The DallasPost
ESTABLISHED 1889 TELEPHONE DALLAS 300
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PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY MORNING SRE
" “AT THE DALLAS PosT PLANT Ey
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THE DALLAS POST Bu orctind fetid vias etigbas pews:
paper, ‘edited ind’ operated by young men interested im the de-
velopment of the great rural-sabuzban region of Luzerne County and in
the ent of the highest ideals of journalism. THE POST 6 truly
“more than a newspaper, it is a community institution.”
Congress shall make no law ¢ © abridging the freedom of spect or
of Press. —From the first amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, :
Subscription, $2.00 Per Year (Payable in Advance),
. Subscribers who send us changes of address are requested to include
both new and old addresses when they submit their notice of change.
‘A THOUGHT FOR THIS WEEK
There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
[s bound in shallows and in miseries.
Julius Caesar—SHAKESPEARE
The Love Of A Mother \
There could be no more tangible example of mother love
than the sacrifice Mrs. Anthony Burnett of Harvey's Lake
made last week in blindly offering her life to save that of
her eight-year-old son.
Nothing—even the twenty-foot drop into the pool
where her boy was struggling—could have stopped Mrs.
Burnett after she had heard the lad’s screams. A blind, driv-
ing love sent her plunging into the water, ignoring complete-
ly the possibility that she, too, was endangering her life.
- No words can encompass the beauty of her sacrifice
nor bring her back to the child who clung so desperately to
her lifeless body when help came, but these words can, in
very modest measure, serve as a reminder of the priceless
heritage of bravery and devotion she gave her survivors.
+ The Cost To You—Sixty One Cents
In a front page editorial last week anticipating Judge
John S. Fine’s decision on the Dallas School Board budget
case The Post asked “Who Will Be The Victor?” and con-
cluded that there was no victory for anyone. ~
. In the light of a story appearing on Page 1 this week,
estimating the total costs of the cases at $1,000, it appears
that the entire affair was little more than a highly expen-
sive fizzle for the taxpayers of Dallas Borough.
True, those taxpayers will be billed for about $500 less
than they would have under the 30-mill levy, a saving of
just about sixty-one cents to each of the borough’s taxables.
But on the other hand each taxpayer will have to contribute
approximately the same amount to pay unexpected legal ex-
penses which would not have been incurred had the suits
never been started. ’
The real burden will fall upon the minority group of
taxpayers which is responsible for the suits. Each of them
must pay part of the district's burden and care besides for
the expenses incurred by the plaintiffs. For them, it was an
especially expensive defeat.
The accomplishments are scarcely worth the expense,
the unfavorable publicity, and the unquestionable damage
to the school structure here. In two of the cases there was
absolutely no change from the board’s judgment. In the
third the petitioners failed to secure the three-mill reduc-
tion they asked but did succeed in having the budget reduc-
ed $525, about the same amount their suits cost the school
board. :
This is not a thing to forget. If there is any trace of
credit due anyone in the entire affair it must go to the ma-
jority directors of the board and, in the end, to Attorney
B. B. Lewis, whose legal judgment was upheld by the courts.
The responsibility for the mess lies with that embittered
group of taxpayers which believed it could continue to dic-
tate the policies of the school board.
One thing may have been accomplished, more import-
ant than any other. At last, by decision of this county’s
court, the taxpayers know which group of directors was
right, which was wrong. Let the taxpayers be guided by the
three court decisions in the future.
When several groups of Luzerne County taxpayers
wanted to ask some questions about the “Golden Highway’
audit the court squashed the case on technical grounds. But
when a group of Dallas taxpayers protested against the lo-
cal school budget the court not only handed down an injunc-
tion and took testimony but cut the budget one mill.
The G. O. P. is taking no chances in this section. Dallas
people were named as chairman and vice-chairman of the
Sixth District. The first rally was held at Lehman, and last
‘Saturday 10,000 Republicans came to Fernbrook Park to
whoop it up for Landon.
Every Italian soldier who fought in Africa will get a
sixteen-dollar bonus, Mussolini announces. Seems a little
small beside the $250,000 soldiers in this neck of the woods
got as their bonus.
It’s lucky for Americans that the ten Negro members
of the Olympic squad have no scruples against associating
with the inferior Caucasian racers.
WASHINGTON
LETTER
tis: esl that the decisive fac-
tor in the General Election of 1936 -
will be a man who was unknown
to millions of Americans up to a
month ‘or two ago, and who was
known to millions of others only be-
cause his name appeared ena Con-
gressional bill which was declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme
Court of the United States.
That man is Congressman ‘Wil-
liam Lemke of North Dakota, Presi-
dential nominee of the newly-form-
ed Union Party. Principal plank in
his platform is currency inflation,
and he has the support of Father
Coughlin of Share-the-Wealth fame.
