Tuesday, September 12, 1916 — Editorial Comments

Maine/New Hampshire, 1916

Alice B. Glines, editor

All who ran were elected.

The spellbinders are gone; peace to them.

What is so rare as a day in June? A September day, not infrequently.

We common people get the little end; and deserve it, by voting against ourselves.

The plan to annex South Portland to Portland and raise the Portland tax rate another jog is now on foot again.

Sometimes you can tell what a thing is by taking notice of what something else isn't. The Boston Transcript says there has been "no pussyfooting" by Judge Hughes on the Adamson bill, and declares this to be "the supreme sensation of the campaign."

A woman in Portland who has married the same man three times and been divorced from him twice now wants to be divorced again. Next time she better get someone who does not get drunk to marry her, unless there is some incongruity in that program.

Our present governor's repeated disregard of the nicer things of life, the non-essentials perhaps, had much to do with calling out the huge "stay-at-home vote" which can not he reached by appeals based on the real problems of government. Governor-elect Milliken is his exact opposite in these regards.

Belknap County Pomona last week argued the question whether summer boarders and bungalow residents are more conducive to the prosperity of a town, or good roads and good markets. One trouble with this question is that it is mixed; if a town can get good roads they will not lead to markets or trains, but be laid out to suit that same summer travel. As for good markets, we in northern New England must first decide whether commerce is a good or a bad thing. Markets mean trade.

It was unhandsome of Mr. Samuel Untermeyer to put it in print, but he had no less an authority than the late Thomas Brackett Reed to back up his statement of the abilities of Maine people (Query: Are we different from, the people where he comes from?) to untangle mixed political conditions. Mr. Reed always said that it was foolish to try to discuss public questions on their merits before a mixed audience; and all he ever tried to do in his campaign speeches was to appeal to our sympathies, or prejudices, and make us laugh at his funny stories and witty hits.

President Gompers of the Labor Unions was not fair in his Portland statement of the attitude of the train men, which he said was not at all a threat. He said they merely said to the roads that if they wanted men to work on the present terms of employment they must get other men to do it. But this was in truth not in the least the attitude or the intentions of the trainmen. On the contrary, if an average of one in a hundred per week of the trainmen should really throw up their jobs for some other employment, the railroad agents would voluntarily shorten the hours, or raise the pay, whichever the men seemed to prefer.

Judge Hughes at Rockland on Saturday said, speaking of the Eight-Hour law enacted by Congress under threat of a strike by the train crews:

"This issue transcends every other issue before the American people, because it is the fundamental issue, whether or not we have a Government; and an Administration that yields to force is not an administration at all. It is being driven. It is not government in accordance with the principles of American institutions."

From which the thoughtful reader cannot escape the inference that if the railroad men had not threatened to strike, in that case there would not been any issue of the highest degree of importance for the Republican party to base its canvass on.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 12, 1916, p. 6.

Editorial Comments

1916

Alice B. Glines, editor

More and more newspapers are owned for ulterior purposes.

After the war Europe can engage in iron mining all over the lot.

If the Bremen keeps it up she will become another Flying Dutchman.

We must not think the presidential campaign has really started; Judge Hughes has not ridden on a locomotive yet.

What is a yegg? It used to be headwriters' short for highwayman, but now they are beginning to use it for a safe-blower.

Luckily it was only foggy, not a storm, or it would not have been such a picnic going to the Two Lights to see the Bay State.

Among the numerous plans to "help the farmer," the one that seems never to occur to folks is to keep their hands out of the farmer's pockets.

There is no knowing how soon the war may stop. The Germans are a people much devoted to logic, willing to base their actions on their mental processes. Once they see that every week's delay puts them in a worse position, how long will they then delay?

Portland has reckoned her temporary settlement from 1632 or 1633. If Biddeford is to reckon hers from 1616 Portland could reckon hers ten years' earlier. Christopher Levett did build a house to accommodate the annual fishing voyages, which was still standing in 1632 when the Trelawny settlement at Richmond's Island started. Vines built only temporary cabins if anything; Sir Ferdinando Gorge's book says Vines dwelt with the savages. Levett's house was about three miles from Portland proper; Vines's wintering place about five miles from Biddeford proper. Biddeford is in truth a year or two older than Portland, both in their preliminary settlements, which ended in 1690, and in their permanent settlements, a quarter of a century later.

