Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 7, Number 112, Decatur, Adams County, 11 May 1909 — Page 1

Volume VII. Number 112.

THE MEMORIAL DAY Ministerial Association Arrange the Date AT MEETING Held at Library—Society is Also Reorganized At the regular meeting of the ministerial association held at the public library building yesterday, the society was reorganized and Rev. L. C. Hessert was again chosen as chairman, while Rev. Richard Spetnagle was selected as secretary of the association. It was the first session attended by Rev. Sherman Powell and the meeting was a very delightful one for him, as well as the other clergymen. The Important matters which occupied the attention of the body were the baccalaureate service and the Memorial service, both of which will be attended by all the churches. The baccalaureate sermon will be delivered at the M. E. church one week from next Sunday evening by Rev. L. C. Hessert, and at that time a union service will be occasioned. Special music will be rendered and those who attend are assured an interesting time. It was yesterday decided by the ministerial association that the annual Memorial service will be held at the Presbyterian church on the morning of May 30th, and Rev. Spetnagle will deliver the sermon. The service will be dedicatory to the veterans of the civil war and the soldier dead, and to them will be paid a glowing tribute by the able minister. The veterans will attend the service in a body as usual, and the old stars and stripes will be much in evidence in the decorations, and these will inspire the patriotism and loyalty of every one who is fortunate in being present. Special music will be rendered which will add splendor to the ever sacred event. AFTER MORE MEN Interurban People Receive Trolley and High » Tension Wire ARE PUSHING WORK Os Extending the Line to Monroe—Ten Men Are Wanted The work of extending the Fort Wayne and Springfield interurban is being /dispatched with all possible haste at present and it now appears that cars will be operated to Monroe much sooner than was at first anticipated by the promoters of the road. The trolley wire and high tension wire has arrived and is ready to be placed in position, but for the reason that the cross wires have not been received the work of doing this will be retarded for a short time. President Fledderjohann was today lokoing for ten men to put to work on the extension, and it is probable that several more will be engaged should they, desire employment. A large force of , men have been working diligently in laying steel on Winchester street and . within a short time cars can be op- ( ! erated to the city limits. The steel . which was ordered some time ago has not as yet arrived, but it is ex-1 pecteu at any moment, and then the j task of laying steel between this city, and Monroe will begin.

— — 1 vr Marcus Mayer, who was injured by falling on a tie while walking along the railroad Saturday, is getting along all right at his home. He is suffering, however, from the wound, which is just above the left eye. If he had fallen and struck his face a little farther back, the accident would have resulted fatally.

DECATUR DAILY DEMOCRAT.

HAVE CHARTERED A CAR The high school ball club has chartered a special interurban car which will convey about sixty students of the high school to Van Wert next Saturday, where a contest will be pulled off. The local club will go with the expectation of administering bitter befeat to the Van Wert lads, and they want their friends to see how they do it, hence the car was chartered. There is good material in the local team, and their chances are good for carrying off the honors. If the local boys win the residents of Decatur will be well aware of it as the car pulls into the city on the return trip; if they lose, well, wait and find out later.

