Decatur Daily Democrat, Volume 28, Number 88, Decatur, Adams County, 12 April 1930 — Page 6

PAGE SIX

Herald-Tribune Reporter Finds Conditions Here Similar To Large City

I he Xew York Hertiitl Tribune a lew days ago received a letter from James T. Merryman, a former judge, former Mayor md lor fifty years a resident of Decatur, Ind., in which it was asserted that “your great cities have a large population who are not imbued with the spirit of genuine American citizenship; hence your numerous speakeasies," whereas "ItO per cent ol our people are against any change in

the present prohibition law. ' The Herald t ribune sent Alva Johnston, one of its most experienceil observers. Io Decatur to measure prohibition success in the communitv as contrasted with the metropolis. The results of Mr. Johnston’s survey are embodied in the following article: B> Alva Johnston A Staff Correspondent Decatur. Ind.. April S — Judge Merryman's letter presented strikingly and witli a confident dogmatic ring the frequent assertion that New Yorkers and other big city j.e.qde live in a sori of fourth dimension and ate abysmally ignorant ol the sentiment, poftit of view and conditions of the,' rest of the country. A- a result of the left-r this correspondent was sent to Decatur on a mission of self-education. The purpose -was to make a study in absolute good faith of a town in whic h prohibition is declared to have wo.ked out perfectly. 'I he judge s letter raised the question whether the United States was not divided into two foreign nations, one composed of the big cities, thc-j other composed of the -mall communities and rural districts, the city nation wet and the town nation dry. Another hypothesis was that Deca ur was a miniature holy city, a demi-paradise human nature had conquered all its infirmities and where the citizens quaffed nothing but spring water After th-ee days here, however, litis corre-,.ondent has a strong impression that New York and Deci) Inr really have no quarrel; that the United States is not divided, discordant, belligerent, etc; that if Decatur is a fair example the town of six thousand anti the town of six million differ in no way except in . tze. If Fath r Knickerbocker's face is covered with rum blossoms. Com modore Decatur's nose and cheeks are well embroidered with scarle: < apillaries. The majority of the Decatur chi-1 ■ns interviewed are inclined to re ' :ent mildly the claim that Decaturl is a model dry town. This was re-! guided as an aspersion. The ques-i lion, “How dry is Decatur?" me. with a wide range of answers. Leaders of the dry forces reported that there was no drinking among members of their set. and that they: believed thtjre was very li.tle drinking in Decatur; other prominent ; citizens asserted that there was more drinking that ever before in the town s history, and that every high svh >■>! boy had a flask on bis I hip. Discounting the extreme opinion, j and summing up the multiplix ex ■ perienees of the last three days in ; Decatur, this correspondent is of) the opinion that, man for man. De-1 eatur begins to drink earlier, drinks] harder, develops a greater capi-1 city and carries its liquor more like a gentleman that New York. This opinion Is based partly on miscellaneous conversations. partly on I facts or record and statistics, not on the ordinary court and police books, which are unsafe and unreliable, but c.n statistics of unchall- 1 enge.ilde authority—the statistics) of bottletc.ps and wooden kegs. The S. hater Hardware Company of Decat .r received a few cases of bottle tops before 1919. Shipments, oi uottle .ops since then have in- ■ re; .-ed rapidly, and in the last few vics tins firm in a town of six thousand or a little less, has been receiving two carloads of bottle tops annually. There are 24,000 gross of bottle tops or 3.456,000 individual tops, in a carload, which means that Decatur, has been re ceiviug and distributing 7.000,000 bottle tops in the course of a year. These ate distributed over a wide rural territory. They are sold at grocery, drug and variety stores, together with prepared malt and various preparations for whiskyixing "ally" as raw spit its are called Keg Trade Increasing Now <l. H. Wehmeyer, manager of the hardware store, said that there had been a falling off in recent months in the bottle top business, but an ini', ease in the wooden keg trade. Last year the Schafer company received in Decatur eighteen carloads of kegs, with a capacity of tens ot thousands of gallons. There were two carloads of small oak kegs. < hatred on the inside. Mr. Wehmeysaid that the demand for kegs in general was well maintained, hut Ilia the demand for charred kegs had shown a recent falling off. He was not sure what this meant, but attributed it to a decline in connois'eurship. "Alky,” is placed in the charred kegs and aged for a month with glycerine, brown sugar di < died water and whisky flavoring The hardware man thought, that the average keg buyer was treating the "alky" in some other way or waj getting used to the untreaf d stuff. The drinking condition in this community is absolutely der'-ir able." said Mr. Wehmeyer. “Every high school boy has a flask on his hip and an automobile. Th§ drink

lug among the younger people and the- growing disrespect for law art 1 the worst pioblems we have ever faced." | "Everybody here," emphatically - tated (’. C. Schafer of the hardware firm, "drinks all the time." Deputy Sheriff Ran a Still I Again discounting sweeping gen j eralizations. there is other recordi ed evidence that Decatur is not dry. Last spring the "Uncle Snm.s" seized within three miles of Decatur the largest still ever captured in Indiana. The still had a capacity of 1,000 gallons of “alky" a day. It was operated by a special deputy sheriff named Floyd Death, who is now ini Leavenwor h. Mr. Death was for-1 merly the proprietor of a big road house speakeasy just outside of Decatur. and the roadhouse boasted formerly of the patronage of the idol of American bandit worshipers Gerald Chapman. There are plenty of rumors that ■ Mr. Deaths big s ill is not the only one near Decatur. Judge Merryman himself, in all interview with this "correspondent, sighed and said that he had reason to suspect that there were five or six other big stills in Adams Conn y. of which Decatur is the metropolis. The Death still made sack sugar into "alky". Ten thousand gallons of mash were found "working" at the time of the raid. The Death "alky" did not entei the local market, but was shipped io Chicago and sold at $4 a gallon The "Uncle Sams" complimented the Death "alky" as being of the finest quality. The Death still was discovered by | accident, as the authorities stumbl I ed on it irrevelantly while in search oi' a man charged with murder. Ju.y Queries Boys Regularly To refill to the comparative Id. inking conditions as between I New York and Decatur, when did a 1 New York grand jury ever summon a swarm of high school boys to inI .errogate them as to where they I got theii liquor? The local grand ) jury, which meets here twice a year i always summons a group of high school boys and badgers them about I their sources of supply. This has been a part ot the grand jury routine he.e for several years. A boy, who has not been Vefore the grand jury iwo or thiee times is not i j thought much of. A boy is sus ; peeled of having confided anything I io the august body is a pariah. Con- ■ tempt for the "grand" is almost fnI grained in the bright young Deca turi es. This is one feature of the growing , i -ontenipt for law which is deplored) I sere by conservative and thought-i ful citizens. Something like the, I gangsters anti-authority code of) honor appears to be spreading far ! and wide. Many citizens, especially] | lb u younger ones, are losely banded n a soi t of secret society tacitly ) sworn to baffle the law as tar as it, rela es to liquor. There are many •veil -to ked cellars here. Raiding I them was for a time one of the 1 sports of the town. Some of the bolder home-town boys of Decatur ) have become very clever at picking I locks and removing windows in or- : ler to get at these cellars. The bereaved cellar owner cannot ■omplain, except privately, because | it is a penal farm offense to possess I liquor, home brew or otherwise, under the hone dry law of Indiana. I Itese cellar burglaries do not occur nightly, but there seem to have been enough to earn a mention amoi.g the social phenomena of De-1 catur. Alone in Better World Judge Merryman proved to be a slender, erect old gentleman, with sharply chiseled features, a high < arched collar, a stiff, accurately lipped gray mustache, a high-bridg-ed. aristocratic nose and kindly . gray eyes which see conditions in) Decatur through lather thick lenses with white gold mountings. He is) seventy-five years old. As he walks; .tiff and vertical along Main Street 1 lie appears to carry about with him ; an atmosphere of refinement, peace' and good life. It is neither New yoik nor Decatur which lives in another world: ' t is Judge Merryman who lives it. another and bet er world, in Judge Merryman's own woild. A young man whose legs declined to co-ord-inate would step into a dorway in order to avoid coming’ within the rose-tinted field of Judge Merryman's vision. A chap who was mellow with "alky" or pumpkin jack ..'ould automatically aim his breath o the leeward in conversing with ■ Judge Merryman. i The gray old jurist is an ideali ist, his hobby is good citizenship. • At a recent church meeting he of- ; sered. for the purpose of setting a ■ be ter example to youth, to aban > don his lifelong habit of chewing 1 plug tobacco, and it was only . with the greatest difficulty that Jje i was persuaded not to take this step. The judge confessed that, when he ■ took lien in hand, he sometimes had . a slight tendency |o idealize. He was vigorously taken to task in

