Note—The following two stories give the results of the first two days’ work in the investigation of conditions growing out of a coal strike. Both were sent by the Associated Press.
(1)
Chicago Inter Ocean
CHARLESTON, W. Va., June 10.—The power and authority of the government of the United States came to West Virginia today to determine who is responsible for the conditions which have kept the state in virtual civil war for more than a year.
Opening the investigation of the coal mine strike, which has dealt death and destruction in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek mining sections, the Senate mine strike investigating committee tonight called upon the military authorities for the records of the proceedings prior to, and under the declaration of, martial law in the strike territory.
Judge Advocate General George S. Wallace, Adjutant General Charles D. Elliott, Major James I. Pratt, Captain Charles R. Morgan and Captain Samuel L. Walker were summoned before the committee this evening, to produce the state records regarding the declaration of martial law and the proceedings of the military committee which was placed in authority in the strike district.
Senator Borah of Idaho desired their testimony and their records as a basis for the branch of the inquiry which he is conducting, as to the charge that citizens have been “arrested, tried and convicted in violation of the Constitution or the law of the United States.”
Opening his case under the section of the Senate resolution authorizing the investigation which directs an inquiry into this subject, Senator Borah, at a brief session of the committee this afternoon, read into the record several excerpts from the constitution of West Virginia. The first was the provision declaring that the constitution of the state and of the United States shall always be in effect. The second provision declared, under no circumstances shall the right of habeas corpus be denied.
The third was the usual provision that no citizen shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The fourth set forth that the military authority shall not supersede the civil powers, even under the plea of necessity, and others provided for trial by jury in open court for all criminal offenses.
The activities of the state authorities in connection with the strike will be probed by the committee, in view of these constitutional guarantees, and the charge that the mine workers have not been accorded their full rights will be investigated with these provisions in mind.
A formidable array of counsel was on hand. For the miners there appeared Frank S. Monnet, formerly attorney general of Ohio, Seymour Stedman of Illinois, and M. M. Belcher and H. W. Houston. The operators were represented by Z. T. Vinson, E. W. Knight and C. C. Watts, with a half score of assistants.
Two lengthy preliminary statements were filed with the committee by the attorneys for the operators. The first was filed by Mr. Vinson for the operators generally, and the second by Mr. Watts for the Paint Creek Collieries company. Both were pleas of “not guilty” and both denied in detail and in toto the charges made in the resolution passed by the Senate authorizing the inquiry.
The operators in their brief made the counter charge that the United Mine Workers of America, in its attempts “to organize” the coal miners in the West Virginia field, was responsible for the violence which has characterized the strike.
The operators declared they expect to prove that firearms and ammunition were brought into the state “for acts of lawlessness and violence, which were designed to keep the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek mines idle and prevent shipments of coal therefrom until the United Mine Workers of America should be recognized.”
The statement presented by the Paint Creek Collieries company made similar denials and similar charges.
Former Governor Glasscock, who was Governor when the strike began and who declared martial law in the district, will appear before the committee on Thursday. He sent a telegram to the committee today offering to testify, and at the suggestion of Senator Borah it was arranged to examine him on Thursday.
(2)
Chicago Inter Ocean
CHARLESTON, W. Va., June 11.—War time rule in the coal strike regions of West Virginia was described before the Senate mine investigating committee here today, and after three military officers had told of conditions, the committee expressed itself as satisfied as to the charge that “the citizens of West Virginia had been tried and convicted in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
Two members of the military committee, which at three different times have assumed absolute dominion over some 150 square miles of West Virginia territory, testified. They were Captain Charles R. Morgan, a lawyer, and Major James I. Pratt, who was president of the second military court which took charge of the strike district. Both told the committee that their proceedings were conducted without regard to the civil laws of the state; that they arrested, arraigned, tried, convicted and sentenced offenders without recourse to civil courts and without regard to the limitations imposed by the statutes of West Virginia.
“We considered that the strike district was in a state of actual warfare,” said Captain Morgan, “and we acted according to the procedure of the United States Army in time of war.”
“But the constitution of the state provides,” interjected Attorney Monnet, for the miners, “that the military shall be subordinate to the civil power, and that no citizen, unless engaged in military service of the state, shall be tried or punished for any offense that is cognizable by the civil courts of the state.”
“My understanding was,” replied Captain Morgan, “that during the state of insurrection which prevailed, the constitution of the state of West Virginia was suspended by the acts of those men who were burning, killing and destroying property.
“We believed that to perpetuate the state of West Virginia and restore the constitution was to use extreme measures.”
A dozen pictures of men clad in prison clothing were identified by Major Pratt as those of men who had been sentenced by the military commission. One man was given a sentence of seven and a half years; several others were given three, four and five year terms.
“Was there any indictment against these men?” asked Senator Borah.
“No,” answered Major Pratt; “they were arraigned on charges prepared by the judge advocate general.”
Senator Borah elicited that Captain Morgan, as a lawyer, believed that there was no appeal from the decision of the commission, if approved by the Governor, except to the Supreme court of the United States.
“Then a man did not have to commit a statutory offense to make himself amenable to the action of your commission?” asked Attorney Monnet.
“No.”
“You could arraign him for anything that in your estimation was an offense?”
“Yes, except that the Governor’s proclamation specified statutory offenses.”
Senator Martine ascertained that after the commission had heard the testimony in a case it went into secret session, executed sealed findings after the manner of a verdict, and sent them to the Governor. It was developed that forty-nine accused men were tried at one time by the commission.
“There was no opportunity given a man to secure a new trial, or bail, no possibility of a stay of execution; your decision was final,” suggested Mr. Monnet.
“Yes.”
“If you had sentenced a man to death, there was no way of stopping the execution?” asked Senator Borah.
“We did not contemplate imposing death sentences,” replied the witness.
Adjutant General Charles D. Elliott occupied the morning session and part of the afternoon session. Tonight Senator Borah took up witnesses produced by the Mine Workers to testify as to charges that peonage obtains in the Paint and Cabin creeks sections. A hundred brawny miners came in from the hills today, and the attorneys for the Mine Workers weeded out the witnesses they wanted to call.
Following today’s speedy work, the committee decided to divide up the inquiry tomorrow, allowing Senator Borah to proceed alone with the peonage investigation, and probably requiring Senator Kenyon to begin an individual inquiry into general conditions in the strike zone, while the remainder of the committee take up other branches of the inquiry.
Milwaukee Free Press
NEW YORK, Feb. 3.—Mrs. Mary Petrucci, a coal miner’s wife, today told the federal industrial commission how her three small children met death at her side in the Ludlow strike massacre of 1914.
Women wept and tense faced men bent forward eagerly, as the bareheaded, black clad woman, in low, passive tones, reflecting the deep melancholy of her face, recited the dramatic events of the night of April 20, when fire and machine guns swept the strikers’ camp in the southern Colorado hills, collecting a toll of twelve children, two women and five men. It was a remarkable recital and a memorable scene.
Mrs. Petrucci is 24 years old. She was born of Italian parents in a Colorado mining camp. She was married at the age of 16 and had four children when the strike of the Colorado Fuel & Iron company employes was declared in 1913. She lost one child in March of the following year as a result of privations occasioned by the strike. With the grief of that loss still upon her she went to live in the tent colony at Ludlow after the strikers had been driven from the company settlement. There the final tragedy of her life was enacted.
She took the witness stand today with listless manner and haunted eyes. Throughout her testimony she alternately bit at her finger nails and twisted in her frail hands a cotton handkerchief.
Her sweet voice at no time rose above a conversational tone, and the matter of fact manner in which she told the story of her grief served only to bring out with more striking force its tragic import.
“Yes,” she said in answer to Chairman Walsh’s questions, “we had good times in the tent colony. I liked it there better than in the company camp. Over there the militia came up every day and insulted us. The Sunday before the fire was the Greek Easter. The men in the camp celebrated it. We had a baseball game, and that night there was singing, and the boys came with banjos and we had a good time.”
Into this background of merriment she fitted the picture of the woe that followed.
“April 20 I didn’t leave our tent at all,” she said. “Our tent was No. 1, and right behind it was the maternity tent. A cellar had been dug in that tent and there several babies were born while we lived in the colony. We also had a cellar in our tent. It was about 6 o’clock that night. I was down in the cellar and smelled a fire. The children were playing around. I went up and discovered that the tent was all on fire. I seized my children, and taking one in my arms, I got another by the hand, and the other one took hold of my skirt and we ran out of the tent.
“When I ran out I saw a lot of the militiamen around. They hollered to me to look out and were shooting at me as I ran. As quick as I could I ran into the maternity tent and down the steps into the cellar.”
“You are sure you saw the militiamen,” asked Mr. Walsh.
“Oh yes, sir,” replied the witness. “They were about twenty-five yards away.”
“And could they see you?”
“I saw them. And they hollered at me; yes, sir.”
She looked at Walsh with frightened eyes as if recalling in her mind the scene of the night and continued:
“There was a door down to the cellar inside the tent and there were earth steps. The door was left open as I went down, and I don’t know how it came to be closed later. When I got down in the cellar there were three women and eight children there. I knew them all. I had my baby in my arms. It was six months old. The others were close to me and my boy had hold of my dress.”
Twirling the handkerchief in her hands, the woman looked over at Mr. Walsh and in a voice from which all emotion seemed to have been drained, she said:
“He would have been 5 years old yesterday—my boy.”
“You lost all three of your children there?” said Walsh.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, soft and low. “I lost them that night.”
And again she twisted the handkerchief into a knot. A woman on the front row of benches sobbed audibly. A shuffling of feet and the deep breathing of the spectators swept over the room. Mrs. Petrucci gazed dully at her questioner.
“We were in the cellar about ten minutes,” she said, “when the tent over our head took fire. I don’t know how it started. It was not on fire when I went in. Pretty soon after that we all lost consciousness.”
“But before that,” asked Walsh, “didn’t you try to escape?”
“It was all on fire over our heads,” replied the woman simply.
“Did you do anything to save your children?”
“What could I? Oh, yes. There was a woman there with a blanket. I asked her to share it with me for my babies; one was 6 months, you know, and the other 2½ years, and my boy 4. She told me it was only big enough for herself.”
Mrs. Petrucci sighed. It was the only display of emotion she made during the recital. That blanket—a corner of it might have saved one of the babies from the suffocation that quickly overtook all there. She sighed at the recollection.
“The next I knew,” she continued plaintively, “was when I woke up at 5 the next morning. I ran out for water for my babies. They were lying there. I thought water would help them. I did not know what I was doing. I felt like I was drunk. Outside I saw guards walking down the railroad tracks. They were laughing. I kept turning back all the time. I was afraid they would shoot me.”
Again the frightened look came into her dark ringed, black eyes. A score of women in the audience were weeping now. Save for their smothered sighs the room was in absolute silence. The clanging of a bell on one of the lower floors of the Metropolitan building rang out like a funeral note.
“I went to the railroad station,” said Mrs. Petrucci. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I asked Mrs. Horning to go look for my babies. She said she could not find them. Someone bought me a ticket for Trinidad. I was in bed there nine days with pneumonia. I did not see my children again.”
A woman on the front row groaned and Mrs. Petrucci looked down at her with dazed eyes.
“Don’t you know how the fire started?” asked Commissioner Weinstock.