C. SHEPHERD DEAD Son of Late Wilson Shepherd Passed Away Saturday AT HIS LATE HOME Near Muncie — Remains Were Taken to Linn Grove for Burial Linn Grove, Ind., May 11—(Special to Daily Democrat)—After an illness of three months caused by the formation of an abcess on the lungs, Clayton Shepherd, of south of Muncie, son of the late Wilson Shepherd of near Linn Grove, passed away Saturday morning at ten o’clock. He was about forty years of age, and is survived by a widow and several children. The deceased moved from Adams county to Bluffton about six years ago, and after working insurance there for some time, he went to Muncie, where he followed his trade as carpenter. Later he moved south of Muncie, where for two years he has been engaged in farming. The decedent was a son of the late Wilson Shepherd, for whom the Shepherd Oil company was named. About two years ago the elder Mr. Shepherd passed away at his home near this place. The remains were conveyed to Linn Grove for burial yesterday where a large number of friends paid last respects to his memory. Decatur friends of the deceased will receive the news of Mr. Shepherd's death with regret. He was quite well known in this city. o SUIT OVER BABY IN COURT Fred Lepper, Who worked Here is in the Case. Mgr. J. H. Oechtering was one of the witnesses in the circuit court today to testify in the application made by Bishop Alerding to set aside the adoption of Hedwig Casienica by Frederick H. W. Lepper and with him were two other priests of the diocese, along with three nuns from St. Vincent's orphan asylum. Mgr. Ooechtering testified that Mrs. Lepper, accompanied by her mother, applied to him about a year and a half ago to adopt a baby and with the understanding that it was to be brought up in the Catholic faith he gave her a recommendation to the authorities at the home and the child in question was taken. A year later Mrs. Lepper, who was a Catholic, died, and her husband, who is a Lutheran, took charge of the baby. At the close of some negotiations in which Mr. Lepper received from Mgr. Oechtering a check for SIOO for his care of the baby, it was returned to the home and later 'taken by Mr. and Mrs. Effenberger, of South Bend. Lepper went into the local courts and adopted the child, then demanded her of the Effenber--1 gers, who refused to give her up, Habeas corpus proceedings were instituted in the St. Joe county courts and are now pending the outcome of the action here. The child, it is alleged, was left at the Institution by the mother, who reserved the right to reclaim it if she should become financially able to care for It and she is now working in Indianapolis. Lepper says he is prompted entirely by the love for his dead wife to take the baby as it w-as a link in their lives and sentiment is at the bottom of his legal fight for possession. The hearing was still on late this afternoon.—Fort Wayne Sentinel.

ARRANGE FOR DAY G. A .R. Will Meet in Special Session Thursday Night DECORATION DAY Exercises Will Be Arranged for—State Encampment The commander of the Sam Henry Post, Grand Army of Republic, has issued a call for a special meeting to be held Thursday evening, May 13th, at which time arrangements preliminary to the Decoration Day exercises will be completed. At a recent meeting a committee on arrangements was appointed, and they have accomplished much in this department, a report of which will be read at the special meeting. The members of the G. A. R. expect to make the Decoration Day exercises of this year the most memorable that have ever been occasioned and they are deserving of the unswerving support of the people in general in this movement. Decoration Day has a significance peculiar to itself; it is the one occasion of all the year in which loyal American people pay well earned respects to the memory of those who, under the unfurled stars and stripes fought and bled that their survivors may enjoy liberty in its fullest sense. Though many of the brave patriots who donned the armor and gallantly fought for the liberty of their countrymen, are sleeping the sleep of the dead, their memory lives on as does the time and will so continue as long as shall patriotism be a factor in the makeup of the generation of today and those yet to come. Let every Decatur citizen assume the portion of responsibility assigned to them and thus aid in making the event one not to be forgotten.

The state encampment of the G. A. R. will be held at Crawfordsville May 18-22, and a large number of the (Continued on page 2.) o HE DREW A FINE Murder Charge Against Frank Brown Dismissed IN WELLS COUNTY Defendant Plead Guilty to Assault and Battery Frank Brown, for a year past an inmate of the Wells county jail,where he was held as a principal in the murder of Peter Poffenbarger, has drawn as his punishment for participation in the crime, a fine of twentyfive dollars. The counts in the indictment which charged Brown with murder were withdrawn, and through his attorney the accused man pleaded guilty to the charge of assault and battery and was promtply fined. Unable to pay this amount, he will be compelled to remain in jail one month longer. Conscious of the fact that the prosecution found it a difficult task to convict Clum and that he was only convicted as a consequence of the fact that the jury expected the judge to suspend sentence, the attorneys on both sides decided that it would be useless to attempt to convict Brown, hence the clemency was extended. Poffenbarger, the murdered man was well known in Decatur and many people here have watched the case of his assailers with interest.

