The Patton courier. (Patton, Cambria Co., Pa.) 1893-1936, December 18, 1930, Image 2

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170 GET |
SIGNAL
ThenWait For
GREEN LIGHT
Bi I
INTERNATION.
Make Their Own Right of Way
ey
EE
Pittsburgh has installed at busy traffic intersections a device by which
the pedestrian can turn on the red light that stops vehicles and permits
him to cross the street in safety. These little children are making use of it,
the four-year-old boy pushing the button.
LIGHTS OF NEW YORK
THE PATTON COURIER
By
WALTER
TRUMBULL
The movies have long been taking
stars from the stage. Now the stage
Is taking stars from the movies. It
really is very simple. Theatrical pro-
ducers said to themselves:
“Why not make the movies help
rather than hurt our business? The
movies have spent huge fortunes mak-
ing the pictures of certain persons
known in every city, town and hamlet,
Naturally, the country in general
would like to see these stars in per-
son; see them check in at the hotel ;
stroll along the street; take a curtain
call; come out the state door. For
that it one thing about a moving pie-
ture: the stars are not home-grown;
they are canned goods, and you can't
meet them at the stage door after the
show. So let's play the human ele-
ment. There should be money in it.”
* * .
So saying, the theatrical producers
proceeded to make the road to Holly-
wood a two-way street. I suppose they
talked to the movie stars of the thrill
of appearing hefore an audience which
paid to get in, rather than an audi-
ence of camera men, who were paid to
be there; of the sweet sound of ap-
plause; of flowers handed over the
footlights, Anyhow, there are a num-
ber of moving picture performers who
are trying their hands at becoming
actors and actresses.
* * -.
There is a big difference in the two
games. There are no retakes on the
stage. There is no retouching. There
fs a prompter, but no director with a
megaphone. And the perfect thing
must be done night after night, not
caught just czice under prepared con-
Plan Statue for Alaskan Heroine
Seattle.—Loved by the hardy Alas-
kan prospectors and gamblers as one
woman who remained “pure and white
as the snow” during the gold rush
days of '97 and '98, Mollie Bell will
live again when her friends erect a
bronze statue of her at Skagway,
Alaska.
The laughing-eyed Irish lass, hon-
ored by all on the trail and in camp,
was the belle of the North. She was
a comrade and tender-hearted pal to
the unkempt men who plunged into
the wilderness to seek their fortunes.
and lost her. He has had a bronze
image of the famed Alaska belle mold-
ed for a pedestal to be placed in a
Skagway park dedicated to her mem-
ory.
Far different than the dance-hall
girls, Mollie Bell was the angel of the
camps, and her name is still spoken
in hushed reverence by the old-timers.
It was she who cared for the sick and
friendless, who grubstaked prospec-
tors, who lent a helping hand wher-
ever she could.
Mollie went North while she was in
One of her closest friends was | her early twenties and opened a grub
“packer Jack” Newman, who wooed | shack near Lake Bennett. “Packer
HE HHH HH HHH hours?” I asked her once, for she
IMAGINATION
By THOMAS AR ARK
Dean of ~Oniversity of
Illinois.
>»
)
°
*
.
]
0)
:
EE HH OOH HHO
We are a tremendously practical
people these days. We are avid for
facts. We want to
know when and
where and why.
We are not satis-
fied .until we know
the length and
breadth of what-
ever we are con-
cerned with, Ex-
actness, truth,
something that can
be demonstrated,
proved, measured,
weighed, is what
we require. Faith
and imagination
“we take little stock in.
I knew an old woman years ago who
gave me a new insight into the joys
of life. She had been a helpless crip-
ple for five years or So, and during
that time had not been outside the
walls of the little room in which she
lay. She was 'e:'f blind, too, and could
only dimly make out the figures who
came and went in her room, and yet
she was happy.
“How do you pass the long,
tiresome
POSED FOR ACTION
; Rt
Frank (“Deacon”) Waite, in fight
$ng pose, as he appears behind the
puck for the New York Rangers, pow:
erful © metropolitan. hockey team.
Waite is in the first string of substi:
tutes.
was very much alone.
“1 travel a good deal,” she replied,
“and of course there are always books
to enjoy.”
the room for years, and her eyes were
so dim that it was only by my step and
the sound of my voice that she recog-
nized me,
“Tell me about your travels,” I sug-
gested.
“] go fast,” she explained, “faster
even than an airplane could take me.
I have been in England this morning
—down in Devon. 1 heard the birds
singing and I saw the green fields. The
roses were blooming and I caught the
perfume of the lilacs. It is very beau-
tiful in Devon, and I go there often
and see again all the things that 1
knew so well and loved so much when
1 was a girl.”