“No, sir; the beginning of the fire was in my tent. It was about 6 o’clock. It was still light. It started outside.”
“But when you went out didn’t you see anyone?”
“No, sir, only the militiamen.”
For a full two minutes the commissioners gazed silently at the woman. Then finally Weinstock asked:
“When you went to the railroad station what did you think had become of your children?”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything,” replied Mrs. Petrucci, clasping her handkerchief to her breast.
Mother Jones took the woman in her arms as she stepped from the stand and led her away.
Andrew Carnegie will probably be called on Friday.
HEARING ON CITY ORDINANCE
New York Herald
If there is any general opposition to an ordinance to guard the public against the nuisance of smoking automobiles, it failed to develop at a public hearing in the matter held yesterday afternoon by the Committee on Laws and Legislation of the Board of Aldermen. One man appeared when opponents of the bill were asked to express their views, but he admitted that the ordinance would be a good thing if operative only in Manhattan.
He was Herbert G. Andrews, of the Committee on Laws and Legislation of the Long Island Automobile Club. He said the club favored the abatement of the nuisance, but would like to have the ordinance altered in certain respects.
In the form introduced by Alderman Nicoll the ordinance is identically the same as one now in force prohibiting smoking automobiles in the parks. It says that “no person shall run a motor vehicle in the streets and highways of the city of New York which emits from the exhaust or muffler thereof offensive quantities of smoke, gas or disagreeable odors,” and that “any violation of the provisions of this ordinance shall be deemed a minor offence and, upon conviction thereof before a city magistrate, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10 or by imprisonment in the City Prison, or by both; but no such imprisonment, however, shall exceed a term of five days.”
Mr. Andrews suggested that the word “offensive” be changed to “excessive” and that the fine be graduated—slight for the first offence and heavier for subsequent offences.
William H. Palmer, of the New York Transportation Company, a taxicab concern, said that it would be easier to determine the offence if the ordinance made some reference to the distance at which smoke extending from an automobile was unlawful.
In support of the bill there appeared many persons, including two women. Alderman Nicoll said that smoking automobiles were the cause of a great blue haze often to be found at places such as Columbus Circle and Forty-second street and Fifth avenue. The smoke penetrated stores, he said, and made it necessary for merchants to keep their doors and windows closed to protect their goods.
The alderman told of riding in a taxicab from Cortlandt street to Fiftieth street on Thursday afternoon and of passing one hundred and sixty-four automobiles, of which, he said, thirty were smoking.
Paris, London and Berlin have laws prohibiting the emission of smoke from automobiles, he said, and the law in force in Paris is even more drastic than his ordinance.
Dr. Holbrook Curtis corroborated Mr. Nicoll in his claim that smoke had a bad effect on the health of the people who inhaled the fumes. He said it was especially injurious to persons suffering from gastritis.
Mrs. John Rogers, as chairman of the Hygiene Committee of the New York City Federation of Women’s Clubs, pleaded for the passage of the ordinance for the sake of little children, whose noses and eyes were affected by the smoke, she said. Mrs. Katherine S. Day, of the Women’s Municipal League, also urged the passage of the measure.
Others who spoke in favor of the measure were Charles J. Campbell, counsel for the Hotel Association of the City of New York; Frederick G. Cook, president of the Fifth Avenue Association; John C. Coleman, of the West End Association, and William Kirkpatrick.
Mr. Coleman said that on the upper west side chauffeurs often vie with one another to see how much smoke they can emit and how much noise they can make.
The claim was made that the emission of smoke could be prevented without difficulty, and nobody contradicted the statement. Taxicabs were said to be the worst offenders.
New York Times
Nearly 500 persons living in New York who raise chickens on their fire escapes, in their backyards, or on vacant lots, for eating purposes or for their eggs, went by invitation to the offices of the Department of Health yesterday afternoon and made a mighty protest against the proposed ordinance to prohibit the raising of hens within seventy-five feet of the nearest residence or public building, and the keeping of roosters anywhere.
Their complaints against the hardships of the regulations under consideration were heard with great patience by Dr. Haven Emerson, Deputy Commissioner of Health, in charge of the Sanitary Bureau. Dr. Emerson had difficulty in keeping order at the meeting, because all the chicken owners were disposed to talk at once. On this account, too, many of those who probably had good arguments to use against the tentative ordinance were unable to get a hearing.
The lecture room on the fifth floor of the Department of Health Building was packed with chicken owners long before 4 o’clock, when the meeting was called to order by Dr. Emerson. The gathering was composed of every kind of chicken raiser, from the head of a family which kept just two pullets for their eggs, to the fancier who boasted of the finest breed of fowl in large numbers. Seated on either side of Dr. Emerson were several members of his staff, including Dr. John Barry, Assistant Sanitary Superintendent of Queens, and Dr. John Sprague, Assistant Sanitary Superintendent of Richmond.
The meeting was opened by Dr. Emerson, who explained that the Sanitary Bureau had received more than 14,000 complaints on account of chickens since the first of the year. Furthermore, he asserted that inspectors were occupied one-third of their time investigating applications for permits to keep chickens, or complaints about them. He then started to read some of the hundreds of letters of complaint on the subject of chickens, when one of the owners interrupted:
“I don’t think it’s fair to take up our time with letters of complaint, because we already know what’s in them. We want to find out what’s the best the Department of Health can do for chicken raisers.”
A member of a delegation from Sheepshead Bay said that the proposed seventy-five-foot limit would entirely wipe out chicken raising in his section, and he believed it would have the same effect in other suburban districts. He said:
“I have a plot 100 by 100 feet, and my house is constructed so that it would be impossible for me to keep chickens in accordance with the seventy-five-foot limit. The average suburbanite lives on a plot 50 by 100 feet.”
The suggestion that the new limit would practically eliminate the chicken industry from this city, brought forth a chorus of groans not unlike that of Sing Sing when a convict is led from the death house to the electric chair.
Dr. Emerson was the target for a score of different questions from every part of the room, and, as the best way out of the difficulty, he asked all who had killed chickens on their plots to raise their hands.
“Don’t you do it; you’ll be fined,” was the warning shouted by one of the chicken owners, and this was the signal for another series of groans.
It took the Deputy Health Commissioner some little time to restore order and to explain to the men and women that no police officers were present to start proceedings against offenders of the anti-chicken-slaughtering regulations.
One of the chicken raisers pointed out that the law was absurd in that it said that a chicken coop could not be kept within seventy-five feet of a factory.
“Is a chicken going to harm a factory?” he asked.
Dr. Emerson then tried to tell the complaining chicken owners that milk-bottling works, on the sanitation of which depended the lives of thousands of babies, were among the “factories” protected by the regulation. He also said that there was no intent in the seventy-five-foot limit to discriminate against chicken owners any more than there was to discriminate against saloons, which are required to be 200 feet removed from the nearest church or school. Here he was interrupted:
“You see a lot of drunken men coming out of saloons, but you never see a drunken chicken coming out of a chicken coop.”
When Dr. Emerson asserted that 150,000 chickens were slaughtered in New York City every year in violation of the law regulating slaughter houses, several men and women jumped to their feet. All at once the men protested:
“But we slaughter them in a more sanitary way than the licensed slaughter houses.”
When this period of excitement had somewhat subsided, a little woman arose quietly and, on the ground that she kept two chickens for their eggs, protested against further reference to the killing of fowls as “slaughter.”
J. Howland Leavitt, Superintendent of Highways of Queens, endeavored to calm the chicken owners by assuring them that it must be the idea of the Department of Health to improve bad conditions without being too strict with those persons who complied with the health regulations.
“For instance,” said Supt. Leavitt, “I keep chickens within sixty-five feet of a school house. They do not disturb any of my neighbors, and there has never been any complaint about them, to my knowledge.”
“Have you ever received a permit to keep those chickens?” asked Dr. Emerson.
“No,” replied Mr. Leavitt, and the chicken owners were forced to laugh—for the first time.
On behalf of citizens of Queens and Richmond Boroughs in their districts, Aldermen Burden of Flushing and O’Rourke of Richmond made certain objections to the proposed ordinance. Alderman Burden said his constituents were satisfied with the present law, and only asked for adequate inspection. Alderman O’Rourke said it would be more in keeping with the Mayor’s policy to apply home rule to chickens and leave each Assistant Sanitary Superintendent with jurisdiction in his borough.
The fears of the chicken raisers were somewhat allayed when Commissioner Emerson read a letter from one of their number suggesting a few modifications to the proposed ordinance. He took a vote on the suggestions and the majority indorsed them.
Before the meeting was closed the chicken owners voted their thanks to Dr. Emerson for his patience in hearing their complaints.
HEARING BEFORE COMMITTEE
Chicago Herald
Are women less brave than men in time of danger?
J. C. McDonnell, chief of the fire prevention bureau, precipitated the second chapter in the controversy yesterday when he appeared before the judiciary committee of the city council and reiterated his contention that public safety demanded the substitution of men for women ushers in Chicago theaters.
“Women ushers are not as brave as men when danger comes,” he argued.
“Experience has proved that statement purely theoretical and absolutely untrue,” responded the managers of playhouses which employ girl ushers.
“Women ushers are all right to hand out programs and show patrons to seats, but that is all,” the fire prevention chief remarked.
And thereby Armageddon was set down in the midst of the theatrical world.
The first strategic move of the opposing forces—the girl ushers of Chicago-consisted in the organization of an effective fighting machine.
“The Girl Ushers’ Anti-McDonnell League” it is called—and the name conceals little of the organization’s plans of procedure.
“Our work is to us what other kinds of work are to other girls—our means of earning a livelihood,” said Miss Marie Donlan of the Princess Theater, chairman of the league. “To the assistant fire chief the change from women ushers to men would mean only the vindication of an idea. To us it would mean the loss of our positions.”
The campaign contemplated by the league has no place in it for consideration of the feelings of the fire prevention head.
“We shall ignore him with pleasure,” volunteered Miss Blanche Lamb, head usher of the Garrick.
Here is the plan worked out by the members of the league’s impromptu war council: A petition will be prepared and presented to Mayor Harrison by a committee selected from the membership of the league. The petition will recite actual instances in which girls have proved their bravery “under fire.”
New friends sprang to the defense of the young women at the council committee meeting. They were Aldermen Coughlin and Dempsey. The former cited the instance of the Iroquois Theater fire, when “men ushers failed to prevent terrible loss of life.” Alderman Dempsey said it would be wrong “to throw so many girls out of employment.”
Girl ushers active in the new league include the Misses Eleanor Cline and Gertrude White of the Princess Theater, the Misses Lucile Perkins and Blanche Lamb of the Garrick, and the Misses T. Crowley, D. Dennis and G. Kennedy of Powers’.
The council judiciary committee voted to defer action until after the managers of the theaters had been given an opportunity to be heard.
Meanwhile—who are braver, girls or boys?
Theatrical managers say girls.
Assistant Chief McDonnell says boys.
And you—?
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
JEFFERSON CITY, Jan. 21—Opposition of Democratic politicians in St. Louis to a reform of the Justice of the Peace system in the city developed in the House yesterday over a bill modeled along the lines of the Municipal Courts bill, which has three times been killed through the influence of politicians who sought to perpetuate the present system in the minor courts of St. Louis.
