the army claims. There have been many stories of Japanese spies who have been found taking notes of American army operations and equipment. The Japs got their first object lesson in the way American soldiers do things from Gen. Chaffee. That ob- ject lesson doubtless has had some influence in modifying the thought which the orientals held that they could whip the Americans out of hand. Gen. Chaffee was in command of the expedition which went to the relief of the beleaguered embassies at Peking. Japanese officers and men saw him there. The general won a fame in China which is not confined to the American continent. The generals of Europe have giv en testimony that Adna R. Chaffee is a great soldier. Orders to take command of the Chinese expedition reached Gen. Chaffee while he was at Nagasaki on board a steamer which was to take him to the Phil ippines. The order was unexpected, and the general had practically no chance for campaign preparations. He was togo into a strange land, to lead an expedition against a strange people, and not only was it expected of him that he be successful, but that success be won quickly, for the lives of many Americans were in danger within sight of the walls of the "Forbidden City." The general arrived at Tien-tsin too late to take part in the battle in which the brave Maj. Liscum of the • Ninth infantry lost his life. Not only was the American soldier 1 spurred to quick marching action by j> the knowledge of the imminent peril 'i of the Americans at Peking, but he wis snurred by the knowledge that the soldiers of cTher nations were to take part in the relief ex pedition, and he wished the men of his own coun try to show themselves worthy in the sight of the men of otlier countries. They did show themselves worthy, and they re sponded to the call of their commander with an alacrity that made the American leadeis instead of followers in that march beset with difficulties and dangers almost unparalleled in modern war fare. There are men in the army to-day who firmly believe that Gen. Chaffee did not sleep an hour during the march to Peking. The soldiers who made the march declare that the nights in China are black; that it is impossible to see anything at all without the aid of artificial light, and these in the bivouacs of the soldiers were forbidden for precautionary reasons. There was no definite knowledge of the forces that might be in the path of the expedition, and no one knew what surprises the night might cover. Gen. Chaffee, his soldiers say, constituted himself a sentinel who refused to be relieved from guard, and through the nights he was alert and watching, and through the days he was alert and marching. There are stories by the scores of men who are supposed to bear charmed lives. The hero of the book of fiction sheds bullets as a slate roof sheds rain, and in the reading of it one finds it hard to believe that any truth could be stranger than this fiction. If Gen. Chaffee doesn't bear a charmed life he has the largest allowance of luck that has fallen to any one man. Gen. Chaffee has been four times brevetted for bravery. Two of the brevet commissions came to him for gallantry in the civil war service, and two for gallantry in battles with the Indians. He once led a cavalry charge over rough and precipitous bluffs, where a cavalry charge was thought to ba a feat well-nigh impossible. He rode at the head of his men straight into a body of armed Indians, scattering them, but not until they had poured volley after volley into Chaf fee's oncoming command. That charge gave the soldier his brevet commission as a lieutenant colonel. When the Spanish-American war broke out Chaffee was made a brigadier general of volun teers. He was in the very thick of the fighting in front of Santiago. Capt. Arthur Lee, a British army officer detailed by his government to watch the field operations in Cuba, attached himself to the headquarters of Gen. Chaffee. Capt. Lee wrote a story about the campaign in which he paid to Gen. Chaffee the highest tribute that it is possible for ono soldier to pay to another. Pennsylvania! Happenings Philadelphia.—Following the attack made by Clark Williams, New York State Superintendent of Banking, upon the system of conducting State bank 3, the National Association of Credit Men profited by his statements and took action looking toward the passage of a uniform law patterned as nearly as possible after that of New York State, under which Mr. Wil liams works. Pittsburg.—Eight bridges spanning the Allegheny River will be raised, six of them rebuilt, if the recommen dations made by Major H. C. New comer of the local United States en gineering department are approved by the three engineers just appointed by Secretary Dickenson of the War De partment to consider the matter. Harrisburg.—Through counsel of the railroads and the attorneys repre senting the claimants, 179 of what are popularly known as the yellow pine reparation cases, were adjusted on the same basis as the Miller a. i Green settlement of March 18 last, which was C 7 per cent, of the provable ship ments. The amount involved in the settlement will approximate $200,000. Pittsburg.—Over 10.000 skilled work men, members of the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin Workers, who are employed by the American Sheet & Tin Plate Com pany, will quit work on the night, of June 30, at which time the " pen shop" order of the company becomes effective. Many unskilled workmen <vill also be affected. Pittsburg.—John Francies, warden of the Western Penitentiary, has ad vertised for bids, which will be re ceived on Saturday, June 26, for fur nishing beef for the prison for the year beginning July 1, 1900. Nearly two hundred tons will be reqrired. The consumption of beef llone amounts to about 6,750 pounds a week. Chuck, plate and brisket are used in about equal quantities. McKeesport.—W. C. Cronemeyer, father of the tinplate industry and former president of the Chamber of Commerce of McKeesport, reported to the police that he had received a Black Hand letter. Mr. Cronemeyer says he was scheduled to die June 10 unless he placed SSOO in a tin can and to be placed beneath the porch at liis home. He forgot all about the letter until he happened to run across it. Dozens of McKeesport people have re ceived such letters recently. Pittsburg.