Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 6, Number 96, Decatur, Adams County, 21 April 1908 — Page 1

DECATUR DAILY DEMOCRAT.

Volume VI. Number 96

RAN THROUGH FIRE Dr. and Mrs. R. W. Wilson of Berne, Escape from Burning House AN EXCITING TIME Conflagration Originated from Oil Stove—Loss Reaches $2,500 A most exciting time was experienced at Berne this morning when the home of Dr. R. W. Wilson was found to be wrapped in flames. The fire originated in the kitchen from an oil stove and before Dr. and Mrs. Wilson were aware, the stairway, the only means of escape from the burning structure, except by jumping from the window, was all ablaze and it was only by dashing through the Are that they avoided being seriously burned. It was at three o’clock this morning that the conflagration was noticed and fortunate it was that the occupants heard the roaring of the leaping flames in time <to make their exit. The people of the town were soon and the fire department hastened io the scene in time to save part of the building and surrounding houses, although the contents, including household goods, medicine, surgical instruments and clothing were practically destroyed. So rapid was the spread of • the fire and so dangerous the situation that Dr. Wilson was forced to flee to a neighboring house and secure clothing to don. he not having time to even dress. The total loss aggregates about $2,500 and insurance was carried as follows: House $1,300; contents, $500; instruments $350. The piano wsa rescued from the blaze before being damaged. It is quite probable that the house will be re-built in the near future. SALARY WAS RAISED Official Board of M. E. Church Has Raised Salary of Dr. C. B. Wilcox IS WELL DESERVING Os the Confidence Reposed in Him—ls Receiving Largest Salary Ever Paid Here So appreciative are the members of the M. E. church of the noble work done by Dr. C. B. Wilcox during his pastorate here, that through the official board of the church they have announced that his salary is raised from $1,500 to -1,600 for this year and which he fully deserves. While here Dr. Wilcox has, in many ways demonstrat- ' ed his ability to handle an important charge as is this. He has made more than one thousand calls, and has delivered many interesting sermons. Dr. 1 Wilcox took with him to the annual ' conference held recently at Anderson, one of the best, if not the best financial report that has ever been made ' for the Decatur church, and he has * the distinction of collecting the larg- 1 cat benevolent fund ever given in 1 one year from this charge. His work 1 has met with the hearty approval ■ of all and his assignment to this charge for another year has caused no 1 end of joy to the members of the M. ' ( E. church. The board of the M. E. church have for some time been discussing the pro- i ject of making extensive improve- ] ments at the church. Many ideas have ] been presented by the different mem- ,< bers of the board and it is probable > tnat an addition will be built to the 1 church. The Sunday school room is i inadequate to comfortably accommo- i date the patrons and plans are under i way to relieve the situation. The i various rooms may also be frescoed < and in other ways made modern. Dr. C. B. Wilcox is taking an active part in the discussion of the proposed im- . provements and he will do all in bis power to assist the board in arriving at a conclusion. | (j . J;® J

THEY FAVOR A PARCEL POST. I Say It Would Knock Out the Deficit in Postal Department Washington, April 21—“ The post-master-general is calling the attention of congress to the fact that the establishment of a special local parcel post on rural routes would wipe out the postal deficit,” says a statement given out at the postoffice department, "and would tend to make the rural free delivery self-sustaining, besides being a boon to the farmer and the retail country merchant. There are now in operation 39,038 rural routes, serving a population of 15.000,000 people, and should an average of five eleven pound packages be carried on each trip throughout the year it is estimated that fifteen million dollars will be realized and the net return to the government would be more than sufficient to equal the deficit. MODERN HOMES Are Being Constructed in Various Parts of Our City MANY REMODEL Carpenters Are Busy Making Extensive Improvements—New Homes The fever of remodeling houses has gotten a fair start among the people of our city and as a consequence many of the homes have been convened into modern dwellings. The fever is a good one to get and we have been positively assured that no quarantines will result if the epidemci spreads over the entire city, hence all property owners can feel safe in putting a few extra shingles on their roof, build a new 7 porch or make some other notable improvement. A. Steele who has had a new house under construction west of his home on Madison street, informs us that within fifteen days jhe structure will be completed and ready to be occupied by M. E. Brackett, of the Ward Fence company. The house is modern in every respect, containing every convenience. The Dan Niblick house on north Fifth street is at present being moved to the back of the lot and it will face Sixth street. This house will be prepared for rental purposes. During the latter part of this week, the cellar for the new home to be constructed, will be dug and the work of building a modern house will then be commenced. Mr. Niblick will have one of the most up to date homes in the city. On the first day of May, Carpenters Mann and Christen will begin the work of remodeling the house of Dr. P. B. Thomas and the improvements will be extensive. Almost every room in the house will be re-arranged, a new roof will be constructed and when completed the home will be modern. The old Tyrell house which was recently removed to the vicinity of the Coppock Motor Car company, is undergoing repairs and many people have applied to rent same. Work on the new home to be built by Dr. Boyers on the lot where this old house stood will begin in the very near future. The barn was moved today and work begun in digging the cellar. The Brandyberry home located immediately south of the Decatur Steam laundry is undergoing a decided improvement. A new roof is being-plac-ed on it, a new veranda will be constructed on the north side of the house and in fact all modern improvements are being established. The remodeling’ will be completed within two or three weeks after which Irvin Brandyberry will move into it, he owning same. — A new case was filed in Squire J. H. Stone's court this morning entitled Everett Hite and Company vs. A. J. DeVinney Sr. The demand is $25.08.

COURT HOUSE NEWS Frank O. Martin and Fifteen Others Petition for Ditch LITTLE RECORD A Bad Smelling Case from Fort Wayne Will be Tried May 25 The account of Benjamin Brown vs. Mary Lamb and George W. Thompson, account of SBO, was paid and cause dismissed. Frank Martin and fifteen others, through Attorneys Hooper & Lenhart, filed a petition for drain. Notice of some was made returnable May 18. The bond as given was approved. The d rin sought to be established is located in Washington township, and will affect the lands of Mary E. Hanna, Mary Voglewede, J. H. Voglewede, Joseph Helm, Susanah Archer, Peter Braun, Henry R. Buckmaster, David C. Meyers, Daniel S. Wolf, Simon S. Myers, Joseph Rumschlag, Julia Colchin, Nicholas Colchln, Peter J. Coffee, Frank O. Martin, William Arnold, Harvey Harruff, Oliver T. Johnson, Jacob Rawley, Sarah A. Coverdale, Catharine Coverdale, Peter Heiman, Frank Heiman, E. Burt Lenhart. Norman Lenhart, Charles T. Payne, Thos. J. Durkin et al, George W. Brown, George Raudebush, Washington School township Johnson heirs and others. The case of C ty of Fort Wayne vs. Leikay Packing Co., is set for trial ' May 25. The suit is one to abate a ’ nuisance, the defendants being in business in Bloomingdale, a suburb. The firm of Erwin & Underwood will represent the defendants. o SHE GOT HERS Mrs. Ella LaPointe, of Bluffton, Pleads Guilty to Manslaughter SHE HAD HER NERVE Judge Sturgis Pronounced a Sentence of .Two to Twenty-One Years At. 3:35 o’clock this afternoon Mrs. Ella LaPointe, was arraiged before Judge Sturgis in circuit court and entered a plea of guilty to voluntary manslaughter, and the judge immediately pronounced sentence, and Mrs. LaPointe will be confined, in expiation of her crime, in the Indiana Woman's priso-n at Indianapolis not more than 21 years or less than two years. Sheriff Lipkey will take her away within the next five days, the time specified by law. Mrs. LaPointe did , not lose her nerve for a minute, but ■ came into the court room with a’smile : of greeting for those whom she knew. She was dressed all in black. She has < enjoyed good health at jail and weighs ] forty pounds more than when con- ■ fined. She was accompanied to court : by Sheriff Lipkey and his. wife. She j spoke in whispers to her attorneys ) and reporters but did not speak a t word alond in the court room, as her < attorney entered the plea. The agree- j ment that Mrs. LaPointe should plead 1 guilty ot manslaughter was reached t by attorneys after Prosecuting Attor- t ney Emshwiller arrived this morning 1 from Hartford City. t ■ o ] TO THE LABORING MAN! 1 The interest of the laboring man , should be at heart when voting for the i subsidy in order to assist the Com- i mercial Clubs in procuring the right- ] of-way for the Fort Wayne & Springfield Railway company from Decatur to Berne. From a report of the en- ; gineer of the railway company, there ’ will be paid out for labor alone, over : $43,000 for this extension. ;

Decatur, Indiana, Tuesday Evening April 21, IVcB

FIGURED OUT HIS FUTURE. President Roosevelt is Slated for a Year Abroad. Washington, April 21.—Theodore < Roosevelt’s future, according to a story told in the capitol today, after he has left the white house on March 4. has been determined. After making an extensive trip abroad, during which he will divide his attention between studying university conditions in the European centers and in hunting big game with Emperor William and other members of royalty. Mr. Roosevelt, it is said, will return to Washington, to be the head of a new national university to be founded by Andrew Carnegie. The Laird of Skibo, according to the story, will endow ithis university with $25,00ff.000. Carnegie is pictured as anxious to rival John D. Rockefeller, and his handsomely endowed university of Chicago with a national university in the national capital. The president may remain away from the United States for more than a year. 0 JOHN IS THE BOY He is Already a Red Hot Candidate for Congress IS OUT TO WIN Congressman Adair Announces His Candidacy for Re-Election Washington, April 21. —Representative John A. M. Adair made public his intention to seek the nomination for congress in the Eighth district again this year, and gave the reasons upon which he bases a hope that h'e can be re-elected. His interview refutes recent stories which have gained a wide circulation that he will not be a candidate this year. “I shall be a candidate,” he said, "and I am going into the fight to win. I have written to Lew Ellingham, district chairman, with reference to the time of holding the congressional convention. I believe congress will adjourn about the middle of May, and a date about the first of June for the congressional convention would be satisfactory to me. Everything 1 hear from the district with reference to my candidacy is encouraging. I believed two years ago when I entered the race I could be elected. I have the same faith now. When my name was mentioned for the nomination for governor I received letters from many Republicans over the district asking me not to consider the governorship nomination, but to run again for congress. When it became apparent that Mr. Cromer had captured the Republicon organization throughout the district and would either take the nomination himself or dictate the nomination letters came to me from hosts of Eighth district Republicans. They re- 1 minded me that they stood by me two 1 years ago. and asked me not to desert | them this year. I have heard of nu- ( merous Republicans who did not vote for me two years ago who are going to do so this year, and I have not 1 heard of a single Republican who sup- f ported me then who is going back on i me in this year's election:. I sin- i cerely believe I will bo elected, I i have not been a partisan represesen- i tative in Washington. I recognize the 1 Republicans have had a great deal 1 to do with sending me here, and I 1 have tried to do what I thought best i for the district regardless of politics, i I never worked as hard in my life as f I have since I came to Washington, t I have faith in the old soldiers. The 1 soldiers and soldiers’ widows of my i district are drawing SIOO,OOO more in s pensions now than when I came here, t While I do not claim credit for all 1 this increase I ha.ve done my share, and I do assert that if it had not been for my frequent and persistent visits at the pension office and about the < pension committees of congress the amount received in pensions by my constituents would be much smaller. As for the laboring men. I have stood < for the measures they advocate and i am content to rest my case in their 1 hands.” ; o ’ Mrs. Harve Niblick, who visited ! Newton Parrish and family, went to < Willshire today to visit her parents, I Mr .and Mrs. Jno. Wagers of that i place. i

HAD A SPECIAL A Franchise Granted the Indiana Pipe Line Company PREBLE WEST Macadam Road Bonds Will Look Better to the Buyers A special session of the board of commissioners was held this morning. at which time a franchise was granted the Indiana Pipe Line company for a right-of-way of the public highway from Preble station west to the Wells county line. The pipe is already distributed and the work of laying it in the ground will begin without delay. The franchise covers the township line road dividing Preble and Kirkland townships. The enlargement of the pumping station at Preble and the handling cf a greater amount of oil, made an additional line necessary, and when anything is necessary the Standard proceeds to comply with that necessity. Jeff Klopffenstein was in from Preble the other day and in relating the fact that Preble was growing greater every minute, said thrt his hotel was crowded to the garret and that he was the hardest worked man in the whole of Adams county. He said the life of a landlord in Preble was entirely too strenuous to suit his taste. 7he two recent decisions upholding the validity of the three mile extension macadam read law, has started the agitation of road building in this county. It is thought that the two de- [ cisions will have a tendency to make , the bonds look good to those who make a business of negotiating them. anotherTdecision Wells Circuit Court Helps Validity of Macadam Road Extensions DECIDES A CASE It Affects the Building of Seven Roads in Harrison Township The long awaited decision of Judge Sturgis on the question of the constitutionality of the three mile gravel road law came with the opening of the Wells circuit court for the April term this foernoon, and, as confidently predicted, the verdict was in favor of the legality of the act. Tne cases were ail from this township, being appeals from the county commissioners’ court, wherein the name of Robert F. Cummins. a number of heavy property owners, asked that the petitions in the name of Christy Stogdill, George O. Pence, G. S. Gottschalk, Isaac Jacobs, U. S. G. Risley, Peter Wisebrodt and Elias Tice for gravel and stone roads to be built under the new law, be dismissed. The decision of Judge Sturgis is fully contained in the summing up of his remarks to the bar as follow’s: "The remedy for such taxation, if unwise, unjust, inequal or oppressive, must be sought from the legislature. and not from the courts.” —Bluffton Banner. — . . 0 WANTS IT FOR THE STATES. Governor Harris Against National Law for Inheritance Tax. Columbus, Ohio, April 21. —Governor Harris has addressed letters to the governors of all states, asking them to urge their representatives in congress to support the adoption of a joint resolution by congress declaring it to be the: policy of the federal government to abstain from taxation of inheritance in order that this source of revenue may be reserved for the sole use and benefit of the federal states.

A STATE SENATOR DEAD John C. Farber, of Frankfort, Died After Ten Days Illness. Frankfort, Ind., April 20.—-State senator John C. Farber, of this city, after a ten days’ illness with liver and kidney trouble, died at his home in east Clinton street at 6:45 o’clock this morning. Mr. Farber had been partly unconsdousi for two days. No arrangements have yet been made for the funeral. Mr. Farber was prominent as a citizen, a lawyer and a politician. He was born at Xenia, 0., Jan. 3, 1853. He was graduated from the public schools of that city in 1870, and entered Miami university, at Oxford, 0., from which institution he was ’graduated in 1873 with the degree of A. B. and A. M„ the latter degree being earned by taking a post-graduate course in bis senior year. THE FOWLER BILL It’s the Boy That Will Replace the Aldrich Currency Bill IS PETERING OUT Congress is Slowly Winking the Last Wink—A Large Claim Washington, April 21.—The death knell of the Aldrich financial bill, which has aroused a storm of protest all over the country, was sounded when the house committee on banking I and currency voted to table the meas- , ure as amended by Representative Vreeland and decided to report favorably on the Fowler bill. Since currency legislation first began to absorb the attention of congress there . has been a heated fight between the backers of the Fowler and the Aldrich measures. Hundreds of bankers and financiers from all over the country I:ave Washington and the fight has been growing more bitter every day. The action of the committee means the leaders have agreed on the Fowler measure and a determined effort will bo made to have it passed. The Fowler bill provides for a currency commission to consist of forty-three members, eleven members of the senate, eleven members of the house and twenty-one others who must be citizens of the United States. Washington. April 21. —Assuming that it will adjourn by the middle of May, congress has entered on the last month of this session. The week began without any fixed program for the rest of tlie session, except a general understanding that very little legislation outside the appropriation bills is to receive attention. A western senator summed up the situation in a homely, but accurate, way when he said: “Congress is simply petering out.” It seems probable now that the sum total of the work of this session, so far as general legislation is concerned, will he the enactment of an employers’ liability law of doubtful constitutianality —a law designed to correct an error made at the short session last year. Washington. April 21. —The law firm of Penfield & Penfield, formerly of Auiburtt, Ind., but Siow located in Washington, has taken charge of the largest claims case ever before the Spanish treaty claims commission, the amount of property in litigation being valued at $4,177,000. It is the case of the Constancia Sugar company vs. the United States. The case embraces fifty-six farms, containing 57.000 acres of land, a railroad system eight V-two milee. long, and a large number of stores in Cuba. Col. J. Hamilton Lewis, of Chicago, one of the greatest after-dinner speakers of the country, has accepted the invitation of the Blackford Law club to speak at its annual banquet to be given on May 16. The committee in charge of the banquet has been endeavoring to get Colonel Lewis before the banquet for some time, but it was just advised that the invitation had been , accepted.—Fort Wayne Sentinel.

