12 HARRISBURG TELEGRAPH A. HBWB PAPER FOR THE HOME Founded 1831 Published evenings except Sunday by THm TELEGRAPH PRINTING CO. Vakgnsk Building, Federal Sguare B. J. STACK POLE President and Editor-in-Chief J*. It OYSTER, Business Manager QUB. M. STKINMETZ, Managing Editor A. R. MICHENER, Circulation Manager I -r Executive Beard Jch MeCULLOUGH. BOYD M. OGLBSBY, F. R. OYSTER, Qua M. STEINMETZ. 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 pub lished herein. BUI rights of republication of special j ( dispatches herein are also reserved. ! t Member American Newspaper Pub- Assoc la- Bureau of Circu lation and Penn sylvania Associ ated Dallies. Eastern office Story, Brooks & Avenue Building. New York City; Western office, Story, Brooks A Finley, People's Gas Building, Chicago, lIL Entered at the Post Office in Harris burg, Pa., as second class matter. By carrier, ten cents a week; by mail, $3.00 a year in advance. TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1919 We geek many changes and reme dies; the most important change, fhe most necessary remedy, would be a general conversion to God. — KINO OF SWTDXN, NO DICTATION AMERICANS •will bitterly resent the treatment President Wil son received at the hands of certain radicals in the northwest whom he was kind enough to meet for a discussion of their grievances during his trip on Sunday. It is all very well, perhaps, to give every man opportunity to voice his complaints and to make pleas for what he may regard as neces sary reforms of Government, but when men presume to dictate to the President of the United States as to how and when he shall act with respect to any issue before him they must expect small considera tion at the hands of the public. Preeident Wilson, with the full understanding and co-operation of Samuel Gompers, head of the Amer ican Federation of Labor, has ar ranged for a conference of labor representatives in Washington at which all of the matters now in controversy will be thoroughly dis cussed. The public recognizes in Mr. Gompers the spokesman of a major ity ef the organized workingmen of the United States. All it knows about the radicals of the northwest is that they are an Irresponsible lot, whose motto appears to be "Rule or Ruin." It Is doubtful if any good purpose was served by giving them an audi ence, but it is certain that Ameri cans in general will stand by the President in his refusal to make any concessions to this little band of near-Bolshevista. whose sympa thies lie all on the side of disorder and against the best interests of the working people of America. This northwestern group is of the type that Ole Hanson put out of business in Seattle. They are the fellows who tried to overthrow the United States Government and sub stitute for it the horrors of Russia. They are of the stamp of Joseph Brandon, the leader of the con scientious objectors at Camp Fun tton, whom a too lenient War De partment has just turned loose to exercise his malignent influence on the malcontents of the country. In stead of giving such men their lib erty and submitting to their tirades, President Wilson would do well to turn upon them the agents of the Department of Justice. They are not Americans at heart and never will be. The President is moving In the right direction when he culls a conference of men of the Gomp ers and Stone type. He must ex pect to be slapped in the face if he tries to talk reason to such unrea soning radicals as he met last Sun day. Such instances only make loyal Americans determined to eradicate these evil influences as rapidly as possible and to put all irresponsi bles either out of the country or safely behind bars. A New Brighton man's neighbors have discovered that he has been try ing to bide the fact 'he* ho keeps a Pig- Most of us would be proud to poetess one. SPEAK, MR. LANSING THE Senate Foreign Relations Committee should have first hand information as to the trath of Mr. Bullitt's assertion that Article X of the Peace League plan wna drafted by the President and approved against the advice of Mr. Lansing, as Secretary of State, and the other American Commissioners. It hi to be hoped that Mr. Lansing himself will be called before the committee to testify as to his stand on this important article of the negotiations. The President .has been defending the debated paragraph as the heart Of the League covenant. This is the article under which the United States guarantees all the boundaries of the world and it is also the artl r*- ,"i ir w^*w i ilihiiralprw HgiPtlnni TUESDAY EVENING, Committee holds that a reservation by the United States is vital to the interests of this country. It would be interesting, indeed, to know Mr. Lansing's opinion. The committee has a perfect right to ask for this information and Mr. Lansing could clear up a world of doubt if he will frankly discuss the whole situation as it appeared to him during the negotiations in Paris. CAN'T BUY THE PEOPLE THE Democratic campaign com mittee is undertaking to raise a fund of $5,000,000. They will be unable to carry the election in 1920 even if they have ten times that amount. A DAY TO CELEBRATE SEPTEMBER 17, the anniversary of the adoption of the consti tution of the United States in 1787, ought to be observed by evety patriotic society, by every school and by every Americanization or ganization in the country. That date is a red-letter day in the history of the Republic. Without the consti tution the sacrifices and triumphs of the Revolution would have borne no fruit. It was not that a non government had coine into being in the new world that attracted tho attention of all Europe to there shores, but that a new form of gov ernment had been adopted here. For the first time full manhood suffrage was to have its opportunity for self government on a scale that was to establish once and for all time whether or not men were fit to gov ern themselves. And thut expeu ment is still in progress. When wo shall have weathered safely the present stormy weather and are sailing once more under sunny skits, it will have been pretty well estao ltshed that democracy is the high est form of government to which man in his Imperfection can attain, and that it is safe for the world. Every true American venerated the constitution, and as Prof. Mc- Elroy, of the National Security League, recently said, it is our only guarantee of law and order. Said he: Those who to-day are dreaming of eternal peace and eternal plenty in a world free from strife and the struggle for existence are simply dreaming. When the waking comes they must face, as our fathers faced, the sad and stubborn facts of mortal life. Man's share of the good things of life will still depend upon the capacity to produce, the thrift to keep and the brains to organize. The lazy, the untrained and the incompetent will again take up their ancient place at the foot of the ladder, while those with en ergy. training and capacity will lead the world. Do the guarantees of our con stitution suffice to protect the citizen against injustice, against the danger of being exploited by men more cunning or more powerful than himself? They have not secured him full protection; but. when we compare his lot with that of the citizens of any other government, in any age of history, we can say with confl dcVicr and with just pride;" "Amer icans are the freest, the most prosperous, the most secure of all people. The ills which they suffer are the ills which they them selves have caused. Ours is not a perfect government; but our con stitution offers II legal remedy for every evil which can be cured by the 'power of human govern ment." " Man has devised nothing better in the way of governmental doc trine than our constitution. Funda mentally it is sound. We may add to it from time to time, but we can neither take from it nor disregard any of its provisions without en dangering the peace of mankind aial the safety of the world. America is the hope of civilization, and with out the constitution America would be merely a name—like Mexico, or Russia—and the whole earth woul l revert to lawlessness and savagery. A LAWYER'S PLAN TIIE American Bar Association says ratify the treaty first and amend it afterward. That sort of policy in private business is what makes work for lawyers. NOTHING TOO GOOD NOTHING is too good for the re turned soldier, and the two day home-coming celebration now being engineered by the Cham ber of Commerce very properly is to lie made an elaborate affair, in which all of the glory- shall go to the men who served with the colors during the war with Germany, whether or not all were able to get to France. Every man who wore a uniform will have a place of honor. It is their show. They, and they only, are to be considered. We who, through age or circumstances, were left at home will play second fiddle. We would not have it otherwise. The committee in making this wise decision will have the full support of the public. MORE THAN ONE WAY HEARTY endorsement by Frank A. Robbins, Jr., head of the the great Bethlehem Steel industries in Steelton, of the Tele graph's movement in favor of Day light Saving and his hope that the whole nation will adopt the plan, | draws attention to the suggestion of ! a Harrishurg man to the fact that] there is more than one way of ac complishing the end. For example, if an isolated com munity or industry desires to give its employes an extra hour of day light during the summer months, all it has to do is to place the start ing time an hour early. That is really all that Daylight Saving is doing under the provisions of the law. Industries starting at 8 o'clock could open at 7, those opening now at 7 could start at 6, ns they are really doing now by sun time, al though their clocks tell them it is an hour later. In one way or another wc are going to have that extra hour of daylight ant year. Aliening {Efjat j President Benjamin M. Nead, of j the Dauphin County Historical So- j ciety, was quite right in his re- j I marks ut the opening of the winter j j series of meetings of. the society the | other evening when he said that j there were few in this city and I the territory round about who rea- I lized what a prominent part Dau • phin, Cumberland and Franklin counties had played in the discus- j sions incident to the ratification of i the Federal Constitution. Tornor- | row is the anniversary of the day ] when the delegates to the conven tion which framed it affixed their signatures, the day when Benjamin Franklin said that he' was convinc- I ed that the sun carved on the back I of the chair of George Washington, , I the presiding officer, was "a rising; j and not a setting sun." Tomorrow | i throughout the land and especially j 1 in Pennsylvania there will be cele- | [ brations of the with i addresses by many of the leading \ men on the Constitution, whose l rays, to use the sage's observation, have been shed all over the world; | remarks upon it in the schools and i colleges and references in the newspapers. The Constitution is a wonderful document and it stands out to-day because of the victor ious close of the war to uphold hu man freedom, because of the con troversy over the peace treaty and" because of the amendments which have recently been submitted to the States which have been ratified on behalf of the Keysone Common wealth In our city this year. Although Pennsylvania was the ] second State to ratify the Constitu- , tion it was not done without a struggle and the opposition to it ; i was intense in what a Philadelphia I writer called "the highlands of I Pennsylvania." There were opposi | tion parties in ether States, notably Rhode Island, but what interests us is that the objecting communities in Pennsylvania were Dauphin, Cum berland. Franklin, Bedford, Fayette and other western counties. John Bach Mac Master, the historian, says in his work on Pennsylvania and the Constitution that the opposition hereabouts was mainly because the plan of government was different from that of Pennsylvania to which the people of the interior counties were attached because it had been evolved after a struggle. Another reason was that the Pennsylvania delegates to the federal convention were all Philadelphians. Hampton L. Carson, former attorney general and president of the American Bar Association, gives an interesting story of the situation in the Key stone State ip his remarkable books on the Constitution. To many per sons the opposition voiced about here was the result of antagonism of "up State" to Philadelphia in fluence, which began before the Revolution, broke out in the days which followed Yorktown and which has been manifested in legislative halls more than once since. The Pennsylvania assembly was in session in Philadelphia, when the constitution was signed and the story of how the resolution to cull a constitutional convention for the State was forced through on the lust day of the session is dramatic, thrilling even now when we are ac customed to tumultuous closing ses sions of the lawmakers. Jacob Miley and Robert Clark, the Dau phin county members, were'among those who stood with James McCal niont, of Franklin, in opposition and how McCalmont and Miley were ar rested and dragged into the assem bly hall with clothes in tatters, and forced to make a quorum is history. This occurred on September 29. 1787, and after McCalmont had vainly tried to have the convention held in Carlisle or Lancaster, show ing the antagonism to Philadel phia, he and his colleagues oppos ing the plan joined in an address dated September 29 which is a nota ble document and became the foun dation for the Harrishurg Confer ence of 1788, the start of the Anti federalists and the first State con vention ever held in Harrishurg McCalmont's colleague was Abra ham Smith. The Cumberland mem bers were Robert Whitehi'l, an cestor of several Harrishurg people; Thomas Kennedy and David Mitchell, names well remembered in the Cumberland Valley. With them stood John Whitehtll, of Lancaster. It is interesting to note that these men helped make the conference of 1788 in which George Bryan, an of ficer of the Commonwealth during the Revolution; Albert Gallatin, then unknown to fame, as MacMns ter says, and others became noted and prepared the way for the fir t nmendmends to the constitution. It is supposed that word of this Har rishurg conference was what in duced James Madison to write the amendments. So that when one speaks of the Constitution tomorrow he can find that Harrisburs- was vitally concerned, in fact, the rally ing point for men who opposed it. although when adopted