—-Millions of dollars will be expended by the railroads during the last six months of this year for supplies. This is due to the fact that the vast amount of supplies stored in the division warehouses has been ex hausted and special committees have complied reports showing that those 011 hand at present are less than for many years. Supply dealers report a big improvement in their line, and are now negotiating with the railroads for large orders to be delivered dur ing the next six months. McKeesport. Announcement was made that the McKeesport Tinplate Company will spend about $2,000,000 in the construction of ten new mills, practically doubling its present capa city. In order to provide for this and other contemplated improvements the company has purchased about two acres of land adjoining its plant in Portvue. The fires were lighted at No. 3, which is the fourth furnace started up by the National Rolling Mills at McKeesport within the last two weeks. It will provide immediate employment for 150 men and will be the indirect means of starting several hundred others to work in the rolling mills and tube works. Connellsville.—Coke production in the Connellsville region recently has beaten all previous records. The total production in the Connellsville and Dower Connellsville regions amounted to 298,486 tons in one week. The H. C. Frick Company sent out orders for putting in blast 2,400 more ovens. The independent operators also put a num ber of additional ovens in blast. The average run for the plants was five days. Some were in operation six days and several were going full the entire seven days. Generally throughout the region there is renewed activity. Re pairs are being made, yards are being cleaned up and preliminaries being at tended to preparatory to the starting up of more coke plants. Some of the repair shops are working overtime. The Frick car shops at Everson are working overtime getting out mine cars. Several of the Connellsville manufacturing companies are busy on new supplies for independent com panies. Harrisburg.—No details of police men have been made by the State Po lice Department yet. They are ex pected to be made the latter part of the month when things get more set tled and the troopers are well fixed in their barracks at Pottsville. Harrisburg.—An unusual complaint was filed at the office of the State Railroad Commission recently. It came from J. D. Maloney, a scrap iron dealer in Pittsburg who objected to the rates charged for hauling scrap from Pittsburg to Allegheny. The Ejccepl tonal Equipment of the California Fig Syrup Co. and th« scientific attainments of its chemists hav« rendered possible the production of Syrup of Figa and Elixir of Senna, in all of ita excellence, by obtaining the pure medic inal principles of plants known to act mosl beneficially and combining them mosl skillfully, in the right proportions, with its wholesome and refreshing Syrup of California Figs. As there is only one genuine Syrup of Figs and Elixir of Senna and as the gen uine is manufactured by an original method known to the California Fig Syrup Co. only, it is always necessary to buy th« genuine to get its beneficial effects. A knowledge of the above facts enables one to decline imitations or to return them if, upon viewing the package, the full nams of thcCalifornia FigSyrupCo. is not found printed on the front thereof. Many Seekers of the Polo. Canada, Denmark, France, Ger many, England, Russia, Sweden and the United States were, in 1908, repre sented among the 12 expeditions which were struggling toward the pole. Eight leaders were veterans- Peary and Cook of the United States, Bernier of Canada, Erichsen and Has* mussen of Denmark, Charcot of France, Shaekleton of England aaS Geer of Sweden. A Rare Good Thing. "Am using ALLEN'S FOOT-EASE, an® can truly say I would not have been with out it so long, had I known the relief it would Rive my aching feet. I think it a rare good thing for anyone having sore or tired feet.—Mrs. Matilda Holtwert, Providence, K. I." Sold by all Druggists, 25c. .Ask to-day. Suggestion. Knicker—What reform Is most needed? Bocker —Politics should be taken out of politics. Particularly for Particular People. Souders' Vanilla Extract is produced from fine Mexican Vanilla Beans —a pure, rich concentrated flavor. All grocers. Put up in 10, 15 and 25-cent bottles. A Correction. "Her card club has quit playing fo* the season." "You mean scrapping, don't you?" A cold on the lungs doesn't usually amount to much, but it invariably pre cedes pneumonia and consumption. Ilam lins Wizard Oil applied to the chest at once will break up a cold in a night. When lawbreakers become law makers they will naturally make law® that are easy. Mrs. Wlnalovr'ti Soothing Syrup. For children teething, Boftenn the -rums, reduces In flammation, allay H pain, cure* wind cullo. 25c a bottl* The ballet girl trust la a tighta* squeeze. Do You Feel Run Down? If so, you are an easy victim of disease. You can avoid danger if you build up your system with the natural strength-giver — DR.D.JAYNE'S TONIC VERMIFUGE which helps your body do its own building up. It puts the whole diges tive system in a perfect condition. Regulates the stomach, imparts new vigor and health to the tissues. Your Druggist has it. Two si' es, 50c and 35c SICK HEADACHE _ _____ Positively cured by CARTFRS these LlMle Pi,,a - WrlSll LIIO They nlso rellCTe DlB . ITTTB |T tress from Dyspepsia, In* iET fi \t> (T"f% digestion and Too Hearty ■3 I\f E R Eating. A perfect rem- Ka II J" I efly for Dizziness, Nau* |J |r I LLv« sea, Drowsiness, Bad Taste in the Mouth, Coat ed Tongue, Pain in the I Side, TORPID LIVER. They regulate the Bowels. Purely Vegetable. SMALL PILL. SMALL D3SE. SMALL PRICE. IPADTCDSI Genuine Must Bear uAKI LnO Fac-Simile Signature IM REFUSE SUBSTITUTES. - _ IJri McINTOSII celebrated tl • Natural Uterine Supporter \ prlvi'Blmmediate relief. Hold l»y all sur> i i irieal Instrument dealer* and. leading V I // drujfiflHta In T.'nlted KtAte* and C anad*. \\J/ Catalog, prtoe list and particulars mall«d TIIK HASTINGS McINTOSH TRUSS CO., 912 Walnut St., Philadelphia, Pa., manufacturers of trusses ■ole makers of the Genuine ■tamped "Mcintosh" Supporter. 3
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers