Muncie Post-Democrat, Muncie, Delaware County, 31 October 1924 — Page 2
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PAGE TWO. . 1 JtJJ -'"Ujff
THE POST-DEMOCRAT.
FRIDAY, OCTOBER 31, 1924.
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THE MUNCIE POST-DEMOCRAT. a Democratic weekly newspaper representing the Demmocrats of Mancie, Delaware County and the Eighth Congressional District. The only Democratic Newspaper In Delaware Co.
| Ogle knows this and so do the commissioners, but when the ' I gang’s all here everything goes. | i And besides the furniture was sold to the commission-! I ers by Jury Commissioner John Hampton.
Entered as second class matter January 15,1921, at the postoffice at Muncie, Indiana, under the Act of March 3, 1879. Price 10c a Copy—$3.00 a Year.
Office 733 North Ehu Street, Telephone 2540 GEO. R. DALE, Owner and Publisher. Muncie, Indiana, Friday, October 31, 1924.
VOTE THE NON-PARTISAN TICKET. The Post-Democrat is urging that the voters of the county go to the polls Tuesday morning and cast their ballots in behalf of the non-partisan ticket and good govern-
ment.
For the sake of classification candidates on the people’s ticket will have their names in the democratic row on the voting machines, but we call them non-partisan because citizens of all parties expect to vote for them, not as democrats, but as aspirants to county office who will rescue the county from the ruinous rule of the Billie Williams
machine
Since the year 1918 Billie Williams has been in absolute control and the scandals of the past six years have
sickened the people of machine rule.
Above all it is of prime importance that the three republican candidates for county commissioner, McCreery,
Truitt and Jackson be laid away for keeps.
Prosecutor Ogle is a misfit in office with a record so rotten that his own party turns against him. Cost of county government has mounted to unpre-
cedented heights. Every department controlled by the
machine is filled wi4h political favorites. . . . New jobs have been created for the faithful,, salaries
have been increased, relatives of county commissioners and political bosses have been allowed to loot the gravel road repair fund and the county is bankrupt because of
this saturalia of free for all grabbing. The machine must be overthrown Tuesday.
^ DEATH KNELL OF THE KLAN IS RINGINGREPUDIATED BY POLITICAL LEADERS. In a Fairy Story, “The Fortress Unvanquishable
cept for Sacoth,” Lord Dunsany tells how the all-power ful magician Gaznak long terrorized the people of Allathurion. None dared attack the demon until the brave Leothric, armed with the sword called. Sacnoth, penetrat-
A,the fortress and with a single whir of the invincible -»apon cut off Gaznak’s head. Then Leothric looked ■ound him, “and there was no fortress nor sound ot agon or mortal, only beside him lay an old man; wizeni and evil and dead.” A few weeks ago the Ku Klux Klan lad Americans so terrorized that not one of the national
political conventions dared even breathe 4ts name, suddenly Senator LaFollette, wielding the ^word Common Sense, boldly attacked the Invisible Empire. Mr Dayis
ollowed presently in defying the Klan, and then the irespressible Mr. Dawes, unwilling that the Republicans hould be left virtually as the party of the K.K.K , added
a milk-and-water condemnation. Now it is piedicted that even Cautious Calvin Coolidge will fearlessly approach the Klan from behind and twist its tail. Having waited, as in the Boston police strike, until majority, sentiment showed itself against the Klan, Mr. Coolidge will probably pose as the upholder of “law and order”—the savior of the country. But let it not be forgotten this time whose was the first blow that crumpled the walls of the Invisible EmPire *Meanwhile other event are taking place which may bring it about that this Klan, of whose secret power all the political conventions stood in dread a few weeks ago, will have turned into the road toward oblivion by Election Day The growth of the K.K.K. has been like a rash on the body politic, subsiding suddenly in one place to break out in another. Quackery and commercialism ruined its hold quickly in the Southeastern States, where it first rose to power. But it subsided there only to become virulent in the Southwestern part of the United States and later in the Middle West. Now the Southwest has had enough ot it. The victory of ex-Governor Walton, anti-Klan candidate in the Democratic primary for United States Senator in Oklahoma, has been followed by the still more impressive triumph of Mrs. Miriam A. Ferguson m Texas, the fortress of Klanism in the Southwest. Ma Ferguson, who won the Democratic nomination for Governor against the Klan candidate by about 100,000 majority, will thus probably become the first woman head of any ot our states. The Nation has all along advocated free speech and a fair field for the Klan, and has condemned arbitrary action against it. We have been persuaded that its bigotry and buncombe could not long endure; that, it not martyrized, American common sense would presently repudiate it. Such a process now seems to be at work.—
The Nation, Sept.,3,1924.