it hr.d no more loyal supporters than ttv; men of the "highlands" and the Susque hanna valley. The delegates to the eonvention called by the acton of September 28 were elected early in November and November 21 the convention met In Philadelphia. On December 12 the constitution was ratified on behalf o f Pennsylvania, a short time after Delaware. This early action hy Delaware gives it priority among the States, say 8 the late Samuel W. Pennypacker in one of his books. Pennsylvania sent its best to this convention. In fact, every constitu tional convention in this State has been composed of men of the great est ability, as Governor William C. Sproul, who will soon name the committee to study revision i*of the present State document, said the other day. The debates of that long ago State convention of 1787 are often referred to even in this day and for years were the source of much political argument. Dauphin sent General John A. Hanna, of revolutionary fame and son in law of John Harris; Adam Orth, one of the early ironmasters of the county and ancestor of Dr. H. D. Orth. of this city, and Captain William Brown, whose claim to fame is summed up in "of Han over," the man who laid out Mifflin town; Jonathan Hoge. whose life is part of the county: John Reynolds, of Shippenshurg, a noted man, and Robert Whitehill, one of the ablest men in the convention. John Boyd and William Wilson sat for North umberland and Richard Bard and John Allison for Franklin. John Black, H. Single, Thomas Campbell, Ben'amln Pedan, Thomas Hartley and David Grier were the York dele gates and Robert Coleman, the iron master; Stephens Chambers. John Whitehill. Jasper Yeates. Sebastian Groff and John Hubley sat for Dan caster." Huntingdon s<mt Ben.lamin Elliot: Westmoreland William Find ley, famous in the State and Wil liam Todd, ancestor of the former attorney general; Berks had as a delegate Abraham Lincoln, great grand uncle of the martyr Presi- Auxti Timothy Pickering, first post- HXRORABFRRRRAFTFTJJSAT TELEGKIPH AIN'T IT A GRAND AND GLORIOUS FEELIN'? By BRIGGS WHEN YOOIVJAKE UP - AMD L3"AP*T OUT TO - WHEN' FROM A FINE VSLE-£.P PINT) A 'NEATH •AM OLD* LOC M , NNOW S BEFORE YOUR^'IVJOSE IM DROPS A NICF IPAT* ONE C ——' ' ' * I ■ C • C ——- • F • <=Q WH'CH YOO PROMPTLY BUT JUST AS YOU ARE QH-H-M-H BOY. 1 AIM'T SVAJALLOW AMD ARE .BEING TAKEN'OFF THE HOOK -J- A GO.R.R.RAMD THE AIR YOU <SLVE A MIGHTY FLOP 1 1 *J"*l C, IT, RT.LR ON THE END OF A L.NE N FALL BACK INTO..THE WATER AND GLOR-R-R-RIOOS master general, was the Luzerne delegate and Anthony Wayne was In the Chester delegation. The Philadelphia delegation was com posed of men whose names are household words. Indeed, there are few places In Pennsylvania which are more closely connected with the adoption of the constitution than this city and cer tainly none where it has been more staunchly supported since it be came the law of the land. WELL KNOWN PEOPLE —Col. Edward Martin State Com missioner of Health, is to speak at the Homeopathic convention at Philadelphia this week. —Charles Walter, former mem ber from Franklin county, was in Harrisburg yesterday on State Capi tol business. —Col. James P. Kerr, candidate for county commissioner in Alle gheny, was formerly a member of | Pittsburgh city council. —Major E. L. Humes, United States district attorney for western Pennsylvania, has been seizing food stored in Pittsburgh and vicinity and will sell it. DO YOU KNOW —That 'Harrisburg is having I more conventions now than | ever before in its history? HISTORIC HARRISBURG —Harrisburg's first political con vention is supposed to have met in a hotel on Market Square. | LETTERS TO THE EDITOR | Peace in Balkans To (he Editor o] the Telegraph : tie are on the eve of the settle ment oi the Balkan problem by the Peace Conference at Paris. While it was solemnly declared by Presi dent Wilson and the leading nations that they were fighting for the lib eration of the small and oppressed peop.es, it is a pitiful fact that we do not hear from the Peace circles at the present time anything about Macedonia. This country, which has played a leading role in the early centuries of Christianity—is it not going to be liberated? The cry for brotherhood, love and liberty in the time of Paul spread out from Mace donia, and it will be a disgrace to history if this country is going to be abandoned to persecution. We, the Macedono - Bulgarians, comprise 60 per cent, of the popu lation of the country, 1,200,000 out of 2,000,000. In 1910 we possessed 1,040 schools, with 55,378 pupils and 1,838 teachers; 1,158 churches and monasteries, with 1,132 clergymen and priests. In Macedonia even the Turks speak the Bulgarian language, which is the language of the market p!ace. We Macedonians have fought for religious and political liberty for more than half a century. In these revolutions we have lost more than 