18 HARRISBURG TELEGRAPH A NEWSPAPER POR THE HOMB Pounded Published evenings except Sunday by THE TELEGRAPH PRINTING CO, Telegraph Building, Federal Sqaare. E. J. STACKPOLE. PreSt (r Edittr-in-Chirf T. R. OTSTER, Business Manager. GUS M. STEINMETZ, Managing Editor. Member of the Associated Press —The Associated Press is exclusively en titled to the use for republication of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited In this paper and also the local news published herein. All rights of republication of special dispatches herein are also reserved. . Member American ifl Newspaper Pub- S Ushers' Associa tion, the Audit Bureau of Circu lation and Penn sylvania Associ ated Dailies. Eastern office. Avenue Building, New York City; Western office. Story, Brooks & Finley, People's Gas Building, _ Chicago, 111. Entered et the Post Office In Harris burg, Pa., as second clas3 matter. By carriers, ten cents a trilSS!*' week; by mall, $5.00 a year in advance. FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1017 Drudgery is the gray angel of success.—Dß. GAXNET. THE DAYS OF NOAH'S ARK THE days of the Noah's Ark, the tin gee-gee, the toy enfeine and train! How we who have out grown the period of the Christmas stocking look back upon them with reminiscent smiles that are half sighs j lind tugs at the heart that are half thrills, half pain. Dear days of Santa Claus and Christmas trees, of joys untinged by the cares and sorrows the years bring. Dear days; dead clays, we sometimes think. But they are not dead, no Indeed! They're only sleeping, and very light ly at that, for those of us with young folks about the house, or grandchil dren homecoming for the holidays, or even for those who must go out into the highways and byways to find the little folks whose homes are so humbje that they escape oft-times even the watchful eye of good old Santa Claus. And they can be brought back from the land of dreams to the reality of the pres ent without any of the painful jolts that the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future found necessary to jar Old Scrooge loose from his unti-Christmas moorings, if you will just let the spirit of the past work within your bosom this evening for an hour or two as you sit by the lire awaiting the clock on the mantle to notify you of bedtime. Cast your mind back to the days when the smell of spruce spelt Christmas to you and when you wouldn't have traded the unex plored Christmas stocking for a mil lion dollars in gold piled high on the old kitchen floor; when the Noah's Ark elephants that looked Jike lambs, the pigs that resembled dogs, and Mr. Noah who looked ex actly like Mrs. Noah,. were more precious than a real, live men- 1 iigerie would be to-day, when the tin gee-gee was a charger bold and t lie toy engine and train trundled unconcernedly up hill and down dale si cross the oilcloths and over the} rugs, propelled by your own trusty light arm and puffing gusty ex hausts from your own lusty lungs. Oreat business, wasn't It? And the Noah's Ark, and the tin >;ee-gee and the toy train and cars are just the same to-day as they were then. If there Is anything • hanged it is somewhere inside yourself. The remedy lies also within yourself. Christmas is the c hild's holiday, and so you cannot enjoy Christmas fully unless you do no as a child, and as you "become as one of these" so do you practice best the doctrines of the Great Founder of Christmas. It's an experiment worth trying, and you've no idea how enjoyable the trying of It can be. We see no reason why the coal ad ministrator says present coal prices are the "maximum;" everybody knew that before he spoke. CAPTURE OF JERUSALEM AMERICANS who have not stud ied closely the eastern situation with respect to the war are not in position to understand or appre ciate the vast Importance that will bo attached to the capture by the British of Jerusalem, in Russia, the i.alkans and even In some parts of Austria and Germany, where re ligious convictions are deep and where the redemption of Jerusalem from the infidel has been for years a household prayer and as strong a desire in the heart of the wor shipper as it was in the days of the Crusaders. Germany understood this pasalon lor Christian possession of the Iloly City, as witness the Kaisor's churches and hospitals there, but as iidual the German play to the paople had its basis in military prepared ness, for it has been charged and not denied that the well-placed imperial buildings were all con structed so as to be turned Into fortresses at a day's notice. This ■ .uering to religious feeling was good politics on the Kaiser's part, the ■ •ITect of which has been dissipated by the ununderstandable desertion of the Turks by the Germans, who '—& ' . | KKIDAY fTVIiNING, HARRISBURG qfSßftt TELEGRAPH! DECEMBER 14, 1917. left them to face alone the hope less task of staying the British ad vanco on the ancient city. All through Russia there will go up a mighty rejoicing when the cap ture of Jerusalem becomes known, and, as some writer has pointed out. If the British continue their advance the Turks may find it necessary to fight their last decisive battle at Armageddon, thus fulfilling in a measure Biblical prophecy. The capture of Jerusalem, followed by such a victory for Christian arms as described, would have a powerful political and moral effect upon mil lions of people in favor of the allies. Jerusalem from earliest times has been a center of religious and mili tary activity. Early authors trace the r.ame to a phrase meaning "vision cf peace" and while there may be some doubt as to the authen ticity of this, certain