| his own office by u patriotic young | I Decatur woman for his statement [ that there were no speakeasies. "You should not have written hat. Judge Merryman," she said. 11 "I I.now of six spepapkoasfes here where i have gotten stuff myself." “You Don’t Mean It," He says | "You don't mean It", said th-j 1 1 judge. "Why, 1 would not h.i"e | thought it was possible. Are you I quite sure?" “J “Yes, sir." ' ' Well, I am sure that this is all i ’ ' t< surprise to me," ,t Judge Merryman looks out from I his office window upon a street II lined with prosperous stores and | II alls back the time when, there wa- I ', a saloon on every corner and the •streets were jeltering with old ) soaks and professional bums. He reunembeis when it was necessary to 1 drive the buggy carefully through . the mud in order to avoid running lover tipsy hosiers and rigid farm ] hands. Even the wettest of the Deeatur wets agree that present conditions are better than the old sal non days. They admit that the pan handling old rummies are fewer anti hat no new’ crop of town character las arisen to take the place of num like Bismarck, he glass eater, who I used to ciiew up and swallow bee glasses in the Decatur saloons to earn a place in the line up at the bar the next time the drinks wert ordered. Bismarck tilt'd at the pooi farm soon after the Vols ead ac' .-ante in. Was Reforming Before Prohibition However, many citizens are not | willing to give credit to prohibition for this change John H. Heller, etli tor of "The Daily Democrat," of Decatur, who was secretary of th* platform committee of the Democratic National Convention at Madion Square Garden in 1924. said that education and public senti men were rapidly changing the sit nation for the better at the time when prohibition eani“ in. The county voted dry under the Indina local option law of 1907 and later voted wet under Tom Mardiall's ward and township law. In he final days preceding prohibition. Decatur had only five saloons md these, according to Mr. Heller . poorly patronized, so that the worst if the saloon evil was over, as a result of individual self-control and he social judgment of the tow n, before prohibition came into effect. In the opinion of Mr. Heller uni! other conserve ive citizens, the proess of education and enlightment would have taken care of the situa tion better than prohibition has done, without giving liquor 'he tang jf forbidden fruit, which is now said to have made it as popular with the younget set of Decatur as elsewhere. Judge Merryman himself de plored tlie abandonment of popular education against liquor, and especially regret ed the passing of the highly collored old prints of hobi nailed teni|>erance campaigns be- ! tinning as far back as 1877. Fir t impression Deceptive First impressions of Decatur bore out Judge Merryman's letter. Arrivng heie late Saturday afternoon, he corrt sponden found Decatur a 1 i uiet. well kept, orderly little town. t centers on the Adams County ' I -ourthouse, a large old fashioned brick structure hurried by magni- 1 | ficent* maples. The business sec- 1 ion is four blocks long and in the 1 i .‘veiling it became a Broadway tn 1 lenim and sheepskin as half the 1 •ountiy swarmed in for their Satur- I lay night shopping and talkiiv 1 pictures. The Main Street side- ' walks were crowded like Times Square with a slow moving crowd 1 which reached from shop window to curb. Hair-cut.ing appeared to 1 be the town's greatest industry Crowds of shaggy agriculturists filled the barber shops and overflowed to the stree s and every toolroom became a barber shop. In ntdition to the regular barbers, a, score of men ot other occupation.-, urned tonsorial artists for Satur lay nigh . The shearing was still going on at midnight. The correspondent moved along I with the stately sidewalk prove - sion without noting a single case lof obstet perous intoxication, al hough a man here and there appea.ed slightly exhilarated. There was no open liquor drink ' ng. The correspondent had already been assured by townspeople he had I net that D<-eatur was a hard drinkling community, but the whole Main Street pageant seemed to contraI diet this. Byway of an attack on ithe skepticism of the correspondent ' he was taken on a visit to a hospiable pretension:.! man who served I pure alcohol and orange juice. This 1 however, had the appearance of an act of desperation on the part ot I wets endeavoring to create evidence of the wetness of the place. The first night in Decatur closed. Vir ually all the points having been icored by Judge Merryman. On the following day. which was 'Sunday, Decatur people v/ho had I heard of the correspondent's mission apologized (or the state of 'bings on the preceding evening and explained that because it was , the firs fine Saturday night ol spring, all the wild young people had driven to Fort Wayne which is a wide-open city only twenty miles ■ aw: y or to various road houses in i which the county abounds. Traveling alxiut the rural section , du: ing :he day, the correspondent ') collected a great many words to the ■I effect that Decatur was one <sf the . | liver and other realistic internal ■'scenery which marked the great I; Hoosier hardest drinking towns in ■I the state, but there was still a i dearth of evidence. On Sunday even-