60,000 men. Under the flag of the revolution, which bore the slogan: "Macedonia for the Macedonians." the Rumanian' of the country, and also many Turks took part, who, equal'y with us, had borne the op jfression and cruelty of the Turkish Government. There are in Macedonia only a few Greeks as merchants and none Serbian. Those called Serbians of late were a small number of Bul garians of the country who ware paid agents of the Serbian propa ganda and supported by the Turkish Government, whose policy was to ru'e by dividing. Will the Peace Conference overlook the historical facts concerning Macedonia, and for get that prior to the Balkan War Austro-Hungary, Russia and Great Britain, anxious to bring to an end the trouble in the Balkans, dealt only with the Macedonian case, and at Revel the King of England and the Czar of Russia agreed to create an autonomy of Macedonia? This would have been carried out if the Turkish pronunciamento in 1908 had not tnken place under the dic tation of Germany. If the Peace Conference, after all these facts, decides the Macedonian question without consulting the will of the people, there can by no means be established peace in the Balkans. It will not be long before my coun trymen, realizing the new slavery to Serbia nd Greece, will start a new revolutionary movement, which will ibe n menace to th" peace of tho worl(1 " DAVID NAKOFF. Pastor of Macedonian- Bulgarian Church at Steelton and chair man of the Macedonian con vention held at Chicago during month of December, WILSON vs. WILSON Attitude of the President Toward the European War and the Peace Settlement [The quotations here given are taken Tim January 8, 1916 "Do you not think it is likely that the world will some day turn to America and say: 'You were right and we were wrong. You kept your heads and we lost ours'." January 30, 1916 "lt has been very difficult for us to hold oft and look with cold Judgment upon such tremendous matters. And yet we have held off." February 1, 1916 "America is called on to sit in a sort of moral judgment on the processes of the war." May 17, 1916 "There are two reasons why the chief wish of America is for peace. One is that BOOKS AND MAOAZINES'I Literary Notes George Woden's "Little Houses," just published by E. P. Dutton & Co., is a novel of unusual flavor. It is a tale of humble life in a small English manufacturing town during the Eighties and Nineties of the last century, but it inspires its realistic pictures of the daily life of its peo ple with quiet humor, with the sense of their consequence and with keen interest in them and tlfeir surround ings. It achieves what compara tively few novels do, makes the reader feel that he would like to have known these people, to have lived in their little town and drop ped into their "little houses" for a cup of tea and a friendly chat. Says one of the characters, "We're all nobodies, mother, very nearly all of us, nobodies in little houses, except in our eyes and the Lord's." And the author makes the reader see these nobodies in little houses as, perhaps, they stand in "the eyes of the Lord." E. P. Dutton & Co. have taken over from Mitchell Kennerley, W. H. Hudson's "Adventures Among Birds," which Kennerly brought out several years ago in an imported edition. The Duttons are having it printed in this cbuntry and will pub lish it this fall in an American edi tion profusely illustrated with pic tures taken from the wood-cuts il lustrating that classic of ornithology, Thomas Bewick's "History of Brit ish Birds," first published in the lat ter part of the eighteenth century. The pictures for the Hudson book will be made from an 1826 edition of the "British Birds." The Dut tons expect to have ready W. H. Hudson's new book, recently com pleted, "Birds in Town and Village," early next month. Just before his death the late Col onel Roosevelt wrote an Introduction for Mary Fanny Young's little vol ume of children's rhymes of Oys ter Bay, "When We Were Little," which E. P. Dutton & Co. have just published. Two of the illustrations in the book are from pictures of Quentin and Archie Roosevelt when they were tiny chaps and show them, one in a great field of daisies and the other having a delightful time all by himself In a strawberry patch. The verses and their themes evi dently appealed deeply to Colonel Roosevelt, for he says in his intro duction: "Miss Youngs writes of the quaint, old-time Long Island life, of which not only her father and I, but she herself and my . chil dren, were part. It was not the life of the "summer resident." It was the life of those who lived winter and summer in the simple, pleasant homes, beside the shore or on the neighboring hills of the northern Long Island country. It is a lovely country. * * * The people who dwelt on these farms, or who got their livelihood on the waters of the Sound, came from a stock