William R. Handy, Democratic member from the Third District in St. Louis, yesterday succeeded in keeping the Justice of the Peace bill in the Committee on Municipal Corporations after the House had voted to request that committee to return the bill that it might be referred to the Committee on Justices of the Peace, to which it properly belongs.
Handy is a member of the Municipal Corporations Committee, and with the bill in that committee, it is always under his eye, and he is in a position to have a voice in determining whether it shall ever be reported. Through many sessions Handy has fought to kill the municipal courts bill.
The Justices of the Peace bill was introduced by John C. Harrison of St. Louis. Harrison is a lawyer and a former Justice of the Peace.
His bill provides that Justices of the Peace shall be elected at large in St. Louis and that each shall have jurisdiction throughout the city. It places each Justice on a salary of $3000 a year and provides for a reduction in the number of Justices from 11 to 7. Each Justice, the bill provides, must be a licensed attorney.
One clerk is provided for, to be elected by the Justices. There are to be such deputy clerks as are required. One Constable is provided for in the bill, his salary to be $2500 a year. Deputy clerks and Constables shall be paid $1800 a year each. In addition to his salary, the Constable is allowed 2½ per cent of all amounts collected by him on execution.
The bill does not require that all the justice courts shall be in one building, but provides that the Board of Aldermen shall provide suitable rooms and offices, which shall be centrally located.
The bill is opposed by ward politicians, as was the Municipal Courts bill in previous sessions, for the reason that it would abolish many jobs of Constables and would break up the political organizations in the Justice of the Peace districts in St. Louis.
Democrats are opposing it on the additional ground that under the present system the Democrats are able to elect some Justices and Constables, and they fear that, if such officers were elected at large, the Republicans would win all the jobs.
The controlling motive of the opposition, however, is the danger of breaking up the organizations through which political bosses are able to reward faithful henchmen or get jobs for themselves.
The requirement that a Justice must be a practicing attorney would end the present system, practiced in many of the districts in St. Louis, of ward politicians having themselves elected Justices of the Peace.
Harrison’s bill was introduced a week ago. It was referred by Speaker Ross to the Municipal Corporations Committee, of which Handy is a member. Yesterday Harrison requested that it be taken from that committee and sent to the Committee on Justices of the Peace, of which he is a member.
Handy objected. He said that he was opposed to having the bill in Harrison’s committee. Speaker Ross said that it was customary to refer a bill to any committee the member introducing it desired, but Representative James J. Blain made the point that Ross had no power to take the bill out of the Municipal Corporations Committee.
Harrison then offered a motion that the committee be instructed to return the bill to the House. Blain objected to the form of the motion. He said that the committee should be requested, not instructed. Harrison changed his motion.
The Municipal Corporations Committee met yesterday afternoon. Handy was present. The committee voted to refuse the request of the House and to retain possession of the bill. The only Democrats on the committee voting to return the bill were Representatives White of Cole County and O’Brien of Wayne County.
Harrison said this morning that he would renew his motion and that he would ask that the House order the Municipal Corporations Committee to return the bill.
Note—The second of the next two stories follows up the news of the introduction of an ordinance given in the first story.
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
(1)
Philadelphia Ledger
(Condensed)Authority for the immediate erection of a two-track elevated railway from Front and Arch streets to Rhawn street, Holmesburg, is granted in an ordinance introduced in Common Council yesterday by Peter E. Costello, of the 45th Ward.
Asserting that he had introduced the bill upon his own volition, Mr. Costello said that he did not even know whether it embraced the recommendations made by Director of City Transit Taylor for such a road. The people in the northeast want it, he said, and are certain that it will be a paying proposition. Republican Organization leaders are understood to be behind the measure. The bill relegates Director Taylor to second place in approval of the plans for the project. It provides that work shall be started within six months after the plans have been approved by the “Departments of Public Works and of City Transit.”
Attention was called to the fact that the Costello ordinance, by clearing the way for the Philadelphia Rapid Transit to accept a Northeast “L” proposition by itself, might seriously hamper the projects of Director Taylor by eliminating one of the main features in the Taylor plans, which contemplate the new high-speed system as a unit. The deep significance of the ordinance, councilmanic observers said, lay in this fact.
In accordance with the agreement between the city and the Rapid Transit Company, the latter has first refusal of the franchise. If within 90 days after passage of the ordinance that company does not indicate acceptance or rejection, the Mayor shall, by public advertisement, request tenders for the construction of the elevated and report the same to Councils, “to the end that the said new company or the city of Philadelphia may proceed with the construction of the same.”
The company submitting the successful tender is given six months within which to present complete plans for approval to the Departments of Public Works and of City Transit. Within six months after approval of such plans actual work of construction must be started.
In consideration of the franchise the company is to pay to the city 10 per cent. of its net profits in cash before any dividends are paid. The rate of fare is not to exceed 5 cents for a continuous ride.
The road throughout is to have an overhead clearance of 14 feet above street grades. From Front and Arch streets to Frankford, the Costello route is declared to be the same as that laid down by Director Taylor.
As provided in the ordinance, the route of the road is to be from Front and Arch streets, along Front street to Kensington avenue, along Kensington avenue to Frankford avenue, along Frankford avenue to Rhawn street.
Stations are to be established at Front and Arch streets, at Noble street, Girard avenue and Berks street; along Kensington avenue between Somerset and Cambria streets, between Allegheny avenue and Westmoreland street and at or near Tioga and Adams streets; along Frankford avenue at Unity, Arrott, Bridge, Comly, Tyson and Rhawn streets.
The road is to be operated by electricity or any power other than steam. The ordinance was referred to the Committee on Street Railways, of which Charles Seger is chairman and Mr. Costello a member.
The announcement that an ordinance had been introduced for the construction of the Frankford elevated was a complete surprise to Director of Transit Taylor. He so told the audience he addressed last night at a mass-meeting in Tioga. He refused to discuss the matter at any length.
“After I carefully study that ordinance,” he said, “and learn more about it, I will make a public statement. That will be tomorrow afternoon.”
A resolution introduced by Select Councilman Harry J. Trainer, to grant permission for the use of the south side of Pier 16, South, for loading supplies by the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, was passed.
An ordinance for a “curb market” on Marshall street, between Brown and Parrish streets, also was passed.
A resolution providing for the extension of the Greenmount Cemetery, which recently passed Common Council, was objected to by William R. Rieber and, on motion of Louis Hutt, of the 29th Ward, was laid on the table.
A resolution was passed providing for the extension of Fairmount Park by the addition of a plot of ground at Rittenhouse street and Wissahickon avenue.
Resolutions were introduced providing for the appropriation of $26,000 for a bridge on Sherwood avenue over the east branch of Indian Run; for the opening of Beulah street from Shunk street to Oregon avenue, and Charles street from Bridge to Harrison streets; for an appropriation of $6500 for the improvement of Connell Park; for the opening of a playground and recreation centre between Frankford and Erie avenues, Venango street and the Pennsylvania railroad; and for $12,000 for the purchase of a Delaware wharf property on the south side of Pine street.
A communication was received from the East Germantown Improvement Association, calling attention to the dangerous condition existing along York road by reason of the absence of properly paved sidewalks, and urging better police protection. A letter also was received from Judge Barratt, urging that the Sons of the Revolution be permitted to erect a bronze tablet to the memory of John Nixon in Independence Square.
A plea also was received from the Mutual Beneficial and Protective Association of the Bureau of Water, requesting a 15 per cent. increase in salaries for employes now getting $1400 a year or less.
Select Councilman George T. Conrade, of the 5th Ward, introduced a resolution granting the use of Washington Square for the proposed “mongrel” or “yellow dog” show, to be held on December 19.
(2)
Opposition to Councilman Peter E. Costello’s ordinance proposing the early construction of an elevated railroad to Frankford, with the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company receiving first preference as a building and operating company, was sounded yesterday by prominent councilmanic leaders, Republican Organization colleagues of Mr. Costello.
In a joint statement setting forth that they had no knowledge of the Costello ordinance previous to its introduction last Thursday, Charles Seger, chairman of Councils’ Joint Committee on Street Railways, and John P. Connelly, chairman of Councils’ Finance Committee, declared themselves opposed to any ordinance which does not embrace transit facilities “on a broad basis” for the entire city.
At the same time Director of City Transit A. Merritt Taylor, after an analysis of the Costello bill, issued a statement declaring that the passage of such an ordinance would be “an unthinkable betrayal of a public trust,” in that it would serve to defeat the plan of the department to connect every important section of the city with every other important section by high-speed lines for a single 5-cent fare. To hand over to any corporation at this juncture the Frankford “L,” said Director Taylor, would be to “give away the most effective lever which the people have to secure adequate rapid transit for Philadelphia.”
Protest against the Costello plan was forthcoming from many sections of the city in letters, in telephone messages and in visits to Director Taylor from delegations of citizens. The Philadelphia Navy Yard led the way by sending a delegation, headed by G. H. Williams, chairman of the League Island Improvement Association, who declared against a “one-legged proposition of any kind” and in favor of transit development for all Philadelphia. This delegation pointed out that Costello’s bill contained no provision for transfers from the Frankford “L” and Market street “L” to Navy Yard lines, making necessary two 5-cent fares rather than the single 5-cent fare proposed under the Taylor plan.
Adherents of the Taylor plan pointed out that the Costello ordinance provided for extension of the Frankford elevated from Bridge street, Frankford, the northern terminal of the Taylor elevated, to Rhawn street, in Holmesburg. This, it was pointed out, was a projection three miles long through an undeveloped territory, which, however, contains choice building lots now held by realty corporations and private owners.
In the face of all the protest, Councilman Costello announced that Frankford, with one-third of the entire population of the city, was entitled to first consideration in transit development, and that it had been trying to get better facilities for 25 years. He said he was not considering the needs of Darby, Logan or any other section of the city. He did not care whether the Rapid Transit Company or an independent concern built and operated the line. Further, he had consulted no one in drafting his ordinance.
MEDICAL CONVENTION
New York Times
The man isn’t born who can tell a lie under the close observation of physiological experts without an increase in the pressure of the blood, according to a statement made by Dr. Louisa Burns of the A. T. Still Research Institute of Chicago, at the final meeting of the sixteenth Annual Convention of the New York Osteopathic Society, yesterday afternoon, at the Park Avenue Hotel, Park Avenue and Thirty-third Street. Dr. Burns has drawn her conclusions from a long series of experiments, conducted in her laboratory.
It was pointed out to the three hundred osteopaths by Dr. Burns that any habitual liar could tell an untruth without betraying the slightest sign of deceit in the expression of his face or in the movement of his body. But the action of the pulse, she said, was far beyond the control even of the best liar. She explained that this was so because the pulse or pressure of the blood was influenced chiefly by the change of emotions, and the most finished liars, she observed, had sometimes the strongest emotions.
“The action of the blood pressure is an indicator to the person who is accustomed to work with it. By watching it you are able to get the true history of a case, even in spite of the reticence of the patient, in the same way in which you are able to find a hidden object in the game of hide and seek, when your search is guided toward that hidden thing by the warning, ‘You’re getting hot,’ and away from it by the counter warning, ‘You’re getting cold.’