“And how about the
asked.
“] read a great deal when I was
young,” she explained—*Dickens and
Scott and Thackeray, and poetry, too,
and now when time begins to drag I
pick up one of these old friends and
go over the story again and renew my
acquaintance with my old friends. It
is almost as good as actually being
able to read. You see I play I am
reading.”
Imagination! It kept her busy; it
kept her contented and happy.
The Bacons had lived in our town
all their lives and practically all their
friends were there. Now they were
ten thousand miles away in a foreign
world among entire strangers and
with a strange job to be done. It was
books?” 1
Sts,
SET aot bok ot |
Jack” met her first when he stumbled
into her tent one night suffering from
a frozen hand. She administered aid
to him as she had to others, and a
romance began.
“Packer Jack” became a bit too
sure of himself, however, and when
Mike Bartlett began showering atten-
tion on Mollie, Pack ordered her to
forbid Bartlett entrance to her grub
tent. Mollie married Bartlett.
Mollie gradually drifted away from
her direct contact with the trail, and
in 1902 she was living in Seattle with
her husband. Her brief life ended in
October of that year when she was
shot and killed. Bartlett was acquit-
ted of her murder when adjudged tem-
porarily insane.
Now Mollie's going back to Alaska
to take her rightful place on the
Skagway trail, a perpetual reminder
@-(iEre-was-ab tegst-one Pir oT TA
trails who was not a “dance-hall Lou.”
ditions, as it is in the movies. Nor is
throwing the voice to the back of a
theater the same thing as talking for
a megaphone, Stage tricks are not
the same as movie tricks, and they
take longer to learn.
* & =®
Although Harlemites are inveterate
gamblers, there has never, so far as I
can discover, been a roulette wheel
there. The game of policy, now
known as “numbers,” is the most pop-
ular form of gambling and next to that
comes dice shooting. The police don’t
bother much about the card clubs, but
they will not let a dice house get
started, if they can help it. The rea-
son is that it draws all the crooked
element, colored and white, and there
are too many stabbings, cuttings and
shootings. Iam told that there is only
one dice house in Harlem and that it
probably will be closed at any mo-
ment. Crap games in private apart-
ments, between friends, or supposed
friends, always go on.
® & @
Those persons who find boxing bouts
dull affairs, as many of them are,
should try a new system. They should
go to the smaller clubs and, instead
of looking, listen. Here top price for
seats is never more than three dollars
and everything is on an intimate foot-
ing. At the big baseball parks the
seats close to the ring are occupied
by bankers, brokers, stars of finance
and the stage, and the sort of persons
who take their public amusements in
a more or less dignified manner. The
rough wit, who has money only for a
cheaper seat, is too far from the play-
ing field to make his voice heard, and
the very size of the park and crowd
make him feel his own insignificance,
cramp his style and give him an in-
feriority complex; which is one of the
things that is the matter with base-
pall. Perhaps the remark of the fight
club gallery god that has been most
often repeated was the one made when
a yellow-haired boy was back-pedaling
desperately, but not fast enough to
escape a beating.
“Hey, blondy,” yelled a galleryite,
‘you're wanted on the telephone.”
* = *
Dr. Frederick W. Hodge tells me
that he believes the oldest apple trees
in the United States are to be found
in the Manzano region of New Mexico.
They were planted by Spanish monks
about 1656. In the wooded portions of
Ohio, wild apple trees still are to be
found, planted by the man known as
“Appleseed Johnny,” The story is that
he used to wander around eating
apples and carrying a cane. When he
finished an apple, he bored a hole in
the ground with his cane and planted
the seeds. I might try that in Cen-
tral park.
(©, 1930, Bell Syndicate.)
Love at First Sight
Pr 5 av
Happy After Paying Huge Debt
Kansas City, Mo.—Twelve years ago
he was a millionaire-minus, that is, he
owed a million.
And today Emory J. Sweeney of this
city is a schoolman, free of debt—
and he intends to stay that way.
Making the million in real estate de-
velopments was difficult enough, but
paying his debts of a million was even
more difficult so he has no desire for
either experience again, he is certain.
Mr, Sweeney settled his debts by
disposing of some of the luxuries
which his fortune brought him. They
included a huge mansion, a ten-story
business building, a fleet of metor
cars valued at $100,000, a huge real
estate subdivision, and a radio station.
Today the man lives in a comfort-
able home and owns a three-story
not easy, and sometimes Bacon's cour-
age waned — he longed for the old
friends, for the old scenes, for the
help that comes from companionship.