Furthermore, he has entered into
"an agreement with Dr. Townsend,
and will have the official support
of the old-age-pension movement.
No one—aside from a few zealots
—believes that Lemke can be elect-
ed. Few believe that he can attain
a majority in even one state. But he
can be of tremendous importance in
determining the Roosevelt-Landon
race. Before going farther into that,
it is well to present a brief history
of the third party movement in
American politics.
There are always third parties, of
course, and fourth and fifth parties
as well. Best examples are the So-
cialist and Communist parties, which
put a ticket into the field each year.
But these parties do not affect either
of the major parties—they have a
certain established following, and
their total vote varies but little from
election to election. They do not at-
tract voters in any number from the
Democratic or Republican parties.
The important third parties are
those which are brought into being
by some problem or condition of the
moment and which, though they
may live only for one election, pres-
ent an appeal to a certain propor-
tion of the voters of the major par-
ties. It is in this classification that
Lemke’s new party belongs.
Several times in the history of the
Republic, such a third party has de-
termined the election. Most notable
example of that was the ‘election of
1860, when Lincoln and Douglas
contended for the Presidency. Two
other parties were also in the field.
Lincoln received only 40 per cent
of the vote, yet was elected. Had
all of Lincoln’s opposition gone to
Douglas, the latter would have won
easily.
Another notable example oc-
curred in 1884, when Blaine was the
Republican nominee, running
against Democrat Cleveland. Deci-
sive state was New York. Cleveland
carried it by the astonishingly small
majority of 1100 votes, and so was
elected to the highest office in the
land. The Prohibition candidate in
New York received the record total
of 25,000 votes that year. Had ten
per cent of those votes gone to
Blaine, he would have won.
Most successful third party was
that led by Theodore Roosevelt in
1912, which ran second to the Dem-
ocratic party headed by Wilson. In
that year, the Republican candidate
Taft, took the worst lacing ever re-
ceived by a major candidate.
Most recent example of an impor-
tant third party was the Progressive
Party, which had the elder Senator
LaFollette for its candidate. This
party carried but one state, Wiscon-
sin, but received a good-sized vote
in almost every state. It was not a
decisive factor in the election, how-
ever, for the reason that Coolidge
went into the Presidency by a tre-
mendous electoral majority; his op-
ponent, John W. Davis, carrying
only the traditionally Democratic
Solid South.
To return to the present, Candi-
date Lemke has a strong following
in a number of what may be ex-
tremely important states — states
which are more or less in the
“doubtful”, class, and which might
be able to swing the battle in favor
of either Roosevelt or
These are the Northwest states—the
Dakotas, Montana, and Wyoming,
and, to drop south a bit, Ohio, etc.
Under the American elective sys-
tem, the candidate who attdins a
majority in a state receives all its
electoral vote, even though his ma-
jority consists of but one voce. Thus,
in a close state, a few thousand
votes cast for Lemke could very
easily take that state away from
one major candidate, swing it to the
other.
Bedouins, of the spirit, au
© First they were here, then tney were
Landon.
Rives
‘Muthews
Wherein
Continues ‘The Saga Of
Grandfather Matthews
And Confesses To His Own
‘Fall From Grace. :
Mr. Matthews
The largest did
youth, was my Grandfather Mat-
thews. My own parents were
feast.
there. I never knew exactly where
they were, and I don’t, to this day.
-My Father, in fact, was, and is, a
travelling salesman.
—0—
But I always knew where Grand-
father was. You could count on him.
He was like the moon and stars he
liked to watch at nights before
locking up and going to bed. He
was predictable. Relatively, he was
as ageless.
When I was born on March 17,
1907, Grandfather Matthews was
79. I was twenty-three when he
gave up the habit of 102 years and
surprised us all by dying. Now if
ever there was anyone who could be
described as a “creature of habits,”
it was Grandfather.
fy
By the time I was old enough to
visit him, Grandfather's habits had
become long established rites. They
were performed, by those of us ob-
liged to assist, with the gentle hu-
moring held due an old person who
is set in his ways, or with sullen
obedience by those of us who re-
garded Grandfather’s habits as in-
evitable, but ever-recurrent, an-
noyances.
——
There was, for instance, the rite
of the Nine O'clock Whistle. Noth-
ing was ever allowed to interfere
with that. Time, you see, had be-
come very important to Grand-
father. In his nineties, it measured
off the hours, days, weeks, months
and years between him and his
goal; to live to be a hundred.
Louis XVI’s preoccupation with
clocks was nothing to the attention
Grandfather lavished on the three
clocks he owned. One was in the
dining room, another was in the
living room, the third was in his
bedroom.
—~—0—
It was a maiter of great pride
with Grandfather that most of the
time they struck the hours within
split seconds of each other. If they
didn’t, Grandfather would go into
a minor fury, which was terrible
enough if you'd never seen him in a
major rage, one of those wild
frenzies of a twarted will which
evoked the worse curse-word I ever
heard him use: “By George!”