“When a patient comes to my office I always find it is better to work with him as he lies on a table. In order to avoid distracting his attention, it is better to sit quietly beside him rather than stand over him. He is engaged in a conversation at first simply about the nature of his complaint. Meanwhile I have found his pulse, and as the conversation progresses, the patient soon forgets that his pulse is the one thing under observation. If the patient is asked about a certain thing which may have been true of his case, he will confirm your guess by the action of his pulse, even though he may evade your question. If he is trying to keep from disclosing this fact to you, the pressure of his blood will inevitably be increased.”
Dr. Burns said that she was certain she could take a witness in a criminal case and find out absolutely to her own satisfaction whether he was telling the truth or lying. However, she would be unwilling to give testimony this way for conviction. Asked if a man of low mentality responded differently in the pressure of his blood from a man of higher mentality, Dr. Burns explained that he did, yet the truth and the lie were as easily distinguishable in one as in the other.
The management of pneumonia, scarlet fever, and typhoid fever with technique was discussed by E. C. Link, D. O., Stamford, Conn.; G. V. Webster, D. O., Carthage; J. A. De Tienne, D. O., Brooklyn, and J. E. Foster, D. O., Butler, Penn. “Osteopathy and Acute Conditions,” was the subject of a paper by Dr. George M. Laughlin, M. S. D., D. O., of the American School of Osteopathy.
These were elected officers of the society: W. A. Merkley, D. O., Brooklyn, President; Louisa Dieckmann, D. O., Buffalo, Vice President; C. M. Bancroft, D. O., Canandaigua, Secretary, and Cecil Rogers, D. O., New York, Treasurer.
Chicago Herald
There is one railroad company in the United States that has solved the difficulty presented by boys who delight in “flipping” cars and “milling” locomotive turntables at considerable risk to life and limbs.
The remedy? Bribery, nothing less. Nicely embossed “Safety First” buttons, or, as a last and never failing resort, a swimming pool near the round-house.
This revelation of latest railroad safety methods was made yesterday at the closing session of the third annual congress of the national council for industrial safety at the Hotel LaSalle, by W. B. Spaulding of St. Louis, chairman of the central safety committee of the Frisco System.
“Every railroad has trouble with boys who ‘hop’ and ‘flip’ trains and play with the turntables,” said he. “I am glad to be able to report that the Frisco road has solved the problem with success, so far as we are concerned. We awarded ‘Safety’ buttons to those who swore off on these juvenile pastimes, and when that failed, we installed swimming pools near the roundhouses, under railroad supervision.
“The swimming pool never has failed to work. All that is necessary to steer a boy away from dangerous pastimes is to provide a sane outlet for his excess energy.”
The 500 members of the council, representing more than 1,000,000 workingmen throughout the United States and covering almost every line of industrial endeavor, unanimously adopted resolutions against the use of alcohol, in part as follows:
“It is recognized that the use of alcoholic stimulants is productive of most industrial accidents and works against the safety and efficiency of workmen.
“Therefore, be it resolved, That it is the sense of this congress that the members pledge themselves to the elimination of the use of alcoholic stimulants among the employes of their plants and factories.”
M. A. Dow, general safety agent of the New York Central lines, thought “the public must be educated to believe that a railroad’s safety rules are for their benefit, rather than to save the company damage suits.” As evidence of the progress of the “safety first” propaganda, he cited figures of his company showing that for the year ending June 30, 1914, there had been 109 fewer deaths from accidents and 132 fewer injuries.
The inculcation of accident prevention should start in the kindergarten and continue through high school and college, in the opinion of Martin J. Insull, vice president of the Middle West Utilities Company, Chicago.
“The public’s extravagant disregard for the value of its safety is shown during the automobile season, when our papers constantly report terrible accidents invariably caused by suicidal carelessness,” said he.
Melville W. Mix, president of the Dodge Manufacturing Company, Mishawaka, Ind., and head of the manufacturers’ bureau of that state, placed the blame for 75 per cent of factory accidents on the disinterested and indifferent attitude of the employer toward his employe.
“Safety first is not a philanthropic movement on the part of employer to employe,” said he. “Safety first is a hard practicality of business extension. That seems a hard statement, but it is not without its qualifications, as there is a blood-and-soul side of every phase of business life.
“We see wealthy magnates lay fabulous sums at the disposal of a world peace tribunal, and we see in what short space of time the martial strength of a continent may apparently forget the life-conserving principles to which they have subscribed. Do we see any such enthusiasm in the cause of commercial or industrial safety? Is the blood spilled at the lathe, the forge, the throttle or the grade crossing less red, less valuable than that shed on fields of battle?”
RAILWAY COMMISSIONS’ CONVENTION
Madison [Wis.] Democrat
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17.—“More deaths are caused by improper ventilation of train coaches and waiting rooms than by train accidents.”
The committee on railway service and railway accommodations so reported to the annual convention of the national association of railway commissions today.
“The noxious gases that fill coaches, especially sleeping cars, in connection with the peculiar character of dust therein, are most conducive to germ breeding where proper ventilation is lacking,” the committee added.
In regard to the lighting of railway coaches, the committee said that this problem has been fairly satisfactorily solved on the trunk lines, but that on many branch lines the dingy, dirty oil lamp is still in evidence. A vigorous campaign against this condition is recommended.
Carelessness in providing drinking water at stations and on trains is noted, and it is recommended that railroad commissions abolish the stationary water cooler and prescribe a cooler with a portable container. Uniform methods of cleansing such containers, sanitary methods of handling ice, and sanitary drinking cups, to be provided free of charge for the public are also recommended and the placing of ice in the receptacle is deprecated.
The failure of suburban trains to arrive and depart on time is the cause of wide complaint, says the committee. Another source of complaint is the lack of adequate service on Sundays. The committee believes that at least one train should operate in each direction as a minimum Sunday service.
The committee recommends the elimination of the practice of paying freight bills carrying manifest over charges. Delays in handling and settling claims are also complained of, and the committee concludes that the best means of minimizing such delays is to require the railroads to pay interest on the true claim amount from the date the amount of the claim went into their hands.
On the question of substitution of steel for wooden cars, the committee recommends that the interstate commerce commission be given full power to prescribe the character of equipment to be used in interstate commerce.
CLUB VOTES TO DISBAND
Ohio State Journal
The Social Workers’ Club is dead.
The end came peacefully at 10:10 last evening, after a protracted period of wasting away. The immediate friends of the deceased were present at the last.
While a divergency of opinion existed among those called in to treat the patient, a majority seemed to feel that the demise was due to malnutrition and faulty assimilation. It was felt that the Social Workers’ Club had failed to take its own medicine—it was not social.
At a consultation held last evening at the Y. M. C. A. 30 persons were present. They had appeared out of a list of 78 who had been advised that the end was near. The main question was whether digitalis and oxygen should be administered, or whether nature should be allowed to take its apparent course, unhindered. On a roll call six voted to let it die. Four voted for resuscitation. The remaining 20 did not care enough to vote, or were animated by high humanitarian motives which forbade holding out hope to a doomed patient.
The Social Workers’ Club was born about five years ago. It was a healthy infant at first, with strong pulse and regular respiration, and took nourishment regularly once a month. Social experts from all over the country came and told it how to get along. It passed through its second summer and teething period without serious disorder. The third year it showed a difficulty in digesting all that it heard. Under treatment this disorder did not disappear, but seemed rather to augment. A series of special dinners drained its vitality to the lowest ebb.
One of the reasons advanced for this condition last night was that the family income was not sufficient to support the child as it required, two other children, the Council of Churches and the Philanthropic Council, having divided the natural resources.
Miss Blanche Green prescribed a treatment of play, but it did not meet with general approval. She said it wasn’t Gowdy that brought people down town last night, but just a desire to play. She confessed to an occasional desire for a game of mumbly-peg. “Social workers, who are trying to reform the world, have forgotten how to be social,” she said.
Rev. H. W. March was inclined to the belief that the treatment had been regular and academic throughout. He thought that if the patient had to die, no criticism could lie against those who attended in its last hours. Prof. H. R. Horton was inclined to adopt the Green diagnosis, but thought a return to the treatment administered during the first two years might prolong life.
The other children, the Council of Churches and the Philanthropic Council, survive, and kind-hearted neighbors will look after them until they adjust themselves to the new condition of things.
New York Sun
Around the corner from the weather-beaten Church of the Sea and Land in Henry street yesterday afternoon there was a buzzing of voices which grew in time to a loud and angry chorus and drew all the children of the quarter. The children thought there was a fight, but the policeman who was passing the time of day with a café keeper whose name ended in “opoulos,” knew better, grinned and went on about his business.
The old clothes dealers, whose profit lies in shambling through the better residence streets in the early morning and shattering the quiet with their singsong appeals for trade, were meeting to denounce Gen. Bingham, Commissioner of Police. Since last Monday, when the police muffled the strident voices of the “cash-for-clo’” men as a consequence of his belief that there was entirely too much unnecessary noise in this town, the dealers have accumulated bitterness in their insides.
Therefore yesterday afternoon in the hall at 49 Henry street they howled their woes against the walls and let out pent up sounds. Principally, it appeared, their wrath was directed against the Police Commissioner. He was a tyrant. He was a czar. He was several distinct and wholly different kinds of things which could only be expressed in Yiddish. English was quite unequal to their necessities. But the aristocrats of their trade who gabble at the corner of Bayard and Elizabeth streets came in for full scorn. Why were these allowed to buy and sell with appropriate outcries and calls when the itinerant pedlers were muzzled by the law?
At Bayard and Elizabeth streets is the great old clothes exchange of New York city—of the whole country, for that matter—where any day in the week you will find in the open street several hundred old and bearded men, with green frock coats that sweep to their knees, dealing in cast off garments and shoes. The Jewish women of the East Side, thrifty souls, go there to trade cloth, ironware, dishes, ribbons, anything they can spare, for hats or coats or trousers or shoes that their men might wear. Old clothes brokers from the South—as far south as Atlanta—haggle with the dealers of the East Side, and take back to their homes great packs of clothes bought cheap in money, dear in words.
It was the complaint of the Old Clothes Dealers’ Protective Association, the itinerant pedlers, that the police mandate against noise has not been applied to the market place at Bayard and Elizabeth streets.
The voice of Ikey Cohen, veteran hawker, rumbled toward old Jacob Jahr, president of the association, who sat high on the rostrum, high hat over his ears, pulling at his gray streaked beard, and lost itself in the recesses behind a great seven branched candlestick.
“No more I must gif my calls,” he complained with outspread hands. “If so much as I gry, ‘Gaaaa-ssh! Ol’ Clo’s. Gaaaa-ssh!’ a bolisman he koms from Bingham and grabs my arm by him and he says, ‘Gut id owid! If you make a holler you’ll be peenched!’” [Applause.]
And all around the long room, a place of prayer and meditation on the Jewish Sabbath, the men nodded their heads solemnly grunting in their beards, saying in Yiddish:
“Truly, that is the way we have found it. How is a citizen to prosper in these days, I ask you, my friend?”
Old Louis Stein, pedler for twenty-five years, and reputed to be rich, orated in English after his own fashion.
“Der city it owes us a liffing? Say you so? Vell, then. How vill beoples know vat we vant unless ve make cries? Uddervise, ve might as well chump in der river! Ledt us write to Bresident Roosevelt! He vill tell Mister Bingham [very scornfully was this said] where to make a gedt off!” [More applause and a great stamping on the floor.]