HE DREW A FINE

Mrs. A. J. Fristoe, of Geneva, has gone to Louisville, Ky., accompanied by her little daughter, Margaretta, who has ben seriously ill. Mrs. Fristoe’s mother, Mrs. Merriss, and a brother, are located at that place. It is thought that the change of climate will be beneficial to the little girl’s health. She is getting along nicely now, and with the change will soon be as well as ever.

Decatur, Indiana, Tuesday Evening, May 11, 1909.

COMMERCIAL CLUB MEETING Their Annual Election Was Delayed Until Next Monday Evening. So many other engagements necessitated the Commercial Club in delaying the election of their directors until next Monday evening, and at that time they will complete their organization for the coming year. Reports were made showing a very satisfactory condition of the affairs of this club, which has braved the storms for five or six years. They have one of the most pleasant clubs in this part of the country, and strangers in the city are always well impressed with the air of comfort that surrounds that well kept place. The Comercial Club has proved a working body as well as social, and the plans have been laid there for a great deal of the enterprise that has been developing in this city during the past few years. WINS FIRST POINT Senator Aldrich Gets the Lead Schedule Through After a Fight HE HAS HOPE The President Hopes to See Many Schedules Compromised Washington, May 11.—By strenuous effort .much persuasion and a vast deal of manipulation, Senator Al-

drich was able to pull through his sacred lead bullion schedule and to secure its adoption by the senate. It was a terrific fight, the most important of the session up to date, for the progressives were on their mettle and Senator Aldrich was not able to count enough noses to win until he had made a personal appeal to members of the senate asking them to stand by the fiannee committee In the first great fight on the senate bill. Senators Beveridge and Cummins were the leaders of the attack on the lead bullion schedule which places a duty of 214 cents a pound on bullion, a differential of five-eighths of a cent a pound as compared with lead ore. The first amendment, offered by Senator Cummins, put the duty at 1% cents a pound, thus fixing a differential of % instead of % cent a pound. This amendment was defeated by 44 nays 'to 35 years. Senator Shively of Indiana voted both for the Cummins amendment and the Beveridge amendment.

Washington, May 11. —President Taft has not abandoned hope of getting a tariff law that will, in some measure, meet the demand of the public. He realizes that the real bill is to be made in conference and so he has accepted as good a suggestion made by some of the Republican “insurgents’’ that the conference committee shall be enlarged beyond the number ordinarily appointed by the two houses. The original suggestion was that the full ways and means and finance committees should constitute the conference committee. Senator Aldrich declined to consider the idea, holding that the committee would be so unwieldy as to delay final action possibly for months. Washington, May 11. —Strenuous opposition by the Democrats in the house prevented the reference of the president's message recommending certain legislation for Porto Rico to the committee on ways and means. A motion by Mr. Garrett (Tenn.) directing the speaker to appoint forthwith the committee on insular affairs, which under ordinary procedure would have charge of the subject, disclose! the fact that a quorum was not. present. Consequently the message will lie on the speaker’s table until the house meets on Thursday. o MASONIC GRAND LODGE MEETING Indianapolis, May 1. —The dedicatory exercises of the new Masonic temple, in north Illinois street, will Ibe held in tbe grand lodge auditorium of the temple, Monday afternoon and evening, May 24. Tuesday and Wednesday, May 25 and 26, the eightyeighth annual session of the grand lodge will be held. Programs of the dedicatory services and of the grand lodge sessions have been sent to all Masonic lodges of the state. The three days’ meeting is expected to bring many Masons to Indianapolis.