Price Two Cents

MADE STATEMENT County Commissioner Miller Receives Check of $275 from Oil Company FOR ROAD DAMAGES The French Township Farmers Will Get Fine Money Back County Commissioner William Miller this morning made a settlement with A. B. Fancher, of Findlay, Ohio, for the damage done to the roads in Monroe and French townships last February 12th by the teamsters who were working for the Ohio Oil company. it will be remembered that twenty-two French township men paid fines of $13.30 each for heavy hauling over the above mentioned roads while in the employ of the Ohio Oil company. In the meantime, however, the county commissioners instructed county attorney, C. J. Lutz to notify ihe president of the oil company that unless they appear and effect a settlement for damages sustained, an action would be brought against them after a reasonable length of time had expired. This morning Mr. Fancher, representing the oil company, came to the city and was more than willing ■ to adjust matters and before leaving he issued a check for $275, which has been added to the road fund, and the roads that have been damaged will be repaired. Mr. Fancher is a very clever gentleman and he so demonstrated the fact by announcing this morning that he would locate each ot the French township men who had paid fines before Squire Smith and pay to each of them the amount of their fines. The aforesaid damage was done the twelfth day of last February, when ■ the oil company was removing their ■ tanks from French townships to Mon- ■ roe township and the settlement is very satisfactory to all concerned. A NEW TEMPLE Scottish Rite Masons at Fort Wayne to Build One THE FINEST EVER E. M. Wilson and George W. Pixley Visited the Decatur Colony Today Messrs. E. M. Wilson and George W. Pixley were here from Fort Wayne and spent a few hours with the Decatur colony of Scottish Rite Masons. Their mission was to solicit aid for the handsome temple to be erected in Fort Wayne. This project was first started two weeks ago, and at a meeting to be held tonight, seventy five thousand dollars worth of bonds will be reported sold. Following this announcement a building committee will be appointed, an architect named, and plans will be immediately drawn and work begun Upon the new structure. The new building will be most modern and beautiful of its kind in the United States, and it is hoped to have it completed in time for dedication at the spring convocation nlext year. At that time they have the rights of a consistory of the thirty-second degree, together with the Shrine, and their jurisdiction will extend over the northern half of the state. This is something that Scottish Rite Masons have been dreaming of for years, and now that their realization seems assured, they are supremely happy. The new building will cost complete and furnished $125,000. and no item of expense will be spared to make it the greatest ever. AFTER NEXT MONDAY The county treasurer’s office will be open during the noon hour and until eight o’clock in the evening, from next Monday until the closing of the tax paying season. o “ Andrew Gottschalk, of Berne, a former treasurer of Adams county, was * (business visitor here today.