DECA Tim DaiLY DEMOCRAT SATURDAY, APRIL 12, 1930.

Text of Judge Merryman’s Letter Following is the letter to the N<»w York Herald Tribune which was a basis for Alva Johnston’s visit Io Decatur, Ind., as explained in his accompanying dispatch setting forth the eai tlon of » Middle Western t-innll town to the prohibition law: "To the New York Herald Tribune: "I notice in a recent issue of your publication an editorial intent < \ President Tuft's statement 'That the result is glorious,' in which yon say 'vlorious' is the last word that the resident of any large city, who knows his town, would apply to prohibition. 'Sm h a view could lie sincerely held, only by some one who was cut off from a very large part of contemporary life.’ "The restrictive) view of the who’e metropolitan press, as it appears to me to be. Is, that your great cities have a large population, who ar<‘ not Imbued with th< spirit of genuine American citizenship. Heme your numerous speakeasies amt the flouting of any law seeking to control Individual action tn any respect. And another large class, found less numerous elsewhere, insist on self-gratification, regardless of result. "You seem to assume this condition, as it relates Io the Eighteenth Amendment, your editorial statement, that 'Almost certainly a majority of the nation has turned against prohibition.' "You overlook, or do not know the fact, that there are many hundreds of clti<*. like Decntur, with a population of 5.000. more or less, which, before the Eighteenth Amendment, had fifteen or more licensed saloons; and now there is not one, not is there a speakeasy. "I speak largely from personal knowledge, having been a resident of thir city for more than fifty years and Mayor and Circuit Judge. "Ninety per cent of our people are against any change of the present law, that would endanger our freedom from the damned traffic: and 1 am not an ultru-fanatkal dry, by any means. "'The Literary Digest' poll would determine nothing. 1 doubt very much if one-fourth of the ballots sent out will be returned to that publication. "You are mistaken in your summary'. You simply do not know the intense feeling of the people in the thousands of small towns and rural communities on tills .-object. "1 am not fishing for an answer to this letter. I am simply suggesting how a Hoosier in a little 'back woods town' who is trying to gam lute hgent opinion, tombing one ot the live questions ol the day, views the matter. JAMES T. MERRIMAN. "Decatur, Ind., March 28, 1930."