For days, Grandfather would be
unhappy and puzzled by his clocks.
And then it was the rite of the Nine
O'Clock Whistle would have even
more meaning to him, and to us.
—o—
No matter who was talking, no
matter how interesting the conver-
sation, instinctively, at about five
minutes to nine, Grandfather would
command everyone to listen for the
Nine O’Clock Whistle.
influence ‘in
my ‘chaotic childhood; boyhood, and
A terrible stillness would descend
upon us. All you could hear would
be Grandfather's measured breath-
ing, and the three clocks, tick-tock-
ing, tick-tocking.
—C—
After what would seem hours,
suddenly, if all was well, you'd hear
a faint wail which would increase,
in the space of half a minute, to an
all-invading howl. Then it would die
off again. It sounded like a sick cow
but it was the Nine O’clock Whistle
which started mothers all over St.
Louis to calling their = children to
bed.
a
For Grandfather, it served as a
daily check on his precious clocks.
If we assured him that all three of
them had struck precisely at nine,
he could go to bed in peace. Other-
wise, he was good for another half
hour of tinkering and fussing and
demanding that I run back and
forth between them to see if all
three read on the minute.
——
Time was nothing in my young
life. Grandfather's passion was
merely a meaningless nuisance
which kept me away from my
books, or the head phones of my
crystal radio set.
But I shall never forget the night,
anxious to have him get off to bed,
that I lied to him about the clocks.
I shall always remember how he
bellowed when the clock in his
bedroom gave me away by striking
nine a good fifteen minutes after
the whistle blew, and caught Grand-
father in his long wool undies. i
was an occasion for several °
Georges.”
or]
“u
. gl ’
If it had been the dining room
clock, or even the living room clock
all would have been well. He
couldn’t have heard them. But for
the clock with which he slept to be
fifteen minutes late, and thus false-
ly keeping him a qaurter of an hour
away from the century mark—why,
it destroyed his faith in human be-
ings and in the cold science of
chronometers!
What had happened, I learned
later, was that Emma, the house-
maid, had jolted the clock while
dusting, that, without her noticing,
it had stopped while she was clean-
ing Grandfather's room. Later,
when she discovered what she had
done, she had become panic strick-
en lest Grandfather, who was in the
next room, should catch her red.
handed. So she had hastily given
the clock another jolt and had
started it going again without real-
izing it had lost a precious quarter
of an hour.
—0—
Emma always said Grandfather
could hear things just when you
didn’t want him to hear the most,
even though at other times you had
to shout to make yourself heard. I
guess Emma never forgot the time
Grandfather almost killed her.
It was in the days When Emma
was “keeping company”, sneaking
in during the scandalous hours
which set in after the Nine O'Clock
Whistle loudly proclaimed respect-
able people like Grandfather were
going to bed. Emma, so the story
goes, forgot to tell anyone she
would be out late that night,
—0—
She also forgot to make a noise
. when she came in. Grandfather said
that people who couldnt get to bed
at a decent hour, who had to be out
late at night, shouldn't tiptoe
around when they came in. They
should make all the noise they
would make ordinarily, else Grand-
father would think they were burg-
lars.
When poor Emma tiptoed in that
night and made for the stairs near
the door to Grandfather's room,
Grandfather was ready for the bur-
glar he thought she was. He held in
both hands the Japanese harikar
sword Uncle Orville, who had been
a rear Admiral, had brought back
from the Orient. Bala
—O— Atay
Emma told me she would never
forget the sound of that murderous
blade as it cut through the dark,
just missing her, but neaiy split-
ting into halves the polishea fewel
post at the foot of the stairs which
led upward to bed and safety from
a white bearded old gentleman in
an old fashioned nightshirt.
As for me, the delinquency of his
bedroom clock made me a suspi-
cious character for weeks after-
wards. Although he didn’t come
right out and say it, I felt that
Grandfather secretly harboured the
thought I might have criminal ten~
dencies.
—C—
You should have heard the lec-
tures I got on the subject of how a
man’s word should be as good as
his bond, a comparison Grand-
father particularly favored, since
he had spent much of hisJife as a
banker. Banking, he aval insist-
ed, was a calling in which character
was a man’s chief asset, in which
honesty was his only real capital.
Grandfather liked to mention the
huge sums he had borrowed from
time to time, simply on his name. I
think he would be terribly shocked
by today’s loan requirements. To
Grandfather the only collateral
worth having was a set of good
habits with a Nine O'Clock Whistle
to tell you whether your clocks
were on time.
—0—
I don’t think the suspicion ever
crossed his mind that sometimes the:
Nine O’Clock Whistle was wrong,
or that someone couldn’t pull it
down a few minutes early, or a few
minutes late.
Integrity, with Grandfather, was
like his habits. All of them endured,
for 102 years.
MADE S
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