A way by which our readers can help us in our unequal struggle with the paper mills is by reading the fewer papers the better. The reading public are in the final analysis the intended victims of the paper mills' greed. If subscription rates are raised, the people must pay the increase or stop reading, and if advertising rates are raised the people in the long run must pay the increase in the added cost of the merchandise they buy. But we are not obliged to read any more newspapers than we want to, and the sooner the demand falls below the supply the sooner the paper mills' raid will collapse and react on themselves. Of course if we receive paper for next week (at a high but not highway robbery price), we will issue as usual. At this writing no encouragement is offered us.

Ex-Governor St. John of Kansas, the Prohibitionist candidate for President in the Blaine-Cleveland campaign, has just gone to his reward without the satisfaciton of voting to back up President Wilson. The curious pranks fortune plays with us humans is illustrated by a personal anecdote told by Gov. St. John on the platform of the former City Hall in Portland. Governor St. John was being branded as a traitor to the party that freed the slaves, and John A. Logan was Blaine's running mate for Vice President. But before the war, when both men were young lawyers out in Illinois, St. John lay in jail for assisting in the underground railroad and helping fugitive slaves to escape into Canada, and John A. Logan was the Democratic prosecuting attorney who convicted him. Another memorable phrase in that speech of 1884 was his advance vision of the blight of trusts. "I was taught in Sunday school," he said, " that the world is 6,000 years old. Now if Eve had never got Adam to eat that apple, and if they were still alive in the Garden of Eden, and Adam had had a salary all this 6000 years at $25,000 a year, and never spent a cent of it because everything was gratis, he would now have $150,000,000. But John D. Rockefeller, who was a clerk in a grocery store out in Illinois when I was a young lawyer, has got more now than Adam would have had." "Did he earn it?" asked one of the clearest minds of our generation.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 6.

The Folly of Tariffs

1916

Proposals for domestic trade barriers similar to those erected in international trade by tariff laws would be hooted down in derision. Suppose, for example, that the States had the right to erect tariff walls and some member of the Nebraska legislature should introduce a bill to place a heavy import duty on peaches, because, forsooth, the horticulturists of Colorado, California and Texas, one year with another, can produce peaches cheaper than the horticulturists of Nebraska. He would be met promptly with the argument that cheap peaches is just what we want; that if they can be grown to better advantage in other states, well and good; and that Nebraska can have more peaches by growing corn and hogs and wheat and buying peaches. His measure would not receive serious consideration. Indeed, many would earnestly contend that the proponent of such a measure should have his head examined. But when it comes to international trade politicians and candidates can go out and plead with the people to shut themselves off from cheap goods and "get away with it." We have hopes, however. — The Nebraska Farmer.

Possibly No Newspaper Next Week — High Paper Costs

Maine, 1916

Note: This notice, letter, and editorial concerns high rates for the paper they needed to print newspapers. The publisher of the newspaper, The Fryeburg Post, of Maine, was Libby & Smith. All of this took up a large section of page 1 on Sept. 26, 1916. The letter to their paper warehouse is a reproduction (typewriter face) of what they sent. After the editorial following that is the notice from Libby of returning to a law practice.

Notice from Libby & Smith.

The moral support of our subscribers is earnestly requested at this time. While a final answer to the following letter has not yet been received, there is little encouragement held out. Of course if the answer should prove to be favorable we would be sorry to have troubled our readers with our troubles, but as we are using our last white paper on hand, with no certainty of getting any more, this week's paper may be our last chance to reach our subscribers for the present. The name of the paper warehouse is not printed, as they are innocent in the matter. The mill is the Pejepscot Paper Company.


Sept. 12, 1916.

Messrs.

Gentlemen:

Confirming to-day's interview between your Mr.______ and our Mr. Libby, the only contingency in view to prevent our discharging our crew, shutting down, and merely collect old bills to live on and pay rent until reason resumes sway, is for your mill to furnish our paper at the price named.

That price yields them fabulous profits, yet as conditions are we are willing to pay it.

As for the extortionate price in your last bill, and the fact that they can ship to Egypt the output our Maine papers have printed on during the past twenty-five years, that is for your mill to decide. We cannot submit to it, and must resist by the only course open to us.