I — ng. however, some facts became! more visible to the eye. Main] Street was for a time a trifle stag-' ;e.y with young fellows, apparer.l---y tin- ones who hail been at Fort I Wayne on the preceding night. In i candy and soda establishment on i location about as couspicious as he Hotel Astor in New York, boys apparently from seventeen to wenty-five years old were drinking tigh balls. Hie house supplying the et ups and the hoys loading them p from pocket tlasks. Pocket P- ddlers Sell “Red Eye” The correspondent was trea ed to ndiana red eye which comes at 12 i a pint and is sold largely by pedd-1 ers. thin netked but bulky bodied) haps whose wardrobes are honey•ombetl from neck to knee with pint ' mckets. These itinerant speakaaies carry on the business tba. is lone in pool rooms, garages and ther places of business. At the rate) >f $1 a pint they sell "moon" or •orn liquor which tastes, as this orrespondent is informed and beie.ves. as if an experienced goat •vas one of the ingredien s. The $2, ndiana “red eye” is a mixture ol i ■orn liquor with rye flavoring, vhich produces a kind of incipient lourbon. Another form of hospita’ 1 ty which this correspondent enjoy’d was a home concocted whiskey which contained too much "alky" oo much glycerine an.l not enough Ahiskey flavor. As to the exis ence of speakeasies in Decatur, this correspondent is lot in a position to speak authoritatively. According to one unofti- 1 •iai cen-.ns that was made for h!s; benefit, the speakeasies in the own number twelve; others counted up forty-eight within an alleged radius of four miles. New-found friends who produce liquor generously were not willing to introduce to a speakeasy as stranger who was 1 present in Decatur to check up the! drinking habits of the people. Any) new face is suspected ot belonging o an “Uncle Sam,’; and the sabertoothed dry laws of Indiana have sudden spasms of furious activity especially around primary time, which is at present. On speakeasy problem, therefore, it was beause it tame from a multitude of sources and agreed pretty well. Drinkers a Problem at Factory General Electric has a plant ir. j ilecatur that employs about 400 ncn. The head of one department I oid his visitor that 90 per cent ot he men under him drank and that he problem of the middle-of-the- • eek “hangovers" had become a erious one. Another executive in barge of about 200 men was asked why he did not conduct a wet and dry poll at his works. "Because" he replied "one of my drunks is out it town and the other is sick." The president of a bank told the correspondent that there was every evidence that there were several speakeasies in Dcea.ur and that the drinking by boys and girls had the older generation very much alarmed. He had made several trips to Canada and said that he was strongly impressed with the Canadian system, and believed that sen iment in Indiana was gradually hea l ed in favor of that. The rural district of which Decatur is the metropolis is very wet. A considerable part of the country | was settled nearl hedn r uayd ET was settled nearly a hundred years ago by Swiss and Germans who have carried the art of wine-mak-ing to a high degree of success. Most of these are prosperous farmers who make their liquor for themselves and their friends only which, in Indiana, is as much of a crime as selling it. A few do sell it. and the county produces as miscellaneous and ambiguous a varlety of liquors as is to be found, in ad probability, in any section on earth. Nearly everything that grows except trees, can be and is being turned into alcohol in Adams tyWhen evidence to this effect was called U the attention ot Judge Merryman, he said: “Why certainly, 1 have always