which had been on the Island for nearly three centuries. The life was what they had themselves developed * * * It is with this life that Miss Youngs deals in her charming little poems, which tell of the work and the play of both grown-ups and children. Naturally they appeal very strongly to me; for I love the Long Island fields and woods at all seasons; at the high tide of the year when the green foam of spring breaks Into the deeper green of summer; end at from the columns of the New York esl they love peace and have nothing to do with the present quarrel * • •" April 1, 1917 "lt is a war against all nations • • * The chal lenge is to all mankind." April 2, 1917 "Our object is to vindicate the principles of peace and justice in the life of the world as against selfish and autocratic power." April 2, 1917 "We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretense about them, to fight thus for the ultimate freedom of the world." May 12, 1917 "We go in be cause re believe that the very prin ciples i.pon which the American Re public was founded are now at stake 1 and must be vindicated." . the time of the glory of sharp fall weather; and again when the bleak days are shortest and winter grips . the land. And I love the old houses, from kitchen to garret, and the life that was once lived in them. I hope these poems will also appeal to others; for our life was essentially the same as all the old-fashioned life lived elsewhere in the open country; and this was fundamentally a simple and wholesome life." Miss Youngs lived, when she was little, in one of these old gray houses that was more than two hundred and fifty years old, and in all that time, she says in her preface it "has never gone out of the pos session of the lineal descendants of the stanch old pioneer who built it." The three dozen poems in her book which tell of the life and the games of the children who dwelt in this and the other old houses of the re gion have something of that spirit of simplicity and sweet-heartedness, of childish imaginings and straight forward realism, that makes "The Child's Garden of Verse" immortal. She expresses in simple, pleasing verse the very soul of sweet and simple childhood. To a Five-Dollar Bill Crinkle, crinkle, little bill; Goodness gracious, you look 111! Are you losing all your power? You seem weaker hour by hour. "Now that prices are so high, I'm so tired that I could die. I just circulate all day; No one dares put me away. "When the evening board is set With the fruits of father's sweat, My small voice is hushed and still — I am in the butcher's till. "And no matter where I go. People disregard me so; I don't seem to count for much 'Mongst the profiteers and such." Bill, take heart, your luck may change. I'll admit the times are strange. Though you're weak I love you still— Crinkle, crinkle, little bill. —Chicago Tribune. LABOR NOTES The public school teachers of Denver, Col., made very little progress in their attempt to secure increased wages un til they began to talk of forming a union. When it was seen that they were in earnest in their desire, the Board of Education granted them the Increase asked for. Over 1000 men at the Sun Shipbuild ing Company in Chester, Pa., were com pelled to quit work because the heater boys refused to work until they have been granted an Increase of from 37 1-2 cents to 60 cents an hour. The San Francisco Restaurant Asso ciation- has adopted a nine-hour day for all cooks and pantry men. Nine hours straight, or 8 hours within 12, 6 days a week, for cooks and pantry men in houses of the members of the Associa tion has also been put into effect. The Afol, the thirty-ninth ship con structed at the Hog Island Shipyard, was launched under unusual circum stances. The boat was named after the American Federation of Labor because ot the support given the Government by union labor in the world in the world war. The name of the boat is the cable code address of the Ameri can Federation of Labor. SEPTEMBER 16,1919. No Wonder Germany Quit By MAJOR FRANK O. MAHIN Of the Army Recruiting Station "One reason why we all felt so absolutely certain we were going to lick the everlasting tar out of the Boche was that we all knew the Boche to be systematic fighters and systematic fighters are bound to get beaten in the long run. System is all right and proper, but it can be carried to such ah extreme that all initiative is destroyed and that was what the Boche did'. Back about 1804 the Prussians and Austrians began to systematize the handling of Armies while Napoleon kept on doing it all himself. The one man command worked and still works all right for comparatively small armies but early in the 19th century the size of armies grew rapidly. Remember how disasterously Napoleon was de feated at Dresden, at Leipzig, and in his Russian campaign. The reason was that he was trying to