IN POLICE COURT Mayor France Held an Hours’ Session at Nine O’Clock this Morning TWO PLEAD GUILTY John F. Colchin Will Fight His Case—Set for Trial this Evening Mayor France held a busy session of police court at nine this morning. The first to appear was John F. Colchin, who had an altercation with Henry McLain yesterday, and who was charged with public intoxication. When asked to plead he said “not guilty’ ’in a loud voice and said he would stand trial. Mayor France set the case for seven o’clock this evening, and Mr. Colchin said he would be ready to prove his innocence at that hour. Henry McLain then came in and said he had become intoxicated by the use of some medicine made from blackberry roots, and plead guilty. He was fined five and costs which amounted to fifteen days. He took the mitimus himself and proceeded to the jail unescorted after being given permission to go to his room for some clothing. Ed Shiveley, a cistern cleaner, who has been in this vicinity all spring, told his tale of woe, admitting that he had taken on too much, the first time in many years. He lectured himself in such a manner that he caught the sympathy of the court who gave him his liberty, with the promise that should he appear again he would get a dose of thirty days. Affidavits were prepared by City Attorney DeVoss, charging Colchin & Joseph with displaying a wagon load of pineapples in front of their store, contrary to a city ordinance; Mr. Joseph appeared in court this (Continued on page 2.)

AT A FANCY FIGURE Illinois Dealers Take Option on Holthouse Farm OF 240 ACRES It is Said to Be One of the Best in the State Daniel Erwin, representing Illinois land dealers, has taken an option on the Peter Holthouse farm of two hundred and forty acres, located six miles west of the city, and in all probability the place will be sold at a fancy figure before December first. The Holthouse farm is said by those who know to be one of the very best in the state of Indiana. The large acreage is entirely under a high state of- cultivation with the exception of a small grove and this fact together with the ideal location, fertility of the soil and other pleasing environments are what have attracted the big land dealers of Illinois. Located on the land are two modern houses, two barns and two sets of other outbuildings, which add to the value of the farm, and it can safely be said that Mr. Holthouse possesses one of the best farms in the country. An option could only be secured after a fancy price was offered and at that Mr. Holthouse is not particular about selling. The place w-ill sell for more than $30,000, and it is fully worth that amount in the opinion of those who know something about the value of land. Mr. Holthouse has owned the land for many years, and has seen the annihilation of the thickets and swamps which were converted i into the now great farm. I

WILL MOVE TO DISMISS Tulsa, Okla., May 11. —Governor Haskell and the other six Oklahomans It is said .will move tbit the federal grand jury, called to re-investigate the Muskogee town lot cases, be dismissed. This move is to be made w’hen the jury is organized, which probably will be late tomorrow. The ground set up for dismissal will be that in the enabling act, whereby the territory and Oklahoma* were permitted to become a state, there is no method prescribed by congress for investigating cases, committed in the territories prior to statehood and that the federal court has no jurisdiction over such cases.

HAVE IT OFFICIAL The School Enumeration Shows an Increase of Eighty-One A GREAT TIME The County Commencement Will Be Held June 10 The official figures for the numeration completed and returned to county superintendent, makes a few changes from that as published at the time the returns were made. The figures follow: Townships. Total. Gain Loss Union 382 ... 7 Root 399 23 ... Preble 361 ... 45 Kirkland 339 8 ... Washington 480 28 ... St. Marys 396 13 ... Blue Creek 373 ... 2 Monroe 837 23 ... French 378 ... 10 Hartford .397 ... 35 Wabash 589 19 ... Jefferson ...,■402 4 ~, Decatur 1322 69 ... Berne 352 10 ... Geneva 328 ... 17 Total ~..7335 197 116 Net gain 81 The next item of interest to the county board of education is (he county commencement now scheduled for this city on June 10. Some important announcements for this event will be ready to be given the public in a short time, and those in charge propose to make it the best school event in the history of education in the county. The list of graduates is large, and all are looking forward to ■ a great time on the date mentioned. o THEY ARE DOING WELL Former Employes of Clover Leaf in Far-Off Country. A number of railroad trainmen,who were formerly in the employ of the Clover Leaf, are now working for the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe railroad and reports from them are to the effect that they are doing well in the western country by putting in every day as well as much overtime. The road has several divisions and once a man starts out from home he is subject to a call to make a trip through Texas or some other country several hundred miles from his family and friends. While making a trip Ira Roberts, now running a train, was ordered to take one to Pecos, Texas, one day last week and on his arrival there was sent with a train to Carlsbad, New Mexico. This trip was made through a part of the country that borders on the desolate. Will S. Ford and brother John, employed by the same road, have their headquarters in Dodge City, Kan., while Ira Roberts is working out of Amarilla, Tex. Clifford Maxham, son of Clover Leaf Conductor Maxham, has headquarters at Newton, Kan., while Jesse Gross, Charles Chesterton, E. L. Pritchard and Bert Upp are running trains out of Wellington, Kan., which city also claims Borner McCormick as one of its citizens. C. L. Knowles is in Hutchinson. Kan., and his brother 1 railroad citizen, Will Edman, is in I Great Bend, Kan. These men, who ( are the greatest of friends, go for weeks without seeing each other, and at other times several of thtm meet in towns that are divisions of the road. I —Frankfort News.