it is that the Arabs were wont to call it Bcite Makdls, which means "the sanc tuary#" There is a big gap In its Biblical history, but enough has been learned from various sources concerning its earlier days to war rant the assertion that from its very foundation it was_ a city highly re garded as a place of worship and forever the object of conquest by covetous rulers or peoples, 1' rom the time when Ptolemy I laid low its walls to the present it has been fought over, captured ai>d recap tured, and its walls and buildings have beer, so frequently thrown down and mingled with the dust that the modern city is built npon the var.t debris of dead and gone generations and the exact lines of tho orig'.nal town are in doubt. One cannot but remark the difference be tween the military methods of there early conquerors and those of the British who surrounded the city and decided to make no direct at tack upon it because of their fear that seme of the ancient shrines might bo damaged. Germans might also find food for reflection when considering this and comparing i English military manners with their i own astrocious destruction of price less relics in France and Belgium. But the most important effect will be upon the minds of those mil lions of devout souls to whom Jeru salem is a place of holy pilgrimage and to which if a man goes once in a .ife-time his profoundest desire has been attained. Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Jews, Russians, native peas ants and countless others yearly wend their way to the city, each to worship in his own way, and Ihe prayer cf millions of Christians in the Near East has been that the Holy City might be wrested forever from the control of the Infidel. Con sequently, British arms have won a great moral victory in the taking of the city and the allied cause has gained mightily in prestige. Also, the Turkish threat against the Suez canal has been nullified. These are the days when the street car man and the Jitney driver wonder why they didn't go to France months ago and take an easy Job in the front line trenches. • "The Kaiser," says an exchange, "is a modern Nero," which, we submit, is pretty hard on Nero. BUSINESS AND THE WAR THROUGH a species of hysteria in some quarters the impres sion has gotten abroad that I economy should be practiced to such an extent as to practically eliminate business. One of the business authorities of the country says that economy alone is not sufficient; that each one must bend to his dally task with renewed vigor, ability and with determination to work more and earn more. He says further: A prosperous nation can win the war far sooner than if reg ular industry lagged. The great and small businesses must be spurred to larger profit-making by every legitimate employment of skill, industry and ingenuity. The country must be made pros perous and kept prosperous, not business as usual, but business and profits more than usual, if possible WHENEVER THIS DOES NOT INTERFERE WITH THE INDUSTRIES OPERATING FOR THE WAR. President Wilson is believed now to be fully advised as to the business situation and Congress is also hear ing from the people so that it may be expected that conservative ac tion will be taken with respect to any matters affecting the business interests of the nation. Secretary of the Treasury McAdoo, in his report to Congress, Bounds a more hopeful note in this paragraph: It Is my earnest conviction that the general /economy of the coun try should be permitted to re adjust itself to the new revenue laws before consideration should be given to the imposition of ad ditional tax burdens. It is his judgment that further revenue legislation ought to be Ser iously considered only in the face of a situation making it impossible to sell controvertible and partly tax empt bonds upon a four per cent, basis. In short, it is dawning upon those at Washington, as well as the people generally, that business cannot be hamstrung without seriously Impair ing the revenues of the country and the credit necessary to a forceful prosecution of the war. The people of the United States are ready to give to the utmost, but we must be reasonable in our attitude toward business and industry, so that we shall not Ignoranfly or otherwise destroy the fountains of the coun try's prosperity. A man on the car this morning told us that this snow storm was nothing as compared to {he kind they have up North, but that didn't make us a bit jealous. We used to rejoice in a heavy snow because that permitted us to go sleighing; now we complain because we have to put the automobile up. ToUtict Ck By the Ei-C(ftmlttcciiiin jj Partisans of Senator William C. Sproul, Highway Commissioner J. Denny O'Neil and other men who have.been in the "mentioned col umns" of the newspapers in con nection with gubernatorial honors, sat up and took notice last night when they found that Glitord Pln chot had been making speeches be fore the State Grange at Willlams port and had thrown a hay rake over his shoulder and declared that he and the other farmers proposed to be recognized. Three weeks ago Mr. Pinchot turned up In Harrisburg with a substantial corps of labor men backing him, and while the partisans of several men close to the state ad ministration were declaring that he was not In gubernatorial running the former forester was opening head quarters in Philadelphia aud assum ing a preoccupied air. The appearance of Mr. Pinchot at several • meetings has been much commented upon lately, but the fact tnat ne was on the program at the Mate Grange meeting without the scouu, of other candidates being aware of it, is rather interesting. For years A. Nevin Detricli, of Cham bersburg, was active in the State Grange, Abut then he joined hands with Pinchot in the great uplift a icvv years ago. When that subsided he became chief examiner of the fetate. Insurance Department Mr. Pinchot has a number of oth er speaking engagements, and it |j understood that the' Grangers are rather pleased with bis speELI_eST little I YEH,/ \ / " \ MlNl T y 3omg "The OTHER { J J I h*-*-- HP** J UlfiHT !'