He care in one afternoon, from a long
A man spends
one-third of his life
in bed, but it's the
other two-thirds that
usually cause all the
trouble.
face radiant.
his wife
walk into the country,
“Where have you been?”
asked him,
“I have been back home for a while,”
he said. “I have seen the campus and
our old house and I have had a long
talk with Watson, and I have shaken
hands with a dozen of the old friends,
and it has done me a world of good.
I am not so homesick as I was.”
She understood. It was only imagi-
nation. For the moment he had thrown
off his present environment and had
gone back to the old one, and he was
recreated.
¢©, 1930, Western Newspaper Union.)
SUCH
dy
LFF
TB
&
AMZIGUOUS .
Bur TRE
HEY, MOM!
JUNIOR MET UP
WH AN ACUDENT=
Ap HoW
“TELL US AGAIN
JUANIOR
WELL, FOLKS,
GOOFEY Hr ME
IN THE EVE
Bro
BACK
7
HEE
building where his school is conducted.
The good heart of Mr. Sweeney ac-
tually proved his undoing.
He was at the height of his pros-
perity at the end of the World war,
when influenza swept the nation and
snapped the backbone of his fortune.
“I took care of the sick boys, al-
though I was only paid to teach them,”
Sweeney explains, “Influenza became
the country’s problem, and I made
those boys my own problem, I bought
and rented hospitals—and paid the
bills out of my pocket.”
The real estate business suddenly
seemed stricken by illness, too, for Mr.
Sweeney met trouble in that field also.
Finally he counted his debts at the
million mark, and then he began pay-
ing his obligations. The last settle-
ment was made just a few days ago
when he disposed of Indian Village,
a pretentious land development from
which he at once time expected to
realize another fortune.
AFTER CHINESE LOAN
Judge Paul M. Linebarger, legal ad-
viser to the Chinese Nationalist gov-
ernment, came to Washington as a
special envoy of China to negotiate |
for a proposed loan sf about $360,000,
000 in silver. Plans for the loan spe-
for military purposes, but rather in re-
turning Chinese soldiers to the pue-
suits of peace.
Lh
=
WAS the night before Christmas,
3 when all through the house
a creature was stirring, not not ever
a
mouse. Stns see Be
Plano Time
J Christmas,
By W.L.Gaston
en
—
~~ z S$
Red Coals? '¢
“hristmas 3 pro»
gS By hey Graham Bonne e 3
HEY had a good time Christ-
mas at the Mackey home; in
fact they had several good
times—more good times than
needed. Mr. Mackey had a
prosperous insurance busi-
ness down town. His son,
¥ I'rank, was a deputy in the
city clerk's office and his
was a confidential clerk in
daughter
one of the big law firms.
y Mrs. Mackey was housekeeper and
homemaker, She was president of
the Ladies’ Aid society and in addi-
tion to other duties, was organist for
the church choir.
Christmas was coming, in fact was
cnly a few days off. An energetic
clock agent was in town selling elec-
tric clocks. The Mackeys needed a
clock so it was easy to sell Mr. Mackey
one as a Christmas present for his
wife. The agent inquired about the
family, and in a day or two he had
sold a clock to the son for his mother,
and the daughter bought one, confi-
dent that a clock would be just the
present her mother would enjoy.
| bought
|
|
| On Christmas eve all the
{
cify that the money would not be used |
The members of the Aid society
were interviewed and a clock was
for their president, Mrs.
Mackey. Of course, the choir wanted
to express their appreciation of their
- nro
organist and they bought a clock and
sent it to the Mackey home marked
“Do not open until Christmas eve.”
packages
were brought in and the family gath-
ered around the tree to inspect the
gifts that old Santa had brought. That
generous old soul handed Mrs. Mackey
five good electric clocks. There was
some little tinge of chagrin, but it
| could not be helped. Mrs. Mackey
kissed thera all and said playfully that
she was going to have the time of her
The next morning, as Mr. Mackey
was dressing he looked out of the
| window and saw the clock agent hur-
rying toward the depot. A hundred
i yards behind him came one of the
Mackey neighbors. Mr. Mackey hailed
the neighbor and said: “Stop that
| man ahead of you; I want to see him,
I will be right up.” When the neigh-
bor reached the depot, the train was
ready to start and the agent was
| elimbing aboard. The accommodating
neighbor pulled his coat and informed
him that Mr. Mackey wanted to see
him, “I can’t wait,” replied the
{ agent, “but I know what he wants.
{He wants one of these clocks.” “If
that is what he wants,” said the neigh-
| bor, “I can take it to him. How much
is it?” “Fifteen dollars,” replied the
agent,
The exchange was soon made and
as the train pulled out Mr. Mackey
| came running all out of breath. “Has
that man gone?’ he exclaimed ad-
| dressing his neighbor. “Yes,” replied
| the neighbor, “but that is all right, I
{got the clock for you. Here it is,
! you can hand me the money any time.”