If there is a possibility that your mill will break away to this extent from the piratical raid instigated by Mr. Dodge we ought to have this confirmed before making what explanations we can to our subscribers in the last week's papers we have paper for. Also we ought to give our crew notice. Of course if any untoward happening should prevent our reaching our subscribers through our own papers, we must depend on the Portland dailies and one telling another.

With of course many regrets,

Yours very truly,

(Signed) LIBBY & SMITH.


The forgoing letter explains itself. For months every month's paper bill has jumped to a new high level, and no assurance regarding the future. Apparently the only limit on the news paper mills' mad rush for profits is what their customers will pay to avoid suspending publication until prices drop. Congress and the Federal Trade Commission are trying to get the paper mills to do the right thing, and the proposition of the mills is that all white paper for small newspapers shall be pooled into one man's hands, who shall have full charge of distributing it among the papers. This would be a most villainous trust, the very monopoly the International Paper Company has been working for years to bring about. And anybody can imagine the price!

The mills say to publishers, Do not impoverish yourselves, raise your rates to subscribers and advertisers. But we know that our subscribers, at the end of two years' crop failure, are not in position to pay more; also in Maine when the farmers are poor the merchants are poor. Besides, we do not feel inclined to take a hand in this kind of a raid.

The news paper mills have no more right to demand ten years' profits on one year's business than the train crews had to cut off the country's life by suspending transportation, or than the Germans had to sink the Lusitania. Because one has a chance to do a thing does not prove his right to do it.

If this is a year of boom prosperity, it ought to be passed around; not certain ones grab the whole and impoverish the others.

The relations between the news paper mills and the publishers who consume their products are very intimate. Banks in a money scare do not charge their customers the highest panic interest rate merely because they can get it from others; instead of that they protect their customers at a fair rate. And banking is supposed to be the coldest blooded of all kinds of decent business.

If some of our readers are inclined to blame us for this step, we can only urge that the way to overcome a wrong is to resist it, not yield to it. Somebody may get hurt but the wrong will be righted. If one-third of the newspapers of the country would promptly take the course we are taking, instead of impoverishing themselves to enable the paper mill owners to make ten years' dividends in one year, they would be brought to their sense of decency at once, not in a kind way but in the way they deserve.

At any rate, having taken this course, we can only depend on the moral support of our subscribers, whether this altogether wrong situation may possibly be averted, or be over in a fortnight, or last through the war.

LIBBY & SMITH


In the interim until we are able to secure white paper again I shall — resume the practice of law — and will to the best of my ability serve the interests of any client who may employ me for even the smallest business.

Charles Thornton Libby.

—The Fryeburg Post, Fryeburg, Maine, Sept. 26, 1916, p. 1.

Note: A few of the inside pages have an additional notice:

No Paper Next Week?
Do not fail to read the reason on the first page.

Entertaining The Mexicans

1916

Well, the parleyfoxes have had their pictures taken and will be seen in the movies. Nineteen American guns have been fired in salute of honor to three representatives of a Mexican "first chief," whatever that is. This, apparently, is by way of indicating what Mexico should have done for us in a former notable case. The joint commissioners for the retreat parley have displayed their credentials, such as they are. Also, there have been pink tea and wafers aboard the Federal yacht Mayflower, with felicitations all around. The parleyfoxtrot may be said to be under way, to that soft, hesitation music.

Incidentally, so we are told in the dispatches, it is the purpose of the American "commissioners," three extra-legal personal representatives of the President of the United States, to attempt to induce the Mexican "commissioners," three personal representatives of Carranza, a factional "first chief" in Mexico, to consider "American rights" in Mexico along with the Mexican demand for the withdrawal of United States troops from Mexican territory. We progress.

It is decidedly refreshing to hear that American rights may possibly be discussed over the iced drinks in the course of the "confab" at Portsmouth. Even tho the American commissioners are unauthorized and outside the law; even tho the Mexican commissioners can give no assurance that their adjustment plans can he enforced in Mexico, we may be pardoned if we show some little interest in the indirect suggestion that American rights may get honorable mention at the honorable parley. — Indiana Daily Times.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 6.

Proofs of Prosperity

1916

Mr. Boyce's Talks

If there is any one who is in doubt about the general prosperity of the farmers, let him go to the county or State fairs and have his eyes opened. "Seeing is believing," and at the annual agricultural exhibits being held in all parts of the country there is plenty of proof of prosperity and progress.