Along toward evening, when the meeting of the 400 old clothes pedlers had run for three hours, and nearly everybody had had a say, most of them comparing New York to St. Petersburg, the advantage lying entirely with the latter capital, they decided to send a delegation to Commissioner Bingham to-day to beg that they be permitted once more to seek trade with their tongues. They agreed among themselves to call very softly, only twice or three times in any street, if the General would permit them to open their mouths. Also, they intend to ask that the permanent exchange at Bayard and Elizabeth streets be muffled if they are to be kept quiet.
The House and Wagon Pedlers’ Association, which takes in all the fruit and vegetable venders, met last night at 304 East 101st street and decided to send a committee of their own to the Commissioner. They, as well as the old clothes merchants, said that business has fallen off at least 50 per cent since the anti-noise order was put into effect.
FRIENDS’ ANNUAL MEETING
New York Evening Post
“If it does not seem like hurrying our business,” said the clerk of the meeting, “we will now hear read the letter from the Philadelphia Meeting.” And the soft stillness of the Yearly Meeting in the old Friends’ Meeting House on Fifteenth Street, softened into even greater stillness and quiet, to listen. The voice of the clerk, his grave, slow courtesy, and his wish for no unseemly haste, were in perfect blending with the old, buff room lighted only through the great, square-paned windows below and above the gallery, through which the green of the old trees in the yard could be seen, in perfect harmony with the gentle, kindly, gracious spirit of the people gathered there, for communion with one another.
“Let us miss no opportunity of expressing the love we feel one for another, one for another,” said one of the eight women who sat on the facing seats, an old lady with silvery hair under her black bonnet. The words, “one for another” might have been the text of the morning, not alone of the woman who first spoke them, but of all the words which were said.
Another woman spoke. She was an English woman who, with her husband, represented the London Meeting. “Why do we not have a crusade for love?” she asked. “War goes on, and we do nothing about it. If this love which we have in our hearts could be irradiated about the world, war could not be possible. Thoughts of love, if sent out by us steadily and consistently, must reach to the ends of the earth, as the ripples which a stone makes in a pool.”
But the war was little touched upon. That, with almost all of the more important business of the meeting, will be taken up in the later meetings this afternoon, tonight, Wednesday afternoon, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. This morning was held apart almost entirely for the text “One for another.”
It could almost have been a country meeting. The old, square, red-brick building on 15th Street hears little of the noise of the city. This morning there was little sound but the stirring of raindrops on the panes. And the unhurried, quiet time was given up to greetings and welcomes, messages to those who could not come, the reading of messages from Friends in other places, and slow emphasis on the kindly details of their fellowship one for another.
The meeting was opened when the eight women and the five men had taken their places on the facing seats and exchanged their silent handclasps, with which also the meeting closes. They were, truly, the elders of this house, the ones who can remember farthest back into the times when all the women, and not just three or four, wore close Quaker bonnets. A tiny woman in gray rose twice from her facing place to confirm what had been said. Some one had greeted the members of the London Meeting and recalled her own warm welcome at that meeting many years ago. The little old woman rose swiftly, and, looking down at the English people, said, with infinite dignity and sweetness in her voice, “We are very glad to have these Friends with us. I also remember the very cordial welcome I received from the London Meeting.” The very slow, quiet words had the sound of deep ceremony, of the conferring of great and unforgettable honor upon these visitors from another country.
There was a prayer for strength “to partake of Thy Spirit,” a poem read which said, “Has the Gospel of Peace then failed us, That such a thing can be?” and many suggestions concerning appreciations, sympathies, letters, to be sent. Resolutions, called minutes, were gently put, and a soft voice would come from somewhere, saying, “I should approve that,” followed by a chorus of “So should I.”
In the Gymnasium are the old books, the record of the things which the oldest Friends remember, and of things which happened so far back in the years that May was spoken of as Third Month instead of Fifth. This was in the oldest book of them all, unbound until recently, with yellowed, stained, finely written pages, the “Paper of Advice” sent by George Fox to the Quakers of Long Island. It was brought there by John Burnyeat on the twenty-ninth day of the then third month, 1671. Records of all births, deaths, marriages, removals, are here since 1672, long before other denominations or governments began to keep such close watch of statistics. For birthright membership is the very basis of the old faith, the heritage which comes down from father to son through the centuries and which keeps the bonds so close that bind the families and the friends of Friends, one to another.
Out in the meeting-room, with the sight of the leaves and a red brick wall outside the high windows, there is little to make one know that the old yellow leaves were written so very long ago, after all. Perhaps in those old days there were no white and purple lilacs in the front of the room to nod and drowse and sweeten through the long hours. Perhaps then there was not so much true kindliness as has come with the years of Friendliness. To-day, when one of the oldest women rises from her place to speak, an old man says gently, “Elizabeth, thee need not rise to speak unless thee prefer.” He might not have done that in the old days, but surely her answer would have been the same, “Thank thee, Charles, but I prefer to stand when I speak,” with just a hint of reproof in her tone.
CHAPTER VII
SPEECHES, INTERVIEWS, AND REPORTS
Type of story. Speeches, lectures, addresses, and sermons may be considered in the same class with interviews and reports, because all are alike in being some form of utterance. Hence news stories of them consist largely of reproductions of the words and ideas of some person. A speech and a report differ only in the fact that one is spoken and the other is written. An interview, likewise, may be regarded as an informal address delivered to an audience of one. When an interview is given in question and answer form, it resembles cross-examination in a court story more than it does a speech.
As reproductions of utterances, news stories of speeches and reports must be largely informative. Except for an occasional opportunity to describe the speaker or the audience, they offer practically no field for human interest development. In interviews, on the other hand, it is possible to bring out the human interest element in portraying the character and personality of the person interviewed (cf. “[Interview],” p. 135). Otherwise interviews, like speeches and reports, are largely informative (cf. “[Interview with Official],” p. 133).
Purpose. To reproduce as accurately as possible the ideas expressed by a speaker, by a person interviewed, or by the author of a report is obviously the only object in writing a news story dealing with such material. Four common faults that endanger the accuracy of news stories of this type are carelessness in taking down what is said, the playing up of statements that taken from their context are misleading, unintentional distortion due to giving disproportionate space or emphasis to some points, and misrepresentation because of political partisanship or other bias. All quotation, direct or indirect, should be accurate not only in substance and form but also in spirit. A statement taken verbatim from a speech, interview, or report, may be played up in the lead in such a way that it does not give the actual thought or purpose of the original. By confining his news story to only one or two phases of the subject discussed, a writer often gives an erroneous impression of the whole speech. Distortion and suppression of speeches, interviews, or reports because of political or other bias is indefensible.
Treatment. Since news stories of this class must consist largely of direct and indirect quotation from an utterance, the problem of presenting news of this kind is usually that of condensing, summarizing, and combining different parts of the available material into a unified, coherent whole. This requires effort and skill.
In writing up interviews and speeches the reporter has a chance to portray clearly and attractively the speaker and the circumstances, thus stimulating the reader’s interest in the utterance (cf. “[Interview],” p. 136). As the purpose of an interview is to present the ideas of the person interviewed, the reporter’s questions, which are a necessary means of obtaining an expression of these ideas, are suppressed in many stories. In other stories, the questions are embodied in the answers or are repeated by the person interviewed. There is a growing tendency, particularly in signed stories of interviews, to give the reporter’s questions.
SPEECH
Kansas City Star
Switzerland is a haven of peace in a weary waste of war. Why? Charles H. Grasty answered that question Wednesday in his address before the City Club. It is because Switzerland, a valorous David, inspires respect from the Goliaths that surround the little republic. And Switzerland has said that it would defend its neutrality with all its strength.
Switzerland is the best equipped for fighting—size considered—of all the nations. Every man from 20 to 48 is a trained soldier. Those who are unable physically to qualify are formed into trade and professional groups and are available for supplementing the work of the army.
The system is compulsory, but it is also a voluntary system, since it was installed by the direct vote. The people of Switzerland decided that they were free citizens of a free republic, and that it was their duty to keep it a free country. Every man is more than willing to do his bit, and the service is held in such high respect that bankrupts and criminals are denied the privilege of taking part in the national defense. Instead, they are required to pay a special tax in lieu of service.
It is surprising how little time each man is required to contribute to the army. He enlists at 20, and that year he spends from sixty to ninety days in training, according to the branch of the service to which he is attached.
From then on he spends two weeks a year, for a period of years, in brushing up the military knowledge he gained and in acquiring new training. That is all. There is no rigid system that compels him to give up from two to five of his most fruitful years to service with the colors. It’s a free man’s system, conducted by free men.
The system begins in the public schools, where every boy is compelled to take athletic training. Several hours a week are spent teaching the youngsters military subjects, so that when the boy reaches his twentieth year he is a piece of fine timber. His body is strong, and he has some knowledge of what discipline means. Every boy gets the preliminary training, even in the private schools.
At 20 he enlists in the “elite” or first line. For two or three months he receives intensive training. They make real work of it while it lasts, but they are over with it quickly.
The rudiments of military life are drilled into the new recruits without any waste of time or money.
Soldiers and corporals, after the first year, go back every year for two weeks’ training until they are 27 years old, and then they are through, except for a final training trip when they enter the second line division, which begins at the age of 33. Noncommissioned officers and subalterns go back every year during their first line service, and once every four years in the second line service, which lasts until the age of 41. From 41 to 48 years is the age division for the third line.
Officers are not appointed through civil authorities but are selected for merit and by examination after they have completed the special courses offered by the government for those who desire commissions. The officers give more time to their studies than the privates, and they assemble quite often for war games and tactical discussions.
That is all there is to the system. There is no standing army, no military class, no terrible burdens of taxation. There is a general staff, a few officers to look after the details of recruiting and a number of instructors—less than two thousand men in all who are connected permanently with the army.
Yet in 1912 a fighting force of 490,430 men was available out of a total population of 4 million. The expense of the whole system that year was $8,229,941, or $16.77 a man.
In the United States in 1913 94 million dollars was spent on the army—ten times and more above what Switzerland spent—and all it paid for was a scant ninety thousand fighting men. An army less than one-fifth as large as Switzerland’s cost more than ten times as much.
As an economic proposition it would appear that compulsory service was a better bargain in defense than the American system as it exists today.
The strong point of the Swiss system is that it renders every man available for defense without imposing a burdensome tax on the country. The Swiss citizen becomes an actual, tangible part of his country. He takes pride in the citizen army, and in many cases the government fosters semi-official societies that aim to give additional training to those who care for it.
The beautiful thing about the Swiss plan is that it works. Surrounded by thundering cannon, Switzerland is at peace.
Note—Following the lead given below was a verbatim report of the speech.
SPEECH
New York Times
Strict neutrality, extreme caution in the publication of unconfirmed news, and “America first” were the keynotes of a speech by President Wilson that aroused great enthusiasm among newspaper editors and publishers from all parts of the country at the luncheon of The Associated Press at the Waldorf-Astoria yesterday.
Each telling point the President made in his speech, every word of which he seemed to weigh before uttering, was applauded by the audience of more than 300 at the tables and by a gallery of about 100 men and women.
The importance attached to his clear statement of the neutrality policy of his Administration was reflected in a request made by Melville E. Stone, Secretary and General Manager of The Associated Press, just before the Chief Magistrate was introduced, that all newspaper reports of the President’s speech be based on the verbatim copy to be taken by a stenographer and supplied to all of the newspapers and news-gathering associations represented.
Frank B. Noyes of The Washington Star, President of The Associated Press, praised President Wilson’s masterful maintaining of true neutrality, and said that the President had borne his great responsibility nobly. The applause that the laudatory remarks received would have done justice to a Democratic Nominating Convention. All arose and drank a toast to the President, and arose again when the orchestra struck up “The Star-Spangled Banner,” and again when the President stood up to speak.
In introducing President Wilson, the guest of honor, Mr. Noyes made brief reference to the scope of The Associated Press, saying he believed that, in scope and importance, it was “the greatest co-operative non-profit making organization in the world.” Its function, he said, was to furnish its members a service of world news untainted and without bias of any sort.
“To insure this,” he said, “we have formed an organization that is owned and controlled by its members, and by them alone; one that is our servant and not our master. So we are here today, Democrats and Republicans; Protestants, Catholics, and Jews; Conservatives and Radicals, Wets and Drys; differing on every subject on which men differ, but all at one in demanding that, so far as is humanly possible, no trace of partisanship and no hint of propaganda shall be found in our news reports.
“Because of its traditions and its code, and perhaps also because of the never ceasing watchfulness of 900 members, it has come to pass that few people on earth are capable of giving the management of The Associated Press any points on maintaining a strict, though benevolent, neutrality on all questions on which we can be neutral and still be what we are—loyal Americans. We know, too—none better—that the genuine neutral, the honest neutral, is always the target of every partisan, and we find some solace in the fact that this is now being demonstrated to the world at large.
“Today, however, we willingly lower our crest to one who has demonstrated in these agonizing times his mastership of the principles of true neutrality, and who, fully realizing the dreadful consequences of any departure from these principles, has nobly borne his terrible burden of responsibility in guarding the peace, the welfare, and the dignity of our common country.
“Our distinguished guest, who so honors us today, may surely know that in the perplexities and trials of these days, so black for humanity, he has our thorough, loyal, and affectionate support.
“God grant him success in his high aims for the peaceful progress of the people of the United States.”
After the toast and cheers and hand-clapping, the Grand Ballroom became silent as the President began speaking.
SPEECH
Madison [Wis.] Democrat
WASHINGTON, Dec. 31.—The place of united pan-America in the situation which will confront the world at the end of the European war was pictured to the Pan-American Scientific Congress today by Director General John Barrett of the Pan-American union.
The delegates were electrified by his prediction of an evolution of the Monroe doctrine into a pan-American doctrine for a mutual defense against aggression from overseas.
He defined such a doctrine as meaning “that the Latin-American republics, in the event that the United States were attacked by a foreign foe, would, with all their physical and moral force, stand for the protection and sovereignty of the United States just as quickly as the United States under corresponding circumstances would stand for their integrity and sovereignty.”
Wherever the pan-American delegates gathered the director general’s declaration was discussed with the greatest interest and it was regarded generally as one of the outstanding events of the congress, pointing the way to a new pan-American unity.
“Both victor and vanquished in the European war will be hostile to America at the close of hostilities,” said he. “The former will say it won in spite of the attitude of the United States and the other American republics, and the latter will say it lost because of the attitude of the United States and its sister republics.
“In the mind of everybody interested in pan-Americanism is the question, ‘What is going to happen to pan-America when this war is over?’ Immediately there is the reply: ‘The American republics must stand together for the eventualities that may possibly develop.’
“While everyone would deplore any agitation or suggestion that a European nation or a group of European nations following this struggle should undertake any territorial aggrandizement in the western hemisphere, or in any way take action that would contravene the Monroe doctrine, it must be borne in mind, and cannot be for a moment overlooked, that whatever way this war results there may be little or no love for the United States and the other nations which form pan-America.
“No matter, therefore, how just and fair the nations of America have been in their efforts to preserve their neutrality and in no way interfere on either side of this conflict, the war passions and the war power of the peoples and the governments of the victorious group of nations may force a policy toward pan-Americanism, toward the Monroe doctrine, and toward their relationship with individual countries of the western hemisphere which will demand absolute solidarity of action on the part of the American republics to preserve their very integrity.”
SPEECH BY THE PRESIDENT
Kansas City Star
Indianapolis, Jan. 8.—Half playfully, half earnestly, President Wilson told three thousand people at Richmond, Ind., this afternoon that this nation is heeding what is “none of your business”—Europe’s affairs. In place of this, he counseled serious deliberation on America’s business, its future and its part in the betterment of mankind. The nation, he said, must maintain its equilibrium; it must face, too, the problem of the future now that the administration has endeavored to break the shackles on American business.
The President said:—
“You know I have been confined for a couple of years at hard labor and am out on parole for a day or two, but I want to say this, my fellow citizens, that it is very genuine pleasure to me to get abroad again and stir among the people I so dearly love.
“Because the one thing we have to think about down in Washington is the best thing to do for you and the thing that you want us to do for you, and that is a mighty hard thing to find out, particularly when you are not thinking about your own affairs and are constantly thinking about what is none of your business, namely, what is going on on the other side of the water. I say that in playfulness, but I mean it half in earnest.
“It does not do, my friends, to divert our attention from the affairs of this great country.
“The duty which this country has to perform to the rest of the world largely depends upon the way in which it performs its duty to itself.
“I have always thought with regard to individuals that if a man was true to himself, he would then be true to other persons; and I believe that that applies to a great country like ours, that a nation that is habitually true to its own exalted principles of action will know how to serve the rest of mankind when the opportunity offers. That is a very deep philosophy of life which it is very thoroughly worth while living up to.
“We have been trying at Washington to remove some of the shackles that have been put upon American business; but after you have removed the shackles you must determine what you are going to do with your liberty. And there are many tasks to perform for mankind. There are many things to be bettered in this world which we must set ourselves to make better. So what I want to say to you now is merely this:
“Let us seek sober, common counsel about our own affairs, and then when the time comes, when we can act upon a larger field, there will be no mistake as to what America will do for the peace of the world, having found her own peace and having established justice in her own mind.”
ADDRESS
Chicago Tribune
For many years Glencoe boasted a wonderful spring of pure water gushing from a bluff and running in crystalline beauty down to the lake. The spring was constant even in the dryest seasons. It always ran a generous, spirited stream, clear and cold. Then along came the village manager, a new official in the new order of things—H. H. Sherer, appointed to put the affairs of the suburb on a business basis.
In a curious moment Mr. Sherer shut off the water in the mains. Then he went back to the “spring” and awaited results. In forty minutes the perpetual spring ceased to flow.
Glencoe had been paying 7 cents a thousand gallons to pump the water that ran off into the lake night and day the year around.
The story of the spring was a part of Mr. Sherer’s address last night before the Wilmette Civic association. He explained the work of village management as a business enterprise and told of important savings gained.
LECTURE
New York Herald
“I don’t believe in the public cooking of milk, or in the public cooking of anything else to be used in the home,” said Dr. Thomas Darlington, formerly Commissioner of Health in this city, during an illustrated lecture last night at the headquarters of the Agora, a civic association which is a branch of the John F. Curry Association, at No. 413 West Fifty-seventh street.
Unsanitary conditions under which milk was detected being brought into this city during his administration of the Health Department were described and shown in detail by Dr. Darlington, as well as the conditions under which the milk is pasteurized in up-State and local dairies.
“Pasteurization may be good, but personally I do not believe in it,” he said. “The object of pasteurization is the destruction of bacteria which it may contain by a process of heating the milk to from 140 to 160 degrees. It is not a process of boiling, but merely of bringing the milk to a percentage of heat at which the bacteria will be destroyed.
“In my opinion the home and not a public place is for the cooking of food products which are to be used in the home. It can and should be done just as well there as in any other place.”
An absolutely perfect milk supply is impossible in this city, according to Dr. Darlington, at a retail price of less than twenty cents a quart. To add to this the cost of pasteurization, he said, would raise the price still higher.
He pointed out that the excessive cost of production under conditions that would result in absolutely pure milk would make the retail price almost prohibitive.
LECTURE
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
WASHINGTON, February 6.—Telling of times when dog meat—and the meat of starved-to-death dogs at that—tasted better than any porterhouse steak he had ever eaten; picturing a region where the average velocity of the wind is fifty miles, where a bunting flag goes to shreds in a few minutes, a flag of stoutest canvas is threshed to pieces in an hour, and a flag of tin is battered out of shape in the first gale, so that sheet iron is the material that must be used; describing sea elephants that weigh sometimes as much as four tons each and measure 25 feet in length, Sir Douglas Mawson has presented before the National Geographic Society one of the most remarkable stories of polar exploration that has ever come from those regions.
In his account of his researches along the great Antarctic continent discovered by Rear Admiral Charles Wilkes—the same Admiral Wilkes who figured in the historic Trent affair, in which he, during the American civil war, held up the British packet Trent, and removed from her, Mason and Slidell—Sir Douglas paid tribute to the explorer and his work.
Mawson and his party undertook the work under the patronage of the Australian Government. The steamer Aurora, formerly plying in American waters, was the ship that carried them away. A midway base with a wireless relay station through which the party could keep in touch with civilization, was established at Macquarie Island, which was on the old sailing ship route between Australia and Cape Horn and whose beaches are lined with the wrecks of many a ship. The main base was established at Cape Dennison, on the Antarctic continent, and a second base several hundred miles further east.
Pictures were brought back by Sir Douglas showing the nesting places of a number of birds of passage who go to the Polar continent to nest and whose eggs have never been seen before. The birds and sea elephants were absolute strangers to fear, and would inspect the camera man with as much seeming interest as the camera man inspected them.
The character of the winds that blow on the edge of the Antarctic Continent was graphically shown by the fact that the men had to lean out upon it, at an angle of perhaps forty-five degrees, to walk in the ordinary wind, while no camera could record anything but a blank when the blizzard was at its height.
The hut which was the headquarters of the party had one window, which was in the roof. The breath of the men and the steam of the kitchen caused this to become frosted over to the thickness of 5 inches. Men going out to take the records of the climatological instruments had to break the ice that froze before their faces, from one side of their hoods to the other, and pictures showing how their faces were covered with great patches of frost bite, told an eloquent story of suffering.
But the scene was not all somber. The cellar was a natural refrigerator, and consisted simply of the space under the floor of the hut. When the cook wanted a piece of meat he would send a dog down to get a penguin or a leg of mutton, and would take it away from him as he came out. One day the dog got away with a leg of mutton, which was rescued only after a chase of two hours, and then it was so damaged that the party voted to give it to the dogs, after all. Reading matter was in great demand. One of the party read the Encyclopedia Britannica through to the O’s.
Upon one occasion Sir Douglas set out with Mr. Mertz and Lieut. Ninnis on a coast charting expedition. After going about 200 miles Ninnis and his sledge were lost in a great crevasse. Hours of calling brought no response, and the smashed-to-pieces sledge at the bottom told a painful story of his fate. Thereafter Mawson and Mertz turned around and started back to camp. They ate all the dogs, one by one, as they died by starvation.
Finally there was only one dog left—Old Ginger. “Old Ginger was a noble animal,” said Sir Douglas, “and he was game to the last. But when he died of that sheer hunger of the Antarctic wilderness of ice and snow, Mertz and I had to eat his carcass. We ate the bony parts first, breaking every bone so as to get out the marrow. Raw dog meat may not sound attractive at a distance, or when one is this far removed from the ultimate hunger in which the stomach seems to attack its very self, but there it tasted as good as anything you ever ate.
“Finally Mertz began to sicken and to weaken, and in a few days,—January 17 it was,—he died. I almost turned cannibal, so starved out was my condition, but with it all I buried him, and then started back on the 100-mile journey that lay between me and safety. Sore of body and sick of mind, it was more by crawling than by walking that I was able to get back to camp only to see the Aurora disappearing over the horizon. It left provisions for me, however, and six men to search for me. Nothing but Providence saved me from the fate of Mertz and Ninnis.”
Sir Douglas showed pictures of beds of coal that tell of a time when tropic summer once reigned in this great home of the blizzards, and others revealing great ice cliffs with the stratified snows of a hundred winters upon them, each stratum standing out as clearly as though it were of sedimentary rock.
Indianapolis News
WASHINGTON, October 28.—That the United States, in a business and financial sense, can now view the war in Europe without serious apprehensions is the opinion of George E. Roberts, director of the mint, one of the keenest economists in the government service. Mr. Roberts talked about the situation today and made it plain that despite many disadvantages he sees no danger to this country.
“The situation with respect to cotton,” said Mr. Roberts, “is the chief drawback. With the market for cotton limited and prices low, the south suffers seriously and the effect is felt on the entire country. The effects of the cotton situation, on the other hand, are to a considerable extent counteracted by the fact that in the north good prices are commanded by wheat, corn, live stock and other products of the northern farms.
“This country may expect to be fairly prosperous during the period of the war in Europe. Capital will be dear and this will tend to prevent the starting of new enterprises. We can not have really good times unless money can readily be obtained for new enterprises.
“I do not expect to see money available for the building of railroad improvements and extension and new lines. I do not expect to see new business enterprises to any considerable extent started while the war lasts. I expect to see business in many lines already established run along about as usual. In certain directions it will be improved.
“The European countries, which are now at war, will go on putting out one issue of securities after another. It is a question how much of that they can float without compelling holders of American securities abroad to dispose of our securities. On the whole, I should expect most of the ready capital in this country, which under the conditions would be hunting for investments in new enterprises, to be absorbed for some time to come in taking up American securities parted with by foreign holders.”
Mr. Roberts doubts whether the stock exchanges will soon reopen. He says one strong influence against it is the banks which have made loans on the basis of securities. They do not want, on the one hand, to call in their loans, and, on the other hand, they do not want to incur any danger of seeing stocks and securities they hold as collateral quoted at low figures. He thinks it will be a considerable time before the exchanges are reopened. He pointed out that it would be impossible long to dam up traffic in securities.
“Already they have in New York the ‘gutter market,’” said Mr. Roberts. “I am informed that the volume of business done in this way is considerable, and it will grow. You can not stop for any length of time the business of exchange. If the exchanges are closed the buyer and seller will find some other method of coming together.”
Due in part to the fact that the new federal reserve system will release a large volume of reserve money, and in part to the fact that the bankers and the country generally have recovered from the first shock of the war and now confront it without fear, Mr. Roberts thinks the banks will have plenty of money to lend. He looks for little disposition to lend money on new enterprises; but, on the other hand, he believes there will be plenty of money to advance to meet the needs of ordinary business and to extend the loans of the average borrower.
As for the settlement of American indebtedness to Europe, concerning which there has been much discussion of the shipment of American gold abroad, Mr. Roberts thinks this problem will be adjusted. He pointed out that it would be partly adjusted by the growing volume of sales to Europe. It will be partly adjusted by the individuals who owe the debt, and who obtain extension. In one way and another the volume of the debt will be whittled down so that, according to Mr. Roberts, this problem is not at all insurmountable. As for the cotton situation, he hopes to see this worked out by the pool.
Indianapolis News
Exemplification. Two short breaths and a stutter and then as follows: e-x, ex; e-m, em, exem; p-l-i, pli, exempli; f-i, fi, exemplifi; c-a, ca, exemplifica; t-i-o-n, shun, exemplification; there’s your exemplification.
“Correct, Johnnie,” and the schoolmaster, with a spelling-book in one hand and a lamp in the other, sends Johnnie to the head of the line and walks on through the dimly lighted country school building, pronouncing “jaw breakers,” teaching the youth to tread the flowery paths of knowledge, and in all ways carrying out the plans of a good old-fashioned country spelling match.
Many men and women now well advanced in years learned to be good spellers largely by means of spelling matches supplemented by special spelling exercises on Friday afternoons. But Fassett A. Cotton, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, has some new ideas in regard to the best methods of teaching spelling, and this subject received considerable attention in the course of study which Mr. Cotton is now preparing, and which is to be used in the schools of the State during the coming year.
“Spelling,” says Mr. Cotton, “can not be taught incidentally. It must have the systematic attention of the teacher as a separate subject and his constant care in all written work. While oral spelling is a helpful aid in fixing forms, it is generally conceded that written spelling must receive the larger stress. The eye rather than the ear must be trained. Indeed, correct spelling must be made an eye and muscle habit. Constant drill in writing correct forms of a word serves to build it into one’s very physical make-up.
“There are certain laws, a knowledge of which is valuable in teaching spelling. The work should be inductive; that is, words spelled according to these laws should be presented in groups and the children led to construct the laws. There is a certain economy in learning the laws, because through them a group of words may be learned as easily as a single word. The fact that there are exceptions to the laws by no means destroys the claim for economy. There are two sides, then, to the spelling process, the mechanical and the rational, and the teacher must keep them both in mind. They go together. Both are essential. The return to the use of a spelling book indicates a belief in the need of more systematic work in oral and written spelling.”
In regard to the subject matter of spelling, Mr. Cotton believes that here, as in other subjects, the dominant community interest should be taken into consideration. Each community, Mr. Cotton points out, has its own vocabulary. The assignment in spelling, he says, should be worked out as carefully as the assignment in any other subject, and, as in every other subject, the home life should dictate the point of departure.
The assignment may from day to day, Mr. Cotton suggests, consist of lists of ten or twenty words covering the entire range of life in the community. The teacher may ask the class to hand in a list of ten words that are names of kitchen utensils. If there are five or six in the class, it may be that twenty or more different words will be named. Such a device furnishes the fairest test of the child’s ability to spell these words, because he suggests them to himself and is not aided by having them pronounced. The teacher should correct the lists and hand them back, and then the twenty different words should be used as a spelling lesson and made the basis of a permanent list. Similar lists may cover other home departments, industrial departments, or farm life, and there may be lists covering the vocabulary of the social, the civil or governmental, the religious and the school life of the community.
The assignment may take another form, Mr. Cotton suggests, and accomplish the same purpose. The teacher may have it in mind to teach inductively the meaning of the word synonym. He gives the following list of words: farmer, grower, cultivator, agriculturist and husbandman. He then has the pupils pronounce each word, tell the meaning, use one of the words in a sentence and substitute as many words as possible for it. Other groups of farm words may be used in the same way.
While Mr. Cotton concedes that the teacher must select, in the main, his own devices for teaching any subject, he offers the following suggestions for teaching spelling:
“The words to be taught should be the words needed in the school vocabulary and in life.
“The work should be based as much as possible upon the laws governing spelling, and should be done inductively.
“Constant drill is essential, and absolute accuracy in all written work must be insisted upon.
“It is a good practice to keep a list of words most commonly misspelled and point out and emphasize in some attractive way the difficulties in spelling these words.
“Word building and word analysis are excellent devices.
“The use of words in sentences different from those in which they are found in the text-book is good practice for the vocabulary of the pupil.
“It is especially important that pupils should learn to use in sentences of their own construction the many simple words which are alike in their pronunciation, but which differ both in their spelling and in their use. The teacher will find it advantageous to make the list of homonyms in the spelling book the basis for language exercises as well as for spelling lessons.
“The new speller should be in the hands of each and every pupil. The work is outlined by grades in the book. No pupil should be promoted till he has mastered all the words in the grade in which he is working.”
INTERVIEW WITH WOMAN PHILANTHROPIST
Kansas City Star
A little woman, her shoulders laden with the burden of a great effort to rid the world of poverty, came to Kansas City this morning. She is Mrs. Joseph Fels, widow of the Philadelphia philanthropist and manufacturer. With Daniel Kiefer, chairman of the Fels fund, and Mrs. Kiefer, Mrs. Fels is touring the principal cities of the United States in the interests of the idea to which Joseph Fels devoted his life, the taxation of land values. The philanthropist died last February.
Mrs. Fels’s eyes kindled when the war was mentioned to her at the Savoy Hotel this morning. She was dressed simply in black, but the soberness of her attire was eclipsed by the animation of her features when she was given the opportunity to plunge into the subject to which she is now giving her life.
“The war,” she cried softly. “It wouldn’t have come about if Europe had been listening. ‘More land,’ the nations say; ‘more land,’ with a wealth of it within their own borders owned by great landlords. Yet they must fight to extend their boundary lines.
“Is it possible to think that the good Lord would make a world in which there were more people than could be provided for? It is that idea that keeps us fighting on to make people realize. Freedom for each individual to earn his own living; we ask only for that. Tax the land; take the taxes off produced necessities; force landlords to quit holding empty land for the profit that comes from other people coming to live around it. Do you know that Philadelphia has 40,000 empty lots—not on the outskirts but in the city? London has 50,000 of them. ‘Congestion,’—we speak of that, but what congestion would there be if every man could till the soil, and if selfishness and greed were not allowed to appropriate the earnings of others?”
The diminutive figure of Mrs. Fels seemed to grow as her voice let escape in its tones something of the passionate conviction which she feels in the rightfulness of the land value taxation propaganda.
“The world has had enough of charity, a poor patchwork of a poor system of civilization. We are trying to prevent the need of charity, trying to spread justice and freedom, to free the worker from the landlord’s domination and give him opportunity. For us opportunity is freedom.”
Before the death of Mr. Fels, the philanthropist spent a good deal of time in England. Mrs. Fels still resides there half of the year.
“England has a king,” she said, “but fundamentally the English government is more democratic than the United States. We call ourselves a democracy, but in reality we are a plutocracy. The idea of a democracy is a fine thing to hold up before the eyes of the people, but in the present circumstances it is only to blind them to real conditions.”
Mrs. Fels is of German descent, but her sympathies and her blame for the war are with all of the fighting nations.
“I am sorry for all of them,” she said, “but I know that all are implicated. Perhaps some good will come out of it. If the people of the warring nations are made so poor that the nations will have to take extreme measures to exist, the great estates of Europe will be thrown open to intensive farming and to all the other methods of adding to productiveness.”
Daniel Kiefer, chairman of the Fels Fund, told some facts that Mrs. Fels appeared too modest to relate.
When Joseph Fels was living he proposed to match dollar for dollar any fund that was raised in the United States to forward the single tax propaganda. He did the same thing in fifteen other countries. In this country in the last five years the Fels Fund has given more than ¼ million to less than half that amount raised by others.
Mr. Kiefer explained that Mrs. Fels was giving herself to carrying on the movement in which her husband had shown so great an interest.