' known that. Only a short time ago ]1 went out into the country coni cerning a hay transaction and the farmer invited us in o the house and presented us with a bottle of ehetry wine, a bottle of dandelion wine and a bottle of apricot wino 1 don't drink myself because 1 have sent men to jail because of the dty laws, but I personally resen an." aw that says that I shall not keep wine or any liquor that 1 may wan. iu my own house for my own consumption. Concedes Wine-Making "I don't know that I made that | clear in my le ter. But I have cam- : palgned in these pans ami I hav ■ i ab-oltite confidence that, if I mad I a tour of the roads now, at leas: ' sixty or seieuty farmers ami nmy- ) be more would offer me drinks. "Oh. don't mi- ake my position in I e rard to having liquor rn the house I jits the saloon that 1 am against. ) Still. | do feel that there is too' much liquor made in the rural secjtions and 1 fear hat some of it isi sold. "Let me tell you this to make my i position absolutely clear: One of he Detroit papers carrier! an editorial a short time ago to the effect ' that tbe great centers of the drink evil were the big cities and tha», if it could be wiped ou: in the bit < ities. there w ould be no problem ieft Now that is all perfect rot. | There is far more liquor per capita in the rural sections than there is in the big cities. l l wro e the editor ■a letter calling his attention to this ‘ fact, and I advised him that there ) were 10,000 gallons—oh, I guess, a good deal more than tha -in tin homes of the fanners ir. this county". Pumpkin Wine for "Ladie.’'' One of tlie "lady's drinks" that is I popular at the country pariies, according ts good rural authority, is : pumpkin wine, w hich is made by ! idugging a pumpkin, scooping ou’ the seeds, placing wine or cider with raisins and other ingredients fn the cavity, plugging the hole, sealing it wi h paraffin and allowing it to stand in a cool, dry place for a month. A somewhat hardef drink is pumpkin jack, the process of manti.actme not being clearly understood by the writer. Another is beer wine ) which is'made by fermenting the ) yeas; which settles to the bottom of I the cask in beer making. Another local products are silo liquor, unpalatable but powerful stuff, which s drawn from the bottom of the tall turrets which are filled with chopped green corn; clover blossom wine tbo h red and white); double cider which is made by adding raisin' and sugar to hard cider and starting the process of fermentation al) over again; gooseberry wine, and a cordial which is made from raw materi: Is which are sold about the conn•ry by deale:s in novelties. Other aney drinks are said to lie made >f pineapple, and banana brandy, peach, peur and apricot brandies, then, when once a supply of "alky has been obtained, the theme is open to an infinite number of variations. Old Crusader Fears Revolt One of the small towns in this county is named Geneva, another Berne, another Freble. all tes ifv|ing to the Swiss origin of the people It is odd that Judge Merryman should have chosen a basic popula- ' tion of this type in making his pro- ■ clamation of the dryness of the -mall own. The ability to make fine wine is hereditary, virtually u Lamarckian charac er in this popu- ; lation, and that is testified to by ' their own leaders, including the dry- !' est of them. •I The chief citizen of the town of ! Berne, tor in.-’ance, is Fred Rohrer, I whose house was dynamited in 1903 i when he led a fight, against the sali oons of Berne. He has written a : book in the stylo of Caesar’s “Codi- • mentaries” on great wars led by himself which finally wiped out i the Berne saloons. He told the cor- ' respondent that he knew that the farmers were making wines and t that, dry as he was. he believed that