Where the hitch-racks used to be, the visitor sees parking places for automobiles, filled with cars and frequently "overflowing." In fact, providing adequate facilities for the parking of autos has become one of the big problems at county and State fairs. As an instance of what the auto is doing for the fair, seven cars filled with representatives of twelve families came in a bunch from the little town of Loretto, Neb., to the State fair at Lincoln, a distance of 125 miles. Probably not half of that number of people would have come by train, yet they felt no hesitancy about making the long trip in the autos. This is only one instance. There is no doubt that in many other cases longer journeys are being made, over good roads which the autos have helped to provide.

Attendance has been large at all the fairs that have been held this month and the others which are to open between now and the middle of October are making preparations for record-breaking crowds. This in itself is a big proof of prosperity, to which may be added the reports from manufacturers and merchants telling of unusually good business in the placing of orders, now that the harvests are over.

More and more each season, stress has been laid on quality at the fairs, and progress in quality is especially noticeable in this year of good prices for all farm products. Not only is it to be seen in the exhibits and in the increased number of the educational features of the fairs but in the amusements, which have been put on a much higher plane. "Barkers" still "bark," but the shows that remain are of better class, as a rule, than the old-time tent entertainments. "Bosco, the Snake Eater" has disappeared, along with the sword swallowers and other freaks that used to contest with each other for the dimes and quarters of amusement seekers. Carnival companies which furnish entertainment at many of the fairs have eliminated most of the old objectionable features. Good bands are engaged, to give the people the kind of music they want. Many of the big fairs hire aviators to make day and night flights for the crowds and some of the fairs this year have put on elaborate historical pageants in which the schools have assisted.

For those who view the fairs with understanding and appreciation, the farm exhibits are, of course, the big features of interest. These tell the story of progress not only in methods of raising crops and stock but in the improvement of life on the farm. A visit to the machinery exhibits is an education for the city dweller who may not have kept in touch with the advances that have been made. Thruout these exhibits he will see how the power of motors is being applied to agriculture, to facilitate work, lighten labor and improve results in hundreds of different ways. He will see 1 horse power gasoline engines, selling as low as $25, for pumping water and running electric light plants, and big tractors that do heavy work, such as pulling gang plows. He will see electrical devices for thrashing, cutting up feed, cutting grass, pumping water and for many other purposes, including the family washing and similar domestic uses. He will see how gasoline engines and electrical plants have brought comforts and conveniences to the farmhouse and made it the equal of any city home — and a better place to live in than the average city home.

Then there is the automobile show, which is a feature of every big fair. These exhibits are larger this year than ever before, and the reports on orders, like those of other manufacturers who are selling to the farmer, are proofs of the prosperity of the country.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Sept. 16, 1916, p. 6.

There Always Comes a Settling Day

1920

By W. D. Boyce (W. D. Boyce's Talks)

A few days ago leading bankers of the United States were approached by confidential agents representing bankers who had invested in Russian bonds to the amount of $300,000,000. It was a feel-out to determine whether pressure could not be brought upon Congress to recognize one of the factions in Russia which is fighting the Reds, or Bolshevists. I believe they were pretty plainly told that it would be useless to introduce such a bill, that it would get nowhere.

Now a bigger and wider scheme is proposed (no doubt a bill to that effect will be introduced in Congress) to send to "starving" Europe three hundred million dollars and not to collect the interest on European bonds which our Government took during the war. The balance due is going to be $1,500,000,000 (one billion five hundred million), and the Secretary of the Treasury further is quoted as stating that he had not the heart to ask the European Governments to pay what they owe us. That does not sound very good, specially as the United States Government has the heart to ask everybody to pay four times the normal taxes. We spent our money to send our boys to Europe to fight for the freedom of the world, but we never agreed to finance and set on their feet again the countries at war. We had nothing to do with bringing the fight on in the first place, and we should not be punished for the lack of foresight on the part of the Allies in not observing that Germany had been preparing for forty years to establish a Middle Europe, a German country from the North Sea to the Gulf of Persia.

I cannot understand why we should, keep on adding to our taxes in order to quickly establish Europe as our competitor in the markets of the world. If the other countries would go to work like England did they soon would be on their feet again. England exported and imported during the last twelve months $1,000,000,000 more than did the United States, yet England had been at war far more than four years. Talk about "starving Europe" can hardly be true for the war has been over now for fourteen months and Europe has had time to grow a crop. If she could live without starving for four years and at the same time keep millions of men fighting she ought to be able to get enough to eat in times of peace.