! j / —V y 'oh- -o7 j s I / "THAT { AU(_ AGA'iiO \f ( ' lAM iE? LI we START OFF- \ AKit> MEfSfrE Th£ \ I PRONUS£D V in, I*-/* f y' * F 1 CA, ° get / { The wife x VLi ' \ THAT FIRST MOTE/ COMejtb Me I MEET —~ v "" ocer tfwe £>t "~pe>v>uu Marie Romanoff, one of the ex- Czar's daughters, is learning stenog raphy now and a Western Pennsyl vania newspaper comments: "We bet the little girl will have more fun sticking her gum under the office chair than she would under the throne." The oldest minister of the Lu theran Church died recently at Mar tinsburg, W. Va., the Rev. Dr. Wil liam Gerhardt. who was one hundred years old In October. He was born in Hesse-Darmstadt and came to this country at one year of age. He was also the oldest living graduate of Gettysburg College. "Tighter and shorter" is the order for next spring's styles in women's raiment issued by the National Cloak, Suit and Skirt Manufacturer's Association. Shorter and tighter skirts and plainer garments of all kinds are advised. "We go to church. Do you?" Is the sign posted generally over a cer tain town of Pennsylvania and one was stuck up in the window of the county Jail. The local paper won ders if this means the sheriff's fam ily or the prisoners. Five schools in Cambria county have had to close because there are no teachers. "Hobo Wins Heiress" is the head line in a Reading paper which star tled the society folk of that city. The story recounts the marriage of Caro line Cramer Steinmetz. one of the wealthiest society girls of Reading, to John W. Schweitzer, who describes himself as a "soldier of fortune." He Is identified with an association which publishes a magazine for tramps, that is "the rejuvenation of the disinherited of the earth." The bride's friends in the D. A. R. were greatly shocked. The roster of enlistments in Penn sylvania shows many volunteers of a literary bent and occupation. These have always done their bit, even poets not having the reputation of slackers. This recalls the reply of the Artist Whistler who was found deficient in chemistry and turned down for the English Army. When asked about it he said: "If silicon were a gas, I would be a soldier." The biggest war cake ever baked was recently completed in the Wal dorf kitchen in New York and is now on the way to France as a dessert for 2,400 soldiers and sailors on Christmas Day. It is a fruit cake, four feet in diameter, weighing 3GO pounds. Hope the Hun periscopes don't get a whiff -of this. DON'T PROPHESY There's a boy in our town perhaps that grown folks don't think much of because he's always getting into mischief. Grown folks have a way of looking at such fellows as bad eggs, and pretty soon they manage to give them reputations which really hurt. We've known of cases where parents wouldn't let such a boy come around their house to play with their boy. And they prophesy that the boy in question will never amount to anything. Right there they want to look out. We've known fellows of that description who when they got at the business of life made it buzz and finished three leaps and u jump ahead of the rest of the buncli. There's a heap of difference between badness and freshness. There's ar lot of difference between meanneas and mischief. And don't you ever forget it.—From the Amer ican Boy. RED CROSS KNIGHTS I will bo a Red Cross knight! I will wear the sign! I will help the goodly fight With the strength that's mine. Some may blow the stirring fife, Some may win a sword, Some may give a precious life Fighting for the Lord. But at home my task Is plain— Not the field for me. Yet with heart and hand and brain Soldier I may be! I may knit and sew and fold; .1 may save and give Pennies, dollars, notes or gold That our boys may live. Take the Cross and lend a hand In the godly IlKht, Children of a gallant land, Each a Red Cross knight! —Abble Farwell Brown, of the Vigilantes, in th 6 Worcester Times. I Well Are You? ARE you a civic mendicant, re ceiving the unequaled benefits of American citizenship with out giving anything but the faxes forced from you? Are you a civic wliiner, always complaining about the way "they" who govern you do things, despite tin fact that "they" is really you? Are you a civic coward, afraid of losing worthless friends, or of "in terfering with business," if you call attention to Inadequate service or poor methods In public school ad ministration, or in the street clean-* ing, or in some other portion of the public service? Are you a civic sneak, trying to avoir, just taxation by evasion or downright dishonesty, and thus put ting upon your neighbor' part of the burden which is yours? Are you a civic waster, considering that the water supply, the food and fuel you buy, the service of collecting garbage and refuse, the city's parks, and in FATE'S HAND AT HALIFAX Not the least astonishing aspect of the Halifax disaster is the seeming ly trivial and avoidable cause of the vast amount of ruin. The colliding vessels were both in charge of ex perienced harbor pilots and were moving under control in fair weath er. Signals were excUanged, "and as the outgoing boat, the Mont Blanc, did not seem to get the oth er's signal, it was