,thete would be a sweeping reaction! ingiilnst the present dry laws. Both sides have gone too far in their bitterness,” he ssld "bill lit, this state the law which makes II a crimi- Io give liquor Io sli k per ■ sons is bringing u reaction. I believe there will be modification and fin slbly even something like the Canadian system, but we will never see the saloon ugaill ” High Tide of Controversy 'Ute high tide of the wel amt dry I -ontroversy in Indiana came more I .him a year ago over the case o' I X ilim I. Gillium, tlm Sblte Ailin'- | ley General, who obtained whlskej , I for bis si-ter when she lay 111 ot ! piieumoula at the Decatur Hospi- ; al. Tlie doctor said I hut she was lying ami that he knew of no medl•lne on earth which could help her] except whisky. Gilliom got whisky|' I which was administered to her und ; I she recovered. Mr. Rohrer, who runs n paper at; Berne, discovered this fact, stigmr-i ! iz.ed it as an act of astounding hj-l | proc risy on the part of the state of | ! Icial and demanded that he should, ;be indicted, tried, convicted and I ;ent 'o the penal farm. Gilliom ad | aitteil he facts and dared them to| i mulct mm. The grand jury met at I Decatur and consulted long over) he problem of indicting Gil ; .om. b.it finally decided not to. Later Gilliom asserted that he) had obiained indisputable evidence .trough the confession of a eon ) science-stricken physician, that . vine had been prescribed for Rol ■; e some years before, because of , eak stomach, and that the pa lent mil ta ;eii the remedy. WTrvii inked iliout this, Mr. Rohrer told this cor- ' respondent that it was true that . ■ he had taken a spoonful of liqottr »efore meals ami that he was peri conaliy strenuously opjiosed to makng medicine a crime, but that he aad clamored for a penal farm sen-etic-e for the A torney General beau se the latter boasted of his vioation of the law. This whole case mwever. is said to be only one of he normal intricacies of Indiana lolities Hook-and Eye Amish Area Wet The region in which the best 1pior is said to lie made is inhabited ) by the hook-and-eye Amish and b> ! he -horthaired Amish ami by a ,ect called the- Newmanese. The took and-eye Amish, who are a fun- ' iamentalist branch of the Menno | :ite church, get the descrip ive | i.tpective from the fact that they 1 1 bhor buttons as ornaments They ' wear nothing but homemade gar- | men's, usually of blue denim, and . regard all modern machinery, in • eluding automobiles, as heresies They will not have springs under i their wagon seats, because spring--are a worldly comfort. They allow ) -ueir hair to grow long and nevei | ouch shears to their beards be | , ause of a Bfbical injunction against marring the corner of the) : ie.i.l. bu. they shave the upper lip | u tlie theory that the mustaclie is a vanity. T tie Newmanese are as fund:--) • men.al as the Amish iu most things' , cut their faces are clean shaven ami ■ hey accuse the Amish of trying t. i i be more orthodox than their founler, Menno, whose pictures show • ie was clean shaven. The short-haired Ahiish are Americanized offspring who have suc- . umbed ;o automobiles, and are • modern in every way. This corres i pondent .alked to one abandoned I enegade who had turned evol.t- ■ ioui t. The Amish and Newmanese • >oth preserve the custom of yodel-1 t ing. These and the other farmers ger. - ‘rally vote heavily on the dry side • o indicate heir boundless contentment with the status quo, as far as i iquor is concerned. The rural population, though pr>-1 i bably wetter in fact, are dryer in , • politics than the townspeople. > Three or four candidates for pubs lie office told the writer that they - would not have a chance of election - if they declared themselves wet. i the cuun ry has always votes! dry, I iu: the wet sentiment lias grown to - such an extent that the pplitic-ians) ?: are beginning to fear i:, and some' i-1 ate also as fearful of declaring > i themselves dry as of declaring: ; themselves wet. Dry Candidate Straddler This is well illustrated in thei - j case of L E. Opliger, who in; - announcing himself yesterday as an) i- 1 aspirant for the Democratic nomin I • a ion for Congress in the lith Con.jgressional District, which includes . Decatur and the rest of Adam. County produced a masterpiece of s enigmatical straddling in the follow ■ ing sentence: ) “I am not so dry that 1 don't drink ! wa.er, nor so wet as to reopen fors mer saloons again.” ,• Charles Teeple. a clothing dealer - whose name has always stood first > on all the Decatur dry petitions and; t remonstrances, said; “The wets might be able to beat) > us if we held a vole on the question | e in Deca ur today. They have been e I working up their propaganda for i years while we have been lying i- nac.-K and taking it easy. if the is .ue is raised, then the majority -of the best citizens of Decatur will Igo out to speak and fight tor the dry f cause and we will beat them two to ■, #ne. ’ 3 Some conservative citizens, who I- are extremely dissatisfied with a present conditions, will neverthe- :- less, vo.e dry, because they would tl rather bear the ills they have than ; fly to others that they know not of. They fear the return of the saloon e and a full year's carnival of drinku ing if the wets ever win a big vicII tory. Many who hold these senti-

Several Misquoted I Sime the Hernld-Trlbiino article wus publi h ||,. those quo! ’ll dt'liy that they made tlm st:iti-m,.| l |/ ' . 11 . Judge Merryman, whose Integrity lln denies that liny statement or assertion was n u , ( |„ , '""'I. iu ills olTicc. He further stales that no mb,.,, the loom where said interview took place. ' 1 Mi. G 11. Wehmeyer usserlH that the fivai,. s , HH the sue of supplies were of course of wlmli-snli-nut refer to Adams county as Insinuated in tti- -i, n . v the Statement concerning high school buya i-arrvin n In- knows nothing about it and does not boliov- it i.V Tile lull view with C. C. Schafer is :ils (> im ( ,|- r( ’ SH io Hie questioning being willing to testify to 11 t1 . 5 ,, f ‘ ," W Several others us ert that they were mlsqa, ( t, q'’ BH

meets now would vole wet, if was gathered from many com et sat lon-, ( if a wet proposal which they regard ai safe and workable wore propos ed. Women Don't Smoke In two respects Decntur is Itehind ■ the large titles in following the inode;n left handed social reformers here is no smoking among the women, with tin- exception of a [few girls who have come back steeju'd in culture from fashionable school-, and the Decatur hostess |is under no compul -i m *.t ,>niiti< opinion to serve cocktails. Fort Wayne is as advanced as [ New York in these respects, hut I Decatur s ill lai k- a bit. As Io the [amount of drinking at bridge par ties and formal affairs in Ifecatui I testimony differs. Some say there I is none in their set. others say that i t here is cistsidertible in their sets. Tlie amoun. of drinking by young girls is a matter th.,t an outsider an only guess at Is’cause of the unreliablity of! testimony on this i topic. One scion of the Decatur aristocracy. which is a sharply defined cus e coni|>osed of the descendants | of old settlers, said: "Just take a girl somewhere with ! mil a pint ou your hip. and then! ask her somewhere again." Many of those interviewed about liquor conditions in Decatur refused I to allow their names to be mention-! ed liecause of the dynamic provision of the Indiana bone dry law which .cquires a prosecutor to hale before, a grand jury any citizen who hast ever said that he knew anything; about drinking; it becomes ton tempt of court it he refuses o giv - tlie grand jury details. The most; avage provision of the In.liana law, s one that makes a S4O fine the minimum to be imposed on a man onvictcd of public intoxication.' The prosecutor is an o. 'icer under ees. Under he even handed Indi ana justice he receives a fee of $25 for prosecuting for intoxication, a ,ee of $5 fpr pioseeuting a murderer But public opinion has asserted ) itself to nullify this law partially iso that in ptac ice an intoxicated I man is not arrested unless he at-i ' a.-ks a policeman with a scythe or) | ithetwi-e miscoiililcts hirtisellh on 1 a latge scale. Hard Cider Is Exempt When it wa- said tha there wert'. • to open puldii drinking place* in' I Decatur, t.;is, of course, did not apply to the item of hard cider. Hard ider has the standing of a soft! ' ;.k It i sold iu public places ' Hard cider wins its exemption an-! •arently because the line dialing •risking soft from hard cider is . r ery indefinite, and the beverage ■ s lil e.ly to switch from the one to he other at any moment. With

/ Aesop was right Mr. Tortoise still pets there first. He travels the slow, steady, non-stop route. His weekly savings deposits, however sr all, will total fiancial independence. Mr. Hare starts out like a whirlwind, but is shortwinded. He’s left by the well-known wayside, dozing over some very sad get-rich-quick propaganda. ♦ Old Adams County Bank

• -'"I U 1 ,l< ' * l»in> - <>i ''alia 1 Bier -"‘J thsvS ■■■■'ide® 11 katt'i. ■ ■ "" drv an ® ' l!l ' 1 ■• wi® lor ' ■■■" Opposit.® ■ .nth th.® J and Mr® ! ' ""-■ltliat® it llul lil ’ M '' ■' haw it Si ' a bln.,® ‘"'nt ol th. |, || , p|ats , W ■ -■■astubßl 1,0 ' ■■O’l'.H.taß tt* Ul'. |).( ■ ion bill th,- : . ‘.lilnliil,. -ommutiii . «hr. ls lillie u iiMhiii’. mill s an •f Hl.. !,i!!i... I a,.!.. I'he hea.l oi ~f | ih , batiks i u I-i .num | IS9II to In-.,: |;,,l„. r i I titre oa "'I 1,.. ,„■ ) They st art.-. I m t t le j r I o'clock in .Im mt.-rnoou/iJjB Fort W;;yim m I ini. tohß i lectin. . Sla’ '• ■ I,;n I; J. . 1 was over. an.l aniv.-d h.wH A M. Todav a hall hour )a.y time lor making ths )B | For. Wayne I 1,.. a • made tile . r . a -übiirb ot M :age. H The aO'i.i