handle an army of several hundred thousand men by his own individual genius and he failed; the job was too big. The Prussians at Dresden and Leipzig and at Waterloo had a fairly efficient General Staff which divided up the work, gave it system and won out. The same thing applied to the Franco-Prussian war. The General Staff worked out all possible details and then turned the plan over to the General in the field. The Gen eral used the plans as worked out up to a point where circumstances began to change and then he used his Initiative, while the Staff work ed on new plans according to the altered conditions. The result of this co-operation was the overthrow of France. But the Boche couldn't let well enough alone and had to go on and on perfecting the General Staff, perfecting system until along in 1915 it got so that a German •commander hardly dared take a breath unless the General Staff had directed the time he was to take it and the amount of air he was to inhale. Take for Instance the great attack on Verdun in 1916. The Staff worked out a perfect plan for the attack, step by step, to the fall of Verdurv But on the fourth day the French were routed and the way into the city was open. Did the Boche seize advantage of their chance? They did not! The Staff hadn t counted on any such a thing happening and by the time they had round it out and had made new plans it was too late. French troops had arrived; new lines of trenches had been dug and they were ready for the attack. For six months the Boche kept up the battle, but never once did they have any chance of success. Opportunity had opened the door, but too much system had for bade the seizing of the elusive dame by the forelock. Again in the first great drive in 1918, the one with Amiens for an objective, the Boche broke through, broke clear through, so that nothing lay between them and their objective but some scat tered, exhausted groups, which could have been easily brushed aside. But again the plans did not call for such a thing at that time and the Boche kindly waited till re inforcements came up for both French and English, and Amiens was saved. I am sorry to say our own American Staff was inclined to follow the German system and place too much stress on their own care fully prepared plans, but the thing that saved us and licked the Boche was our temperament. When an American commander sees an open ing, especially one which the StafT hadn't foreseen, he will simply think 'To Hell with the Staff' and will drive on into the opening for all he is worth. This spirit of Initiative, of daring to take a chance per meated out forces, consequently the Boche said we were crazy untrained mobs, because we would fight ac cording to plan or to precedent. Tf the Boch were foolish enough to drop their guard we didn't wait a couple of days to get permission from Washington to slug them on the point of the jaw; not so-you could notice it. we slugged and then slugged a couple of times more as quick as we could .to make good and sure. Vou may possibly remember the result of our 47 days of slugging them around the Argonne Forest. The nice little document they signed on November 11th was the count of 'down and out.'" Oldest Highway Still in Use From Gaza to Aleppo, a distance i of five hundred miles, is the oldest | highway in the world, according to I General Allenby, whose British Army I traversed this road in driving the ; Turks out of Palestine and Syria. • This road was trod by many great I armies mt ancient timea T>oCiEc*£n, By the Ex-Committeeman Mora people will probably vote to-day at the primary elections in Pennsylvania than have voted at any preliminary election in a so called "oft" year in a decade. The numerous contests throughout the State have been waged with an in tensity seldom known and elements have entered into the struggles which have made results uncertain in some districts regarded as of the highest importance. Incidentally, m ore money will be spent than usual. The Philadelphia contest, which Col. George Nox McCain says has been waged with more bitterness than known in a long time, is re garded by Philadelphia newspapers as one of great importance, it >s for the first officers under the new charter and all the groups which cropped out in former years have turned up, making themselves ap parent in an unprecedented regis tration. Pittsburgh has a struggle for lead ership without parallel and both tho Allegheny and Delaware county bat tles may have a big effect next year. Washington and New York corre-' spondents are telling of national in terest in the Philadelphia contest and in Governor Sproul's partici pation in the Delaware county pri mary. —One of the interesting things is that in almost every county where there is a tight the Republicans pro dominate more than ever in the registration. —ln Philadelphia the vast ma jority of