This town is all excited. It remembers with painful distinctness what happened four years ago, when the socialists established a colony near the site of the contemplated anarchist farm. Professor George D. Herron and Eugene V. Debs took the leading part in the formation of the socialist pasture ground.
Nobody took more than the usual curious interest in the project until the announcement seeped into this town that Herron was going to bring Miss Carrie Rand to live with him “according to the new and simple form of marriage ceremony.”
Metuchen isn’t exactly puritan, but when that news reached it, every Metuchenite dug his Bible out of the attic and joined his neighbor in excited protest. Metuchen was willing to tolerate some things, but when it came to winking at free love, never!
So highly excited did the townsfolk become that Herron and his wife left for Florence, Italy, where they lived until her death a year ago. And even though the socialist farm was established, nothing that resembled free love ever made its appearance.
That’s why Metuchen sizzles with palpitating expectation and teems with a throbbing skepticism. It knows what the I. W. W. folk have done in Paterson, another Jersey town, and it has read what the anarchists in New York are reputed to have done.
Metuchen was able to repel the socialists when they would have set up a free-love colony in the neighborhood. But it is not so sure that it can stand off genuine anarchists.
Rowing Dates for Year.
In addition to the announcement on Saturday night that the championship meet of the National Association of Amateur Oarsmen would be held at Springfield, Mass., on August 13th and 14th, the following rowing dates were made public by the Amateur American Rowing Association:
May 22—American Rowing Association, at Philadelphia; May 31—New York Rowing Association, on the Harlem River, New York; June 19—Schuylkill Navy Regatta, at Philadelphia; July 3—Hudson River Rowing Association meet; July 5—People’s regatta, at Philadelphia; New England regatta, at Charles Basin, Boston; Western Massachusetts Rowing Association, at Springfield, Mass.; Rosedale Boat Club open regatta, on Hackensack River, New Jersey; September 6—Middle States Rowing Association, meet date not yet fixed; New England Rowing Association regatta, at Boston; Detroit River Rowing Association, at Detroit; September 9 to 15—Pacific Coast Association meet at Pan-American Fair, San Francisco; September 15—Detroit River Rowing Association, at Detroit.