MORE ILLEGAL E XPENDITURES. The taxpayers were handed another, load by the county commissioners when that body of philanthropists paid for furnishing Prosecutor Ogle’s office room in the court house with money belonging to the people. Ogle is given a room in the court house, rent tree, something that has never before, been done and on top of that the office was supplied with hundreds of dollars -worth of expensive furniture by the county, although such a proceeding is absolutely unlawful. The commissioners had no right to spend, the money £)f the taxpayers for equipping a lawyer’s private office.
HARRY IS ANXIOUS.
No wonder Republican County Chairman Harry Hoffman is anxious about his county ticket. Owen Helvie, the eagle eyed road superintendent, “estimates” that there are several million yards of gravel yet “unlifted” in D: lava re county, therefore Chairman Hoffman is making a special drive for the election of his
three county commissioners.
It looks bad for Harry and his faithful band of henchmen. The republican farmers of Delaware county are preparing to give him a lovely surprise party Tuesday.. The old machine is going to the junk heap. The farmers are tired of keeping an army of cusses around the court house who are waiting at the rat hole for every'dol-
lar that comes into the public treasury. THE SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS.
Great are the rewards that fall to the lot of the faithful of the hooded and shrouded knights of the midnight prowlers who stand steadfast and unwavering, ever in obeyance of the royal commands and renewing daily the pledge of loyalty. Take the case of Dr. Will Moore, a Muncie surgeon. Last week by order of the high judge of the circuit court, Judge Dearth, Moore journeyed to the Delaware County Orphan’s Home, taking therewith a small but select company of aids and removed the tonsils from 24 orphans, getting therefor the handsome sum
of $840.00!
Think of it! $840 for the butchering up of 24 helpless and innocent little ones, left without parents and at the mercy of a public that should at least be merciful, if not generous. Did the little innocents have anything to say about whether they should be laid on an operating table, given an anaesthetic, and an bloody operation performed on their helpless little body? Not at all! They were not consulted. Why should they be ? When misfortune removes those responsible for bringing them into j the world and they are placed into a home so generously j provided for them by a charitable people, they virtually become subjects of the court, to be done with as man be sen fit. Their little bodies may waste through lack of proper food, their little souls may starve for lack of a bit
of love, but a big-hearted and benevolent judge decrees i Kiuxer sam, substantiate what this that to properly reward a fellow member of the Ku Klux | P a P er has always stated, that the Klan, these little ones shall be forcibly seized by a squad avera ? e kluxer p° sses3es
of big and brutal men, their senses temporarily stolen away, a surgeon’s scalpel thrust down the baby throats, without care or thought or whether there was any diseased organ, and an operation performed, because these
little ones were helpless to protest.
Voters, Attention!
Republican voters, you who are in doubt as to how to split your ticket on the voting machine, do you know what Republican County Chairman Harry Hoffman and the three republican candidates for county commissioner are doing to you ? Knowing that hundreds of republican voters are threatening to scratch Van Ogle and the three county commissioners, the latter, under orders from Hoffman, have refused to allow voters to have access to voting machines. One of the machines was set up in the loweer corridor of the corht uouse, but was taken down on order of the county commissioners and none of the political headquarters have been allowed
to have a machine.
Since the corrupt bosses want o keep you from seeing a voting machine, in the vain hope that you will “vote ’er straight,” hit out from the shoulder by voting the entire democratic ticket. You need no instruction to do that. Or, if you want to split your ticket ask for instructions after entering the polls and be sure and ask one of thrlj^mocratic members of the election board to help instruct you.
They should ask us something easy. The most reasonable explanation would be that Van was not satisfied with his licking'and wants to make it the best two out of three. A
regular world series, so to speak.