the voters registered, and they number over 350,000, are Re publican and in Pittsburgh a tre mendous proportion of the 83,000 men registered are Republican. In Scranton the Republicans have gained in registration, while in vari ous third class cities the Republi cans have forged ahead just as they have in Harrisburg and in about the same proportion. Reading, county seat of the banner Democratic county, has registered 19,300 men, or 2,500 more than ever known, the Republican registration being very large, while in Allentown, another capital of a Democratic county, the Republican registration is ahead of the Democrats for the first time in history. There have been Republi can registration gains and Demo cratic slumps in other cities, in cluding Wilkes-Barre, brie and Al toona. Harrisburg is not alone in j that respect. ! —The Philadelphia Record in a discussion of the Philadelphia con test points out the remarkable or ganizations built up for Moore and Patterson and says: "Two outstand ing features in the contest this year were the positions taken by Gov ernor Sproul and Mayor Smith. The support of the latter was not wanted nor sought by either faction. Bond smith is regarded as a disinct lia ''ility even by the Vares, and a chorus of groans lias gone up every Hme his name has been mentioned. One of the orders given to the Pat terson spellbinders was that Smith and his administration were not to be discussed from the stump. . One of the hardest blows suffered by the V are-Patterson crowd was when Mayor Smith came out with an in dorsement for the jurist. Governor Sproul assumed the same attitude which marked his conduct during the first part of the 1919 session of the General Assembly." —The Pittsburgh Gazette-Times says that the big registration in Pitts burgh and the large enrollment in the county means the defeat of the Leslie-Babcock combination. As a result of the primary there may be independent campaigns in several cities. —Reading which has a contest for nominations which may be historic may also have an SBOO,OOO loan elec tion this fall. —Next to the mayoralty and councilmanic contest in Philadelphia, which will have important State wide effect on politics next year, in terest in the State runs high in the struggle in Allegheny county for city and county nominations against the organization headed by Senator Max Leslie and Mayor E. V. Bab cock. Aligned against them are a number of men prominent in busi ness affairs. Scranton has an interesting mu nicipal contest and also three Cornell candidates for school director. There is a close contest for judge in Lack awanna county. In Luzerne county Judge John M. Garman is a candi date for re-election and there are contests in both Republican and Democratic parties for county nomi nations, that for county commis sioner in the Republican ranks being very acrimonious. Other in teresting county nomination contests are in York, Cambria, Dauphin, Erie, Berks, Northampton, Mont gomery, Cumberland, Franklin Perry, Mifflin, Adams, Delaware, Le high. Bradford, Blair, Fayette, But ler, Lawrence, Venango and Lycom ing. —Judicial contests of more than ordinary interest are in the two b'g counties, Lehigh, Cambria and Wash ington, which have elections for newly-created judgeships; Somer set, where a gubernatorial appointee is not a candidate for election; West moreland, Juniata-Perry and Mon roe-Pike districts. Associate judge contests out of the usual class are in Snyder, Columbia, Mifflin, Monroe, Bedford and Fulton. —Twenty-three third class cities have mayoralty campaigns ending which are of much interest: York Chester, Harrisburg, Williamsport! Reading, New Castle, Wilkes-Barre' Allentown, Altoona, Erie, Johnstown! Lebanon, Uniontown and Oil City. Just to show how little figure the Democrats are cutting in the Phila delphia campaign this year, one of the greatest in a lifetime, theie may be quoted this paragraph by Col. George Max McCain in an arti cle in the Philadelphia Evening Ledger: "A Citizens, Nonpartisan or other unattached candidate, in opposition to Tuesday's choice, is a possibility. The Democratic candi date is an incident: his party and his personality are merely unimpor tant adjuncts to the political page ant." —Democrats are fighting over minority places in Allegheny, Nor thumberland, Lockawanna, Luzerne and a dozen other counties just as they are in Dauphin. In Philadel phia. Judge Eugene C. Bonniwell, has four candidates for office and is backing Elhert F. Myer in Alle gheny against the Joe Guftey candi date for County Commissioner. A Parting Gift [From Life.] Bridget had been discharged. Ex tracting a 6-dollar bill from her wageroll, she threw it to Fido. Then the shocked mistress heard her ex claim: "Sure'n' I nlver fergit a friend: that's for helpln' me wash the dishes."
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers