Root for Universal Military Service

1916

Washington, Sept. 22. — In a letter to the association for national service, Ex-Senator Elihu Root said that the only logical way to prepare the United States for defense is through universal military service. His letter says in part:

"Universal training and readiness for service are not only demanded by plain common sense, but they are essentially democratic. They were required by law during the early years of our republic, for every male citizen between the ages of 18 and 45 was required to be ready to fight for his country and was required to be trained and provided with arms in accordance with the simple needs of warfare in those days.

"It is only necessary now to apply the principles and requirements of the national law of 1799, adapted to present conditions."

Two Months Needed To Return Militia

1916

LACK OF CARS WILL BE PROBLEM FOR WAR DEPARTMENT.

"How Long Are We Here For?" Is Still the Question at Border Camps —All Troops to See Service.

WASHINGTON, D. C. — If an order should come now for the withdrawal of all the National Guard regiments from the Mexican border it would take two months to return them to their home stations, and perhaps longer, according to military authorities here and at the border camps.

The War Department will face a genuine problem in the lack of available rolling stock to transport the troops to their destinations. Even in sending 15,000 of the Guardsmen home during the last two weeks there was much difficulty and delay.

Border Service for All.

There is no definite answer yet to the off-repeated question in the camps on the border, "How long are we here for?" Secretary Baker favors giving all the State troops a chance for the training to be acquired on the border line and it is said that the Guardsmen who are still in State camps will be sent to the border to relieve men now serving there.

In response to requests from Illinois, Secretary Baker is reported to have given assurance that the Illinois militiamen will be back home by Nov. 1, their places, if necessary, to be filled by Guardsmen from other States who have not yet seen border service. Senator Lewis of Illinois made an urgent appeal for relief of the Illinois Guardsmen from service so that the men could resume their business and the youths be sent back to schools and colleges. The Illinois regiments have been on the border four months.

15,000 Mustered Out.

The 15,000 Guardsmen returned from the border by the recent order of the War Department have been ordered mustered out of the Federal service. The order affects three New York regiments, two from New Jersey, two from Illinois, two from Missouri and one each from California, Oregon, Washington and Louisiana, and twenty-eight companies of coast artillery troops, most of them being from the Atlantic coast.

—The Saturday Blade, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 3.

Jury Acquits Girl On Slaying Charge

1920 (actually happened in 1919)

16-Year-Old Defendant Plans To Resume School

Clara Bartel's Plea That She Slew Father in Family Defense Wins Freedom

DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — The plea of Clara Bartel, the 16-year-old girl accused of the murder of her father, Charles Bartel, that she had killed him in defending the lives of her mother and her sisters resulted in her acquittal by a jury here after only 20 minutes' deliberation.

The defendant burst into tears when the foreman of the jury announced the verdict. She swayed as if about to fall, and Mrs. Charles R. Nightingale, the probation officer who has taken care of her since her arrest, caught her in her arms. Then the crowd in the courtroom surged about her, showering her with congratulations.

Clara threw her arms about J. Hibbs Buckman, her chief attorney, and sobbed on his shoulder.

"Oh, I am so glad," she said. "Now I can help take care of mother."

Warns Against Sympathy

Judge William C. Ryan occupied thirty-five minutes in his charge to the jury.

"We have all been moved by the pathos of this case and story of the dark tragedy," said the court. "But it is your duty to render a verdict unaffected by the sympathy for this defendant of tender [years.] If she acted in [self-]defense or in defense of her mother, she would not be guilty of this offense."

"I shot my father. I had to do it to save us all."

That was the girl's first statement as she took the stand in her own defense at her trial for the murder of her father at their home near Edgewood, Bucks County, on the morning of August 22.

Three jurors wept openly as the girl told her story of a father who, she averred, abused her mother, herself and the other small children.

Bartel's aged mother, Mrs. Amelia Bartel, 81 years old, said Clara told her: "Grandma, I killed him. I had to do it to save us."

Says Father Beat Her

Under direct examination she told of finding a bundle of letters written by another woman to her father hidden in the peak of the barn. She testified that she read the letters and kept them for several days and finally showed them to her mother. For this her father beat her, she said.

After she had been given a medal for selling Liberty Bonds, she said, her father said he was "going to kill her" and expressed the hope that "they sink every d—n American." She also told of several instances when Bartel had threatened to kill her and her mother.

One night, she said, her father ordered her to go out into the barnyard and find a stick with which he drove his hogs. She told of his beating her mother the morning of the shooting and also chasing her downstairs, shouting, "I am going to kill the whole d—n lot of you and do it now!" She said he went to the place where the guns were usually kept, but they were not there. Then, she said, she ran into another room and got a shotgun and, closing her eyes, pointed it at her father, not knowing it was loaded. The gun was discharged and the shot tore thru her father's body.

--The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 3.

Note: Two words in brackets are supplied because of breaks in the paper and so they're missing. Of course they're obvious to the context.

Weapons of Animals

1900

Claws, Teeth, Horns and Hoofs All Come In Handy at Times

Many animals, including both those that kill and those that are killed, are endowed with special means of offensive and defensive combat. The latter are often furnished with weapons of effective value, such as the horns of cattle and goats and the hoofs of horses.

Even some of the largest animals which are not carnivorous and may be said to have no enemies possess special organs that they can use for inflicting wounds. Such are the tusks of elephants, the horn of the rhinoceros and the antlers of the moose. Their primary purpose, however, is to aid in procuring food and in cleaving a way through forest and jungle.

With beasts and birds of prey weapons of attack are indispensable. Among the most highly developed are the retractile claws of the cat family, the cutting and tearing teeth of the wolf family and the talons of eagles and hawks. Even in lower forms of life we find highly specialized weapons, chief among which are the fangs of venomous serpents and the stings of bees, wasps and hornets, rendered far more effective by the presence of a powerful and sometimes deadly poison. — Philadelphia Times.

Old Time Jokes and Something Unreadable on Beetles

1915

A Sad Case.

"This milk is blue," said the customer angrily.
"I know it, and I'm very sorry," replied the milkman, "but the weather we've been having lately has given the cows melancholia, and it shows up in the milk." — Brooklyn Citizen.


Helped Her Up.

Orchestra Leader — I never heard the prima donna do that high note as well as she did last night. Stage Manager — Nor I. You see, just as she reached it she saw a mouse in the wings.—Yonkers Statesman.


Leze Majesty.

Ann — You don't tell me that that gem of a cook left Mrs. Dust! Flo — Yes. You see, Mrs. Dust refused to change grocers when the cook and the delivery boy fell out. — Puck.


France has the best highways in Europe, Russia and Spain the worst.


How Beetles Defend Themselves.

Beetles have other defenses than their cuirass, such as nauseous or caustic liquids, which they expel on provocation, and, strange to say, certain beetles actually exude their blood, charged with noxious products. The practice is confined to the chrysomelidae, some of the timarchae and adamonia, the coccinelidae and the meloidae. The blood of the coccinelidae has a strong, disagreeable odor like that of the whole insect. That of the timarchae is odorless, but has an astringent flavor, and in the case of the timarchae primeliodes is venomous. The blood of the meloidae contains much cantharidine.