PAUL THOMAS. A (Continued from Page One)
lie is able to see which way he wears his collar, as no one is able to see a kluxer’s face much less how he wears his collar. Does not the above assertions, made by
the men-
tality of a twelve year old child? An intelligent man or woman would utilize their time in a more profitable manner than standing around one half of a night listening to such ! bunk. Thomas would make a good
rj • -i i ,,1 n « , u oa • j traveling' companion for Helen It is beyond reaso/i thaf gl] ..o^ Jhf^e 24 Ktle mno- •; Ja , kson , a * he couw knock em down cents had diseased tonsils. Diseased tonsils are not epi- j and she knocks ‘em cold.
and this, whether it required the removal of twenty thousand yards of dirt or only a thousand. Opportunity for graft. (6) No contract entered into with Whitney. When the entire $5,50€ is paid for opening the pit it is still Whitney‘s gravel. (7) Since Harshman had no right to sell Whitney’s gravel to the county, the 55 cents a yard only pays for opening the pit. If Whitney exacts 25 cents a yard for the gravel it will cost the comity eighty cents a yard, but since there is no contract price with Whitney it looks like it would cost a dollar, or more.
often have diseased tonsils, but:
We hope anti klan depositors of
bank will remember
forth to operate, and the Board of Commissioners made
a special levy to pay the Muncie surgeon.
Swat Van Ogle.
Hit ’em with a stocking of screened gravel.
demic. True, children
it is not likely to occur in such great numbers as appar- j that Im P erial
ently was found by Dr. Moore. But the Doctor is a faith-j lme& lhl ° un AmeiKan ful member of the Klan, he has waited long and patiently i c Re v. mu—Baptist minister, Disfor his reward, and he must be paid. So the order went 1 cipic of hate, preaches from the pul-
pit in the Royal Centre church. Whither is he leading his flock? W’ell the average kluxer does not seem to care so long as he can givevent to his feelings of hatred towards the Catholic, Jewish, Negro p."([ foreign born citizen. Christ d-ove the traders out of the temple, then why permit an imposter like Hill to speak the word of God from the pulpit and then preach hatred for a fellowman; making a mockery of God’s doctrine, “Love thy neigh-
bor as hyself.”
Ross Beckley—Royal Centre, 100 per cent Dyed in the Wool Klux. Would you think it? Yes. Wiley Winn—Lucerne Klary—Yes —all of them—Lucerna. Emery, Mrs.—When she doesn’t love her old man, how can anyone else expect her to .love them.
(8) To date Harshman has been
paid the following amounts: In An-, f arm anc j re move the gravel.
Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. Van Ogle is mad all over, apparently at himself.
Truitt, Jackson and McCreery are so exceedingly popular in the country that they avoid meeting the farmers.
Wonder why.
After that gravel deal the Billie Williams machine has considerable gall tramping over the county askinghonest people to vote the gang back into office.
Teapot Dome had nothing on the Frank Whitney gravel deal. In the words of a long departed, but not for-
gotten democrat, “Turn the Rascals Out.”
Ask Prosecutor Ogle and Judge Clarence Dearth about the continuous poker game at the Moose club room conducted by Ray Clouse, who takes a rakeoff and operates a day and night preparatory school for common gamblers. Ogle and Dearth both belong and know the game is running.
KOOKS 3rd St.
Man
LOGANSPORT
Hunter, Chas., 428 ager of restaurant.
Larrison, Carl R., 701 Helm St. Brakeman Vandalia Ry. Co. iMoCall, 'Chas., 610 Bates St. Clk.
A'andalia Ry. Co.
Poween, 130 E. 'Miami Ave. Worked with Don H. Harrell. Recent De-
funct Battery Shop.
Swaney, Fred, 1518 Market St. Trucker, Pennsy Railway Co. Scripter, Wm., 1230 George St.