I get tired, too, of hearing and reading about the debt we owe to France. During the American Revolutionary period France sided with us, it is true, when we revolted against England. But it was because France was having trouble with both England and Germany at that time and England had a German King on her throne. The only reason France sided with us was because she wished to help rob England and Germany of prospective colonies and thus weaken her own enemies. Some of the educated French may have sincerely wished us well, but ninety out of every hundred of them didn't even know there was such a thing as the United States. Few of them could read or write and their minds were taken up with the sole objective of earning their daily bread and sour wine. France at that time was a monarchy and as a political unit had no love for republics.

Today France is the richest country in Europe, but she is hollering so loud about conditions and whining so much that the yelp of the Daschund can hardly be heard. The United States has set herself back forty years to prevent France from being subjugated by the Boche and if any debt is due now it is a debt of France to the United States.

Always there comes a settling day, and until the United States demands that Europe pay at least the interest on the money we have loaned the different countries over there they will not go to work, either to raise food enough to feed themselves or to make money enough to pay us off. If we extend any further credit we will "bust" Europe.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

Jumbled English

1919

A school patron talking with a prominent educator the other day said that with all of the effort made in North Carolina schools to give the child a fair knowledge of the English language, he did not believe there was one child in a hundred in the schools of the State who could recite a sentence of twenty words in a clear, distinct and articulate tone of voice. The pity is that there is so much truth in the statement, comments the Raleigh News Observer.

Go into a classroom and hear the children read. Is it not the exception when a child knows how to pronounce its syllables distinctly? Syllables and letters both are too often wholly ignored. Words are jumbled together too frequently in incoherent fashion. Worst of all and at the bottom of the trouble is the fact that some of the teachers are less proficient than they should be in distinctness of speech, while others who are more precise themselves, pay insufficient attention to the pronunciation of the children.

The old-fashioned elocution class in which the children were taught to utter their syllables distinctly might very well come back in place of some of the things that are more pretentious, but have less value in the school.

Youthful Soldiers

1920

J. H. Monroe, famed after the Civil War as "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh," is dead. He enlisted in the Northern Army when 10 years of age and his death recalls the fact that the war between the States was largely fought by boys under 21.

Soldiers of 16 were common and "The Drummer Boy of Shiloh" had his confederate counterpart in George S. Lamkin, who enlisted in Mississippi at 10 years of age, was seriously wounded at Shiloh and twice again at Chickamauga. He was living a few years ago at Nashville, Tenn.

Farragut held a midshipman's warrant at 10. Andrew Jackson joined a body of dragoons and fought in the Revolutionary War when he was 13. Oliver Hazard Perry became a midshipman at 14. John Paul Jones went to sea at 12, and Lord Nelson boarded a 64-gun man of war when he was 12. Buffalo Bill was an Indian fighter and buffalo hunter at 12.

The World War is not without its heroic figures of tender years, but with the exception of the German armies, the gaps of which were filled with mere boys toward the end, it was a struggle on the part of men who had reached maturity. As the world grows wiser, childhood is looked upon as a state which is best to prolong as long as possible and children make better men and women for being longer aloof from the realities and vicissitudes of life.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

Two Jobs Well Done

By W. D. Boyce (W. D. Boyce's Talks)

The year 1919 had many problems. The biggest was to get our boys back from across the sea, get them settled in the jobs they held before the war and find other places for men and women who had taken their jobs while they were gone. The next biggest problem was the Red menace. The spirit of unrest developed by war was felt to a moderate degree in this country thru the efforts of the Bolshevists, I. W. W. and Red Socialists to make trouble. The strong arm of Uncle Sam reached out and interfered with these plans to make trouble and we are sending the alien Reds back to their fatherlands as fast as we can get ships and putting the trouble makers who are citizens of the United States, but don't like our Government, in the penitentiaries as rapidly as the courts can act. This element, however, will require constant watching.

It is amusing to see the Bolshevists and I. W. W. bunch point with pride to Soviet Russia, then kick violently when we prepare to send them back there on a free ticket. It is puzzling to the Government to know what to do with this half-crazy, insane, bombastic and dangerous element. I often have thought the best solution of the question would be to take one of the Philippine Islands or some other island we own and control and put the whole bunch — citizens and non-citizens, on it and let them run a Government of their own to suit themselves and at the same time let them feed themselves. Already we are using one of the Philippine group as a place to which we send the Filipinos who are not dangerous criminals, but who insist upon trying to make trouble for the Government. Why not another island for the Reds? They couldn't get off it and no one could get on it.

I doubt whether we have the right to send back to their native lands the aliens who develop Red or Bolshevist streaks after they arrive in this country. They may not have been that kind or held radical beliefs when they came over here, and so why should we send them back later anymore than we would deport an immigrant who came over in perfect physical condition and later developed some disease? Some day we may get into a lot of trouble with some country because we send back their citizens after they have been in the United States for some time.

In the first place we never ought to permit a politically Red or unhealthy man or woman to land in the United States. If we do we ought to be responsible for them ever after if they want to stay here, but at the same time have some place to put them if they try to make trouble for us. So I suggest that one of the 3,000 islands which we own might be used for that purpose. We ought never to let any of these aliens leave their native lands for this country until they have passed an examination and investigation by consular agents or representatives of our Bureau of Immigration. The stop order should be put in before the loss is made.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

Old Men in Wars

1920

The World War has been called a young man's war because young men filled the ranks, but it was also an old man's war because old men were in command, hardly one of the distinguished military leaders having been under [45] while most of them were over 50. Foch, Joffre, Pershing, Haig and Hindenburg are all in the neighborhood of 60.

Among the government war leaders, Lloyd George, Clemenceau, Wilson and Orlando are all of mature or advanced age, Hoover alone among the great managers being as young as 45. The same was true of the Boer war, all of the distinguished Englishman in command at the front (with the exception of Kitchener), as well as in charge of the government at home, ranging in age from 60 to 70. On the Boer side Kruger was 70, the same age as Von Moltke when he won the Franco-Prussian war. The poet-warrior d'Annunzio is 56.

Going farther back, however, we find a different story, says the St. Joseph (Mo.) Gazette. Grant was most successful at 40, Sheridan at 33, Stonewall Jackson at 37, "Jeb" Stuart at 28, Lee being the chief exception, with 54 years to his credit when he took command. Nelson was 39 at the victory of the Nile, Wellington 34 at Assaye and the Duke of Cumberland only 25 when he became commander-in-chief.

Napoleon was a renowned military figure while yet in the 20's, as were Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great and other warriors of ancient times. Although the present is supposed to be preeminently the age of young men, the more recent wars have witnessed a majority of men of advanced age in supreme command both at home and in the field.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6. Note: The "45" in brackets was supplied by me, since a number is missing in the original article. It's just a guess.

Hubby's Helping Hand

1920

We see no reason under the sun why a husband should not do chores around the family home, wash dishes, make beds, sweep, mop and dust. Nor do we see a good reason for a husband seeking to make a wife pay him for putting paint on the front steps or doing necessary repairing with nails. Our opinion, thus publicly expressed, says the New York Morning Telegram, is upheld by the learned jurist, Vice Chancellor Backes of New Jersey.

George W. Newberry has a home at Belmar, N. J., and lived there with his wife. He now is having law difficulties with Mrs. Newberry, which have nothing to do with what we are considering. In the course of the legal contests Mr. Newberry put in a bill for work done around the house and other chores. Newberry demanded $2,600 for doing these chores around the place.

This first-rate judge said: "If I were to allow your claim, any husband who washes dishes for his wife might ask $8 a week. This kind of work is a gift."

That is just what it is — a gift. The dishes that he washes are as much his as his wife's. The floor he sweeps and the beds he makes and the steps that he paints are his as well as his wife's.

We are pleased, we repeat, that the status of idle husbands has been fixed by Jersey law. It has been said that a "woman's work is never ended." It will be ended, and the woman can rest and enjoy life if the husband takes a hand in doing the housework.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6. (Some errors were corrected to make sense of one passage. A random phrase, "an order, also, forbidding Mr. Newberry from interfering with his wife's property." was part of the article as well.)

An Awful Mix-up

1920

By W. D. Boyce (W. D. Boyce's Talks)

Two years ago, when the United States was in the middle of our active part of the European war, the railroads of the United States became so disorganized and inefficient and the service so rotten that the Government had to take them over in order to save the day. Now, when things are getting back to normal again, it is stated that the railroads will be returned to their owners about March 1. Prior to the Government taking them over, the railroads had to do their own financing and prepare for the payment of interest on bonds and dividends on stocks as well as provide for the upkeep, repairs and new equipment. The facts are that they paid out all they took in during the year in interest on bonds and dividends on stock in order to keep up the fictitious values of bonds and stocks. As a result they let the railroads run down so much they were in no condition to supply the needs of the country at the time that the Government took them over.

Now the Government has spent a billion dollars or more on the railroads and has increased freight rates 50 per cent and the railroad officials, if not the stockholders, are glad to get them back. Some of the railroads, however, seem to be disturbed concerning their return and predict they will not get back the same baby that they turned in to the Government hospital. This the cartoonist for The Saturday Blade has tried to show on page 1 this week.

It is a very serious question whether the railroads should be owned by the Government or be restored to private ownership. Private owners have had the chance to demonstrate in times of peace what they could do with the railroads. They had the same opportunity in times of war and made an absolute failure of it. Now they will get the roads back in times of peace, but with a dividend guarantee which will require another big boost in freight and passenger rates. The public will have another chance to watch the operation of railroads by private owners in times of peace, and, unless I miss my guess, after a thoro trial they will insist that the Government take over the roads permanently.

No doubt many things which the railroads should have done under Government operation they did not do. Remember that the Government was obliged to keep at the head of the road those officials who had been at the head of them under private ownership. There is more than a suspicion that many of them did not care to do their best in operating them because they wanted the roads returned to private ownership and if a good showing was made they never would be handed back. Now we will be in the position of Finnegan and it may be a case of "On again, off again, on again, strike again."

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 6.

An Important Point

1916

It always seems unfortunate for a boy to have to wear spectacles. It holds him back from the rough and tumble of boy life. If the other boys pick on him, he can hardly retaliate until he has put his glasses away. By that time he may be sent spinning in the dirt, his glasses broken and perhaps an unreasonable punishment is awaiting him at home. But lifelong trouble may result from failure to wear them. Teachers and parents should look carefully for early indications of such defects, and get good advice about them. — East St. Louis Journal.

Vags Are Plentiful

1916

The city authorities should insist that vagrants cease their begging from house to house. Housewives should refuse to feed men at this time of the year who refuse to do small jobs about the home. There is plenty of garden spading, rug cleaning and general cleaning up work about the house that would give the man who really wants work sufficient work for a meal.

The facts are, however, that the average beggar will not work when asked to do so. Two such shiftless fellows appeared one after another the other Monday at a home where the housewife was hard at work. They were told they would be fed if they beat a rug. One of them said he would and disappeared after looking at the rug. He said he only wanted a few potatoes anyway and he didn't feel like working until he saw his partner. He never came back. His partner appeared a few minutes later and said he didn't want to work. It made him tired. — Murphysboro Independent, Illinois, March or April 1916.

Halley's Comet — Editorial

1910

Has everybody forgotten Halley's comet? There was a reaction after the trepidation and intense curiosity aroused by its approach, and now, instead of piling out of bed at unearthly hours of the early morning in the hope of getting a glimpse of it, there are many who would not, for the promise of a good square look at the wonderer, take the trouble of walking across the street. They have seen it once, and so far as they are concerned, it is an old story. Halley's comet is not beyond viewing distance from the earth; yet it cannot be seen. The reason of its invisibility is its nearness to the sun. It sets in the early evening, while the twilight is strong enough to hide it with a veil of light. At the end of the month it will set before sunset. It is further south in the sky than the sun.

—Oelwein Daily Register, Oelwein, Iowa, Sept. 30, 1910, p. 2.

A Use for Grasshoppers

Editorial observations, 1910

A Colorado farmer has gathered 125 bushels of grasshoppers, which he intends to dry, so that they may be used for chicken feed next winter. Since a use has been found for grasshoppers we may expect future crops of them to be failures.

A new comet has been discovered. There ought to be a stop put to this. If the former one brought about all the trouble which has been going on the earth since, we can spare any more of these heavenly mischief makers for some time to come. And those who are looking for trouble and read their answer in the stars should be legally enjoined, at least until the world has had time to catch its breath.

Look over your small change carefully; there are several counterfeit five-dollar bills in circulation.

Owing to the fact that their wives are away for the summer a good many men are almost forgetting how to button waists up the back.

Cincinnati surgeons are to amputate a citizen's six-inch nose. To use a Pittsburgh word, the gentleman really is "nobby."

No picnic can claim to have been destroyed by rainy weather this season.

Germany's Future

1917

Columbia university has some professors who refuse to confuse moral values, among them Franklin H. Giddings, head of the department of sociology. He was recently quoted by the London Observer as follows:

"There is no reasonable doubt that Germany has lost the confidence of the civilized world. It is completely gone. I do not believe that the world will forgive Germany in a hundred years. * * * In my opinion there will be no forgiveness of Germany by the civilized world before the mature days of our grandchildren, and to obtain it then she has to show works meet for repentance."

The boycott from which Germany will suffer will not be primarily industrial and commercial, but intellectual and moral. With the most liberal trade regulations imaginable, there are millions of people in the world who, after the war, will have nothing to do with the Germans. Their isolation will not be due to any commercial pact, but to the instinctive shrinking from a nation guilty of monstrous crimes against God and man. That is a feeling that statesmen can neither create nor eliminate. Men will be unable to associate in any way with Germany as it now is, or to have any dealings with it, without feeling a sense of personal degradation and contamination. — Indianapolis News.

Greeley's Thoughts on Home Life

1915

Horace Greeley, the noted editor, once wrote, "I think we all, as we grow old, love to feel and know that some spot on earth is peculiarly our own — ours to possess and to enjoy — ours to improve and to transmit to our children. As we realize the steady march of years in the thinning of our blanched locks, the deepening of our wrinkles, we more and more incline to shun travel and crowds and novelties, and concentrate our affections on the few who are infolded by the dear hut, our home."

"The ax is the healthiest implement that man ever handled, and is especially so for habitual writers and other sedentary workers, whose shoulders it throws back, expanding their chests and opening their lungs," Horace Greeley wrote. "If every youth and man, from 15 to 50 years old, could wield an ax two hours a day, dyspepsia would vanish from the earth and rheumatism become decidedly scarce. I am a poor chopper, yet the ax is my doctor and delight."

Horace Greeley said: "I should have been a farmer. All my riper tastes incline to that blessed calling whereby the human family and its humbler auxiliaries are fed. Its quiet, its segregation from strife and brawls and heated rivalries, attract and delight me. I hate to earn my bread in any calling which complicates my prosperity in some sort with others' adversity — my success with others' defeat. The farmer's floors may groan with the weight of his crops, yet no one else deems himself the poorer therefor. He may grow 100 bushels of corn or forty of wheat to every arable acre without arousing jealousy or inciting to detraction."

Quips on The News — Robbed While in Prison

1911

A California girl offers to sell to the government Lincoln pennies for $1 each. Next thing we know she will be asking someone to give her two tens for a five.

A man who was put in the Tombs prison for carrying concealed weapons was robbed while there of $600. Investigation might disclose the presence of thieves in the institution.

The New Jersey architect who designed a schoolhouse without any stairway evidently thought that the district should be up-to-date and bring in its upper floor scholars by airships.

Probably the woman who hid her life's savings in the cellar and awoke to find them stolen has reached the conclusion that our national banks are not the most risky things in the world.

Los Angeles has an 80-year-old citizen who says he will wed when he has reached the century mark. At any rate, it can hardly be said that he is rushing precipitately into matrimony.

A Pennsylvania justice has upheld the right of a wife to paint. The dispute had nothing to do with her earning a living by devoting herself to art, but was one involving her own facial decoration.

A savant breaks into print with the startling statement that "sowing wild oats" is harmful to youths. Let us hope the savant is not laboring under the impression that he has uttered a new thought.

Robbers broke into a jail in Pennsylvania a few nights ago and robbed the only prisoner of $20. People who go to jail in Pennsylvania should take the precaution of leaving their valuables at the desk.

New York aldermen have rejected a bill limiting the length of hat pins. Done in self-defense. No doubt every one of them had to go back home and face a woman armed with a couple of the dangerous things.

The kissing microbe has been often attacked as pernicious, but it is to be feared that people can no more be persuaded to give up the ancient practice of osculation than they can be made shy of accepting money which is suspected of conveying germs.

Actions, looks, words — steps from the alphabet by which you spell character. — Lavater.

Yesterday is certain; tomorrow, uncertain; today, half and half.