“Giving myself and all I have and am,” added Mrs. Fels. This afternoon Mrs. Fels spoke at Central High School and at Swope Center. She will speak at the City Club at 8 o’clock tonight. A reception for Mrs. Fels by the Council of Clubs will be held from 3 to 5 o’clock tomorrow afternoon. Mrs. Fels will speak again at a public meeting at the City Club at 8 o’clock tomorrow night.
Chicago Daily News
Mme. Tamakai Miura hid behind a baggage truck and pressed her fingers into her miniature ears. It was her first visit to Chicago.
“Ooo!” exclaimed Mme. Miura. “Ooo!”
The Twentieth Century limited was backing out of the LaSalle Street Station.
“She is the first Japanese grand opera singer in the world, the first to sing in America and one of the best sopranos in the company!” shouted the press agent above the roar. He led the way to Mme. Miura. She stood half frightened and half amused, seeming like a figure that had escaped from a Japanese print and got lost in a Meissonier landscape. For Mme. Miura was still dressed in her native costume. She might have just wandered off the stage from a scene in “Madame Butterfly” in which she is going to sing for the Boston Opera Company.
She wore a purple robe, with a dull red and gold girdle. It enveloped her in folds and a dull pink scarf covered her patent leather colored hair. American shoes, an American handbag and American furs testified to her acquired cosmopolitanism.
“I like come here and sing,” said Mme. Miura, removing her fingers from her ears. “I been in London and all over the world. I am only singer in Japan. In Japan women don’ sing so much or do anything. They have no suffrage an’ only listen to the nightingale and the wind blow through the cherry tree. But art will liberate the ladies of Japan.”
Mme. Miura glanced coquettishly at a Japanese man who stood near her.
“What you think?” she inquired of him.
“He is my husband,” she explained.
Becoming more accustomed to the baggage truck and the Twentieth Century, Madame Miura continued:
“When I come to America I all the time ’fraid people don’t like me because I hear about Japanese not being much liked, but when I come to New York everybody like me and is most nice to me. And I am sure everybody in Chicago like me. It is so full of noise, is it not? All America is full of noise.
“I like most American scenery which the railroad show me. It is better than English or German scenery, because in English scenery all the trees look like doll trees and in Germany all the trees look like they have been straightened with mower of the lawn. In American scenery everything is big and wild and maybe full of animals, is it not?
“And there is so much. I pass miles and miles in my ride, more than whole Japan.”
Madame Miura’s English required the greatest concentration on her part. She paused and thought and then resumed.
“Opera is new art in Japan. We have only very few singers. Because women have no great chance, but now maybe they have. I study in London and Berlin. I have sing before king and queen in Albert Hall. I sing Irish song, Scotch song, Italian and French song and English song. Isn’t that nice?”
Note—The following three telegraph stories show three different forms for a group of several interviews on the same subject, which in this case was a decision of the Interstate Commerce Commission granting the railroads the right to charge higher freight rates. As originally published, these stories followed stories from Washington, D.C. giving the details of the decision.
GROUP OF INTERVIEWS
(1)
Milwaukee Free Press
CHICAGO, Dec. 18.—Wholesale merchants and shippers of Chicago were elated today at the decision of the interstate commerce commission. Here is what some of them say:
JOHN G. SHEDD, president Marshall Field & Co.: “Everyone should rejoice over the action of the interstate commerce commission. I regard this decision as marking the turning point in the business situation, and expect to see hereafter a marked advance on the road of prosperity by all lines of American industry.”
JULIUS ROSENWALD, president of Sears-Roebuck & Co.: “Representing one of the largest shippers, I am glad to say that we rejoice in the decision. I believe it will have a far-reaching effect. It will help the whole United States and stimulate business all over the land.”
JOHN V. FARWELL, president of the John V. Farwell Co.: “I am glad the application of the railroads for an increase in freight rates has been granted, as I believe the decision will be an essential factor in stimulating and encouraging all branches of business in all parts of the United States.”
(2)
Chicago Tribune
New York, Dec. 18.—Howard Elliott, president of the New York, New Haven, and Hartford Railroad company, and chairman of the board of directors, commenting on the decision of the interstate commerce commission, said:
“Careful calculations indicate that the increase in the gross freight earnings of the New Haven road, because of the decision of the commerce commission, will be less than $250,000 per year, and probably not much in excess of $200,000 a year on the present volume of business. So far this fiscal year, the freight earnings of the company have decreased $1,399,000.
“We are gratified to have the commission recognize the necessity of increasing freight rates and we are glad to have even this modest increase.”
A. H. Smith, president of the New York Central lines, made the following statement:
“As nearly as I can learn from preliminary reports, the commerce commission has granted an increase on perhaps a little more than one-half of the tonnage, but to the extent that the increase has been granted it will help the railroad situation. It should also promote general public confidence for the future.
“The commission has recognized not only the needs of the railroads but the effect upon the railroads of the present peculiar conditions. The increase granted will not solve the transportation problems of the day, but we are thankful for the help given and will endeavor to make the best possible use of it.”
(3)
Chicago Tribune
Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 18.—“The granting of the 5 per cent freight increase will have absolutely no effect upon the passenger increases,” declared George W. Boyd, general passenger traffic manager of the Pennsylvania Railroad company. “We want to establish the two departments of our road on an independent basis, and to do this we need the passenger increase as much as the freight increase.”
“I am glad for any decision that would bring prosperity to the people of Pennsylvania,” was the only comment of Gov.-elect Martin G. Brumbaugh.
The commission will aid in smoothing the way to prosperity, in the opinion of Alba Johnson, president of the Baldwin Locomotive works.
OFFICIAL REPORT
Boston Transcript
Twenty-five States are represented in a crusade which the lawmakers and school authorities of the country are waging against the high school fraternity, according to a report which has just been issued by the United States Bureau of Education. Of these, thirteen States have passed legislative enactments hostile to the secret orders, while the school boards of important cities in the other twelve States have adopted like measures within their own jurisdiction.
All States having laws on the subject provide a penalty of suspension or expulsion from school for all those who join these orders. The most drastic laws were passed by Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska, whose legislatures made it a misdemeanor for anyone even to solicit members to these organizations. Michigan and Ohio made it a misdemeanor for a school officer to fail or refuse to carry out the anti-high school fraternity law. Other States which prohibit these orders are California, Indiana, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, and Vermont. Massachusetts empowers the Boston School Committee to deal with the secret-society problem in its own way, while Washington gives the same latitude to the school boards of its larger cities.
The more important cities whose school boards have passed regulations restricting or forbidding high school fraternities, are Denver, Meriden, Chicago, Covington, New Orleans, Lowell, Waltham, Worcester, Kansas City, Mo., St. Joseph, Butte, Oklahoma City, Reading, Salt Lake City, Madison, Milwaukee, Racine and Superior. The commonest penalties are suspension, expulsion, or debarment from athletic or other teams of the school.
The United States Bureau of Education’s report also cites some of the more important court decisions, every one of which upholds the school authorities in dealing rigorously with the high school fraternity, on the ground that the measures so taken are authorized as a part of the school board’s discretionary powers. Most courts cited, however, will not allow the offending pupils to be barred from classroom exercises, although they can be barred from participating in all athletic or other contests.
REPORT OF SCIENTIST
New York Evening Post
London, August 1.—Boiling over a slow fire is the happiest death a lobster can meet; so it has been determined at the Jersey Marine Biological Station. The experiments were carried out by Joseph Sinel, a well-known biologist, for the Jersey Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, whose members associated the prevalent method of killing lobsters with mediæval torture.
Lobsters, says Mr. Sinel, are extremely difficult to kill. Piercing the brain does not seem to cause the lobster more than temporary annoyance, since his brain is a mere nerve ganglion the size of a hemp-seed. He has to be killed all over. To throw him into boiling water fails to do the work either mercifully or quickly, since he struggles violently to escape for about two minutes.
The pleasantest way to end a lobster’s troubles, Mr. Sinel finds, is the old-fashioned way of placing him in cold water and bringing him to a boil. As the water warms, he becomes merely lazy and rolls over as for a sleep. By the time the water reaches the comparatively mild temperature of 70 degrees, Fahrenheit, he becomes comatose. At 80 degrees, he is dead. To use a human illustration, the biologist says it is like a person succumbing to a heat wave, with loss of consciousness and a painless end.
REPORT OF FEDERAL OFFICIAL
San Francisco Chronicle
WASHINGTON, January 15.—Asiatic immigration, the “Hindoo propaganda,” and particularly immigration to Continental United States from Hawaii and the Philippines, are discussed at length in the annual report of Anthony Caminetti, Commissioner-General of Immigration, made public here today.
“I believe it is quite generally conceded that immigration from the Far East is detrimental to the welfare of the United States,” says the report, “not because it has heretofore been so extensive in numbers, but because of its peculiar effect upon the economic conditions and the possibilities of an almost unlimited increase in volume if left unregulated and unchecked. Our Oriental immigration problem, arising more than a quarter of a century ago, has never been satisfactorily solved; the exclusion laws need many amendments, not in purpose but in prescribed method.
“The Hindoo propaganda, as yet in its infancy, is calculated to give much trouble unless promptly met with measures based upon, and modeled to take advantage of our past experience in trying to arrange practicable and thorough, but at the same time unobjectionable, plans for the protection of the country against an influx of aliens who can not be readily and healthfully assimilated by our body politic.”
Of immigration by way of the insular possessions the Commissioner says: “It will be observed that 15,512 aliens came to continental from insular United States during the last seven years—10,948 from Hawaii, 3,950 from Porto Rico and 614 from the Philippines—and that of these, 10,740 landed at San Francisco, 3,910 at New York and 631 at Seattle.
“Aliens coming from Porto Rico have been handled with a fair degree of success, but those coming from Hawaii and the Philippines have given the service a great deal of trouble, the former with regard to the admission of aliens to the territory and their subsequent migration to the continent, and the latter with respect to the coming of aliens to the mainland from the Philippines only, the immigration service having nothing to do with respect to the admission of aliens to these possessions.
“It has been regarded as desirable to encourage the settlement in Hawaii of European aliens, and correspondingly to discourage the settlement there of aliens from the Orient, the idea being that the former does, and the latter does not, tend toward the ‘Americanization’ of the territory, which already has a large Asiatic population. Failure to retain the immigrants secured through the exercise by the Federal Government of a very liberal policy, is believed to be due to the fact that the conditions of work and labor are unsatisfactory and the standard of wages too low.”
Of the flow of immigration the Commissioner says:
“Immigration, judged from the results of the year, has apparently reached the million mark, and unless some affirmative action is taken by the Federal Government to restrict it, or steps are taken by European and other nations to reduce the steady stream of persons leaving the various countries of the Old World, we need hardly expect that the number annually entering the United States hereafter will fall far below 1,000,000.”
Immigration to the United States for the fiscal year aggregated 1,218,480, only 66,869 less than for the year 1907, which showed the greatest tide of immigration in history. As 633,805 aliens left the United States during the year, the net increase of population through immigration was 769,276.
Of the alien applicants for admission to the United States during the year, 33,041 were excluded on various statutory grounds, the debarments being 66 per cent greater than for the previous year.
The suggestion is made tentatively that some diversion of the immigrant fund be made to protect the immigrants after their landing in this country, in an effort “to relieve industrial centers by securing employment for the surplus labor found therein, whether native or foreign, either on farms or in other rural occupations or in settling people on lands.” Such relief would be, the report says, of benefit to all the people.