gust, $2,200; in September, $2,200; 1 total, $4,400. There is still twenty per cent, or $1,100 due Harshman on the ! total of $5,500. As only eighty per j cent has been paid, it is evident that j more will follow. The “more or less” I clause in the contract limits the numi her of yards “stripped” only to the ! financial requirements of the strip-
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j per.. (9) One of these sworn claims on j its face purports to be for “lifting” j gravel. There was not then, no: never | has beer, a yard of gravel lifted i there. I (10) All gravel contracts, except | this from the Whitney pit, provide for j lifting and piling the gravel. Here J there is nothing of the kind. The con- | tractor is merely required to remove , surface dirt and receive fifty five ! cents a yard for the grayel uncover- | ed. Other Elastic Contracts There are many other gravel conI tracts. All are peculiar in these respects: (1) In most, if not all of them, it is a certain number of yards, “more or less.” The contract for the Harry Phillips pit in Liberty township, is for fifteen thousand yards, yet Harshman has been paid for 22,611 1-2 yards. This Liberty township gold mine has produced over eleven thousand dol-
lars for Harshman. Nobody can tell what amount will be removed under these “more or less’ contracts. (2) In all these contracts a list of which are published above in this issue, with the exceptio nof the Phillips undertaking, the owners of the land on which the pits are located HAVE NOT SOLD THE GRAVEL. Phillips sold the gravel direct to the county for twenty cents a yard AND DID THE STRIPPING HIMSELF. Harshman was paid fifty cents a yard for lifting and piling over twenty two thousand yards of gravel which was extracted from the pit. (3) Nearly all these contracts provide that the grave Ishall be “accessible for hauling.” What does this mean? Accessibe to what? (4) All of these contracts except the Phillips and Whitney provide that the gravel shall be piled on the farm on which the pit is located and that the county may enter on the
But thg:
land owners did not sign the contracts, they are signed by the con-tractors,-therefore the gravel >s sitll theirs and the county cannot, as a right, enterd an take the gravel that I belongs to the land owner. The Net Result | An analysis of these various contracts therefore forces the inevitable ! conclusion that they were carefully drawn not to protect the interests of the taxpayers, but to make it possible | for the fayored contractors to file J monthly claims to rhe limit of the exi tent of the public treasury to stand . the drain. j he present road repair tax levy of - twelve cents provides only $132,000 | revenue, yet the commissioners paid out $164,000 the first nine months of the year. The total for the year will exceed two hundred thousand dollars. The question is asked, “how can the county spend more money than it has?” It cannot, but the commissioners found a way. They simply checked out the reserve fund which has always been sacredly guarded. The road repair fun dis now busted. The kettle was turned upside down and the botto m scraped in order to erect mountains of gravel and Delaware county does not possess the title to a dollar’s worth of this gravel, except that on the Phillips farm.
The next time Judge Dearth lectures at the Methodist church on morality, law and order and safeguarding
youth he should tell what he has done to suppress the j conductor Pennsy Ry. co.
Moose gambling annex, where boys are taught to gamble
and are robbed of their earnings.
Bob Graves will be on hands with his herd of colored bootleggers and crap shooters Tuesday to do what he can for his benefactor, Prosecutor Van Ogle. If Ogle is reelected Bob will retain his title of queen of the tenderloin.
Silberman, Harry, 424 Bates St.
Butcher.
Wright, Harry F., 215 Barron St. Freight Handler Pa. Ry. Co. Rummell, Jno., 2115 Smead St. Bridge foreman Pa. Ry. Co.
MEANINGLESS
Henry Link Johnson will be here Saturday night to superintendent, tell his colored brethren and sisters how to vote for the | (4) to pay 55 cents a yard, not for grand goblin. We have a hunch that Henry Link is not the dirt removed, but for gravel stripgoing to be popular here. I P ed > or uncovered, eighty percent to ! be paid each month as the work pr> A great many of our friends want to know how it gressed - one comes that our great and good prosecutor, Van Ogle, much gravel was removed? a mere; came to cause the arrest of the editor of the Post-Demo- g ue ss. crat on that celebrated gun toting charge, after it had 1 (5> At 55 cents per yard 10,000 been thrown out of court at Winchester by Judge Bales, yards would cost the county $5,500,
BILLIE’S SMOOTH TRICK. The PostDemocrat once told how Billie Williams got to be postmaster, but lest we forget, here goes again. Billy was and is a resident of Selma, a patron of the Selma postoffice, and no more entitled to be postmaster of Muncie than the Shah of Persia. Frank Haimbaugh died and before his body had been consigned to earth Billy got busy with Congressman Vestal. A Muncie rural mail route was changed over night to pass Billy’s home in the town of Selma, and in the twinkling of an eye he became a patron of the Muncie postoffice and eligible to the appointment, which followed immediately. Billie was in the postoffice before Frank Haimbaugh was laid away. That is the history of the way Billie got to be postmaster. It doesn’t make pleasant reading and doesn’t speak well for Congressman Vestal. It is what Billie is pleased to term one of his own smooth tricks. Do you want to keep these tricksters in office ?