HE children had gone to bed
their stockings were al
hanging by the fireplace
They were filled now. And
two persons were sitting in
front of the fire talking.
N “Shall I put on another
log?” he said.
“No, we had better not sit
up much longer. Let's just stay until
the red coals become dull,” she an:
swered.
*Hvery Cliristmas eve ihey had sal
like this when the house was quiet,
after the stockings had been filled,
after the tree had been trimmed.
It was becoming cooler since the
fire had almost gone out, but their
chairs were drawn
closely up before
the shining and-
irons.
“You always pol-
ish them so beauti-
fully for Christ.
mas,” he said.
“You never grow
tired of making
everything as love-
ly each succeeding
year.”
“And you never
grow tired of ap-
preciating—per-
haps that is why
I can always take
such an interest,” 7 ; Ls
she said. lille,
“The andirons
shine with fresh brilliancy each year,”
he said.
“Like our love for each other,” she
added. And then, for fear he might
think she was a little too sentimental
for one whose hair already had many
streaks of gray she added:
“You make me so sentimental, you
darling.”
He put his hand on hers.
“It has been a hard year—all the
years have their struggles, but every
year, as I sit with you in front of this
old fire it seems as though there is
nothing that I want in this world.”
They were straightening up the
room now. Everything was in its
place. The presents were under the
tree, the small toys were poking their
jolly little selves out of the stockings.
“I think the thermometer will show
zero before morning,” he said. “I'll
give the furnace an extra poke.”
She waited while he went down into
the cellar, and as he came up, and
then went to lock the front door—the
flickering lights from the stars and
the bright white of the snow gleamed
through at them.
“It’s so beautiful,” he said.
take a look at it.”
He put her heavy coat around her
shoulders and together they stood cut
in front of the house for a moraent.
“You always,” he told her, “have
been my guiding star.”
And she put her hand in his and
smiled through slightly moist eyes. He
was so willing to praise, so willing to
say those things when he thought
them, that it had made her, she knew,
the sort of a person she was,
Each of them lived up to the praise
and love the other gave.
“Let's
warmed their hearts throughout all
the year.
(@, 1930, Western Newspaper Union.)
(©, 1930, Western Newspaper Union.)
The glow of the Christmas fire,
7
By ELMO SCOTT
Drawing by Ray
OME one has st:
person were
nationalist ¢
by joining fi
tion of the
days thro
world, he w
that he wor
only some
during the whole 365 of
which to busy himself v
occupation. As Americ
new year, they may be
know that 1931 holds fo
as many rest days as w
By similar state laws,
erywhere in the Union a
as are New Year's day,
day, Washington's birthd
day.
Now let us consider
ties if a person set out t
ery holiday which is gene
ly observed in the Unites
could begin with Januar)
course, is New Year's da;
A week later he should hb
leans where the annive
battle of New Orleans
as a holiday. On Januar)
join in the observance
versary of Benjamin Fra
day, which is not a holid
. but which is widely obs
beginning of Thrift wee
Two days later, Janus
were in Alabama, Flor;
North Carolina, South Ca
ginia, he could join in th
of the birthday annivers
Robert E. Lee, and ten
January 29, he could hor
ory of President William
February is the shorte
the year but there's onl
month which has more d:
to celebrate. If this hypo
day-celebrating citizen d
Ground Hog day is impo
to justify observance on
he can make a quick tri
and there help the citiz
state celebrate Arbor da
it on the first Monday
and this year it's Februai
will have to hurry to ge
in time to help them cel
Arbor day on the first Fr
ruary which falls on Feb
year. On February 12 he
ebrate Georgia day in tl
though most people think
as the occasion for honori
ory of Abraham Lincoln
versary of his birth, 1
join in that celebration it
essary for him to go nort
are only 14 states, all ir
which have made Lincoln’
legal holiday. They are
Delaware, Illinois, India
Minnesota, New Jersey,
North Dakota, Pennsylv:
Dakota, Washington, We
and Wyoming. Curiously e
tucky, the state which gav
takes no official cognizance
It is generally observed ir
even though not officially,
the states, including some
in the South.
February 14 is St. Val
and February 15 is Maine {
the Maine!”) day, both c
can observe if he chooses
February 17 will be celel
legal holiday in Alabama,
Florida and in five parishe
ana, For it is Shrove Ti
day before Ash Wednesd:
which are determined by t
date of Easter Sunday) wl
brated as Mardi Gras day
slang, Mardi Gras or “Fa
the day ‘before Lent begi
Louisiana it ushers in the
tival in New Orleans. O
observing traveler can sper
22 in any state he pleases,
fngton’s birthday is official
ed in every state in the
when March comes in eit