President Begins Speeches

1916

Long Branch, N. J., Sept. 23. — President Wilson today actively opened his campaign for reelection with a speech replying to Republican criticism of his settlement of the recently threatened railroad strike.

With emphatic gestures, before a large crowd gathered at Shadow Lawn, he defended the eight-hour day and declared also that the nation must be freed front the possibility of interference with its transportation.

"The chief cloud that is upon the domestic horizon is the unsatisfactory relations of capital and labor," the President said, adding that "so long as labor and capital stand antagonistic the interests of both are injured and the prosperity of America is held back from the triumphs which are legitimately its own.

"Human relationships, my fellow citizens, are governed by the heart, and if the heart is not in it, nothing is in it.

"I have recently been through an experience which distressed me. I tried to accommodate a difference between some of the employes of the American railways and the executives of the American railways, and the distressing thing I discovered was that on the one hand there was unlimited suspicion and distrust of the other, and that that suspicion and distrust was returned by the other side in full measure.

"The executives did not believe in the sincerity of the men, and the men did not believe in the sincerity and fairness of the executives.

"When I carried it to Congress, some very interesting things happened. In the House of Representatives the plan was passed, was sanctioned by a vote which included, I am told, about 70 Republicans as against 54 Republicans; and in the Senate, I am informed, that the Republican members of the Senate had a conference, in which they determined to put no obstacle in the way of the passage of the bill. Now this was because the proposal was reasonable and was based upon right.

"But, ladies and gentlemen, that is not the end of the story. This thing ought to have been done, and it had to be done at the time that it was done, so as to bring about a reasonable trial of the eight-hour day and a careful examination of the results of the eight-hour day.

"But that does not finish the matter. Let me call your attention to what I believe we ought all to be thinking about so as to set the stage for this and all similar cases.

"There are some things in which society is so profoundly interested that its interests take precedence of the interests of any group of men whatever. One of these things is the supply of the absolute necessaries of life. It would be intolerable if at any time any group of men by any process should be suffered to cut society off from the necessary supplies which sustain life.

"These men were dealing with one another as if the only thing to settle was between themselves, whereas the real thing to settle was what rights had the 100,000,000 people of the United States?

"The business of government is to see that no other organization is as strong as itself, to see that no body or group of men, no matter what their private interest is, may come into competition with the authority of society, and the problem which Congress, because of the lateness of the session, has for a few months postponed, is this problem."

Dollar Rules in Finance

1916

Paris, Sept. 19. — Max Hoschiller, in an article in the Temps, contrasts America's financial position now in respect to foreign countries with what it was before the war. The article says:

"Then the United States was sending to Europe from $200,000,000 to $300,000,000 in interest on its borrowings, $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 spent by tourists, $100,000,000 to $150,000,000 to expatriates and $20,000,000 to $40,000,000 in ocean freights.

"Since the war the United States has imported $730,000,000 in gold and has paid back a considerable amount of its previous borrowings, has increased its foreign trade by $2,250,000,000 yearly and has loaned to foreign countries $1,470,000,000 so that the dollar now has replaced, to a considerable extent, the old sovereignty of the English pound abroad.

"Whether the United States will retain, with her deficient financial organization, the position recently won, will depend upon American financial and commercial policies. The arrival in France of an American commercial mission is an indication that Americans are realizing they must follow the law of exchanges between countries, buying in general, as much as they sell."

Iceland Ship Arrives

1916

New York, Sept. 23. — The Gullfoss, said to be one of the first Icelandic ships to visit the shores of the western hemisphere since the days of Leif the Lucky, tied up in New York harbor yesterday with a cargo of herring. Aboard the Gullfoss, a little steamer of 886 tons, is a crew of Icelandic sailors, officered by Icelandic navigators, and speaking virtually the same language that Leif, son of Eric the Red, spoke when he landed at Cape Cod about the year 1000. The ship is under command of Captain Sigurdur Pjeturssen, who told of the remarkable prosperity that has come upon Iceland since the European war started.

The Gullfoss brought twenty-eight passengers, mostly merchants, from Reykjavik, the capital, and other cities, who came to buy goods in American markets. On its return trip, the first of next month, the Gullfoss will pass a sister ship, the Gothaloss, bound for New York with a cargo of fish. Captain Pjeturssen said he hopes to see established a regular trade with the United States. The two vessels are owned by the Icelandic Steamship company. They sail under the Danish flag.

Amazingly high prices for products of the island have brought prosperity in the last two years, the captain said. The war created the first millionaires in Iceland, he declared, and also gave the island its first experience with labor troubles and other disorders of modern civilization. A strike of the fishermen's union on the island lasted throughout last summer.

Ireland Is a Paradise, Says Returned American

1920

Most Prosperous Country in World

NEW YORK, N. Y., Jan. 1. — "I've been from Pekin to Constantinople within the last three years, and I found Paradise in Ireland," said S, S. McClure, publisher, on his return from a three months' visit to Ireland on the Mauretania. He continued:

"Ireland is the most prosperous, comfortable and law-abiding country in the world. The people are well dressed and well housed. One has to read outside papers to learn of the troubles and unsettled conditions there.

"I have nothing to say regarding politics in Ireland, as I went there for the purpose of studying the country's economic side. I found that Irish banks had deposits of more than £100,000,000 and have been forced to form alliances with English banks in order to find an outlet for their money."

Saying He Never Felt Better, Died

1905

The death of W. H. Rockhill, ex-clerk of the courts of this county, here verifies in a way the thesis of Goethe that no man can survive a happy moment.

He had been feeling ill and went to the office of his physician to tell the doctor that he was improving in health and that he never felt better for many days.

The words had no more than escaped his lips than he keeled over and died of heart disease. — Lebanon correspondence, Cincinnati Enquirer.


Effects of Prosperity

In the six years of the country's greatest prosperity, from 1897 to 1903, average prices of breadstuffs advanced 65 per cent, meats 23.1 per cent, dairy and garden products 50.1 per cent, and clothing 24.1. All these were products of the farmer and stockman who profited more than any other class of the community by these advances. The miner benefited 42.1 per cent by that advance in the average price of metals. The only decrease in the average prices of commodities in that period was in railway freight rates which decreased from .798 per ton-mile in 1897 to .763 in 1903, a loss of 4.4 per cent. The report of the Interstate Commerce Commission shows that the average increase in the pay of railroad employees in the period was trifle above 8.5 per cent.

The Cheerful Man

1906

By O.S. Marden

The cheerful man is pre-eminently a useful man.

The cheerful man sees that everywhere the good outbalances the bad, and that every evil has its compensating balm.

A habit of cheerfulness enables one to transmute apparent misfortunes into real blessings.

He who has formed a habit of looking at the bright side of things, has a great advantage over the chronic dyspeptic who sees no good in anything.

The cheerful man's thought sculptures his face into beauty and touches his manner with grace.

It was Lincoln's cheerfulness and sense of humor that enabled him to stand under the terrible load of the civil war.

If we are cheerful and contented all nature smiles with us; the air is balmier, the sky clearer, the earth has a brighter green, the trees have a richer foliage, the flowers are more fragrant, the birds sing more sweetly and the sun, moon and the stars are more beautiful. All good thought and good action claim a natural alliance with good cheer. High-minded cheerfulness is found in great souls, self-poised and confident in their own heaven-aided powers.

Serene cheerfulness is the great preventive of humanity's ills.

Grief, anxiety and fear are the great enemies of human life and should be resisted as we resist the plague. Cheerfulness is their antidote.

Without cheerfulness there can be no healthy action, physical, mental or moral, for it is the normal atmosphere of our being. — Success.