Price Two Cents

HE GOES FOR LIFE Boyle Gets Life Sentence and Mrs. Boyle Twentydive Years MAKES STATEMENT Claims the Whitlas Were Mixed Up in Old Scandal Mercer, Pa., May 11. —James H. Boyle, who, with his wife, was convicted of kidnaping Willie Whitla, issued a statement just before he was taken from here to the penitentiary at Pittsburg late yesterday. Boyle alleges that Harry Forker, brother of Mrs. Whitla, mother of the kidnaped boy, murdered Dan Reeble Jr, in Youngstown, 0., in 1895. Boyle declares he saw Forker over the prostrate form of Reeble, with a bundle of letters in his arm; that two of the letters were dropped; that Boyle secured them and demanded ransom for their surrender. Boyle says the money was not paid, after repeated effort to secure it, and that last March he received a letter, unsigned but supposedly from Forker, suggesting the kidnaping of the Whitla boy and the division of the ransom with Forker. This, Boyle alleges, was because Forker could not raise the ransom for the Youngstown letters otherwise, and Forker’s share was to pay the person who did the real kidnaping and delivered the boy to Boyle at Warren, O. Boyle asserts that he surrendered the alleged incriminating Youngstown letters to Whitla on payment of the SIO,OOO ransom for the kidnaped boy and is without documentary evidence to prove his assertions. Boyle’s allegation are declared false by Whitla and Forker, who declare nothing occurred as related by the condemned kidnaper. Boyle was sentenced for life and Mrs. Boyle to twenty-five years, and, after issuing the statement of the principal, were taken to the western penitentiary of Pennsylvania.

EXERCISESTONIGHT J Commencement of the Berne High School Will Be Held this Evening PROGRAM IS GOOD Event Will Occur at the Mennonite Church—The Class a Large One Berne, Ind., May 11. —(Special to Daily Democrat) —Tbe annual commencement exercises of the Berne high school will be held at the Mennonite church at this place this evening and the patrons of the school are looking forward to a very enjoyable entertainment. The class is a Ihrge one, and the big church will be well filled with their friends and admirers who appreciate the honor they have thus obtained. The pro- . gram as it will be rendered is as follows: March Gertrude Hirschy Invocation. Vocal duet..Auleta Stengel, Martha Baumgartner. The Moral Awakening Clinton A. Lehman A Century’s Progress in Electricity Henry D. Egly , Vocal solo Carl Habegger The Sphere of Woman j Gertrude E. Lehman , Piano solo Esther Bixler The Y. M. C. AEarl A. Shaefer Class History ....Albert Winteregg j Piano trio ....Wilbur Lehman, Cap’ I Habegger, Grover Sprunger. of ClassO. G. ■Awarding Diplomas F. / Ladies’ quartet Katlv Pearl Heller, Eva Spnp' Sprunger. Benedict!'