repeated." Then came the fruitless effort to go astern, the crash, the fire and the devastat ing "explosion. What went wrong? Did the hu man faculty fail at this critical mo ment in men of long training in sea life? Was the mistake in giving the signal or in receiving it, in the man on the bridge or on the part of the man in the engine room? Was it due to a defect in the signal appa ratus? Whether the human or the me chanical element failed, the disaster appears to have been due to a con spiracy of cit4:umstances such as wrecks railway trains, sinks ocean liners and wreaks havoc In spite of all intelligent precaution. The psy chological moment arrives and something goes wrong which pre viously has always gone right. Chance, as the French saying goes, is the business agent of God. And certainly that was the grimmest conceivable work of chance which made the ruin of a great city and the loss of thousands of lives de pend on the narrow margin of a few yards of seaway between two ships and the momentary failure of a hu man brain ceil or an inanimate sig nal wire to' act.—N. Y. World. OUR SHIPPING DANGERS The American Shipping Board's theory for getting rid of the U-boat ravages is building more ships than the submarines can destroy. As Mr. Colly, a member of the board, says "the solution is found in the enor mous shipbuilding program of the United States." That is as much as to say, the submarine's ravages can only be met by building more ships than it can destroy. This, Mr. Colby says, is successfully going on, and next year there will be more ships than the submarines can destroy. The unfortunate feature connected with this sinking of ships is that they may have cargoes of food and munitions that cannot be so easily rebuilt as the ships. It does seem that a sufficient amount of money has been spent on the Navy to establish a line of de stroyers and submarines across Ger many's prohibitive sea zone to pro tect our shipping going that way. The great dreadnoughts don't figure much in this war. The destroyers might. More transports are needed, of course, but along with them more protection is needed to prevent the holes Germany is making in our shipping.—Ohio State Journal. BULLETS IN BLOOD, (From the Literary Digest] Cases where shell fragments or bullets have been carried through the body by the circulation of blood r.re occasionally reported from the war hospitals. In one, described re cently in the Lancet (London), a bit of shell migrated from a vein in the thlffh to the heart, being unsus pected until tho autopsy. This story, according to a last Issue, has been capped by a German surgeon who I found a shell fragment In tho left [ventricle at an autopsy. general the community service for which you pay or do not pay, is to be used less carefully than if it was not related to the present needs of the fighting world? Are you a civic "uglifier"—to use Dr. Eliot's good word—who throws refuse into the streets, who fails to keep his home premises pleasant in the eyes of his neighbors? Do you, in your business, spread the virus of civic smallpox through either us ing or permitting the placing of the advertising signs which assault the eyes of your defenseless neighbors? Determine the status of your citi zenship. By searching self-Inquiry find out whether you are a negative, and therefore bad, citizen; whether you are a selfish and destructive citi zen, pulling down what others are endeavoring to build up; or whether you are truly a constructive citizen, Jealous for the quality and the honor of the government of which you are a part.—J. Horace McFarland, In the New York Independent. RUSSIA NO HELP [From the Scientific American] So long as we speak in general terms, Russia as a source of sup plies for Germany appears formid able indeed; but when we descend to details, and particularize as to just what supplies the Boche is to get from Russia, and how he is to get them, we discern a great light. Is it food that is to be supplied by the new republic? We think not. The summer just past has not been a season of hard labor in Russia; her workers have been working In the same way that her fighters have been fighting—with fine phrases. All men of all factions have been too busy with talking to pay much at tention to the sordid details of work. Even now the Bolsheviki cry for bread, and whence is it to come? Already the food situation in Mos cow and Petrograd is reported as desperate. Hungry already, Russia will be hungrier before she is fed, and the thought of Germany draw ing sustenance from her is a lu dicrous cne. But, persists the calamity howler, think of all the other resources of Russia! Germany can come in and help herself to coal and .iron and petroleum and platinum %nd copper axjd ail the other things of which she has such heed. Again we beg to differ. Until coal and oil and metals are able to take legs unto themselves and walk from the Urals anft the Caspian to the Rhine, Ger many will do nothing of the sort. It takes railroads to move all these things—railroads with -tracks and rolling stock, and above all, loco motives in good shipe. The fact that Russia is, crying for 1,500 en gines to save her from ruin is but faint measure of her transportation conditions. Materials of which there has been most urgent need have lain for two years at Archangel be cause they could not be moved. Transportation conditions in France are bad. In Germany they are worse. In Russia they are in a state of indescribable demoraliza tion. At the worst, then, the Rus sian situation does not threaten us. Nothing which can happen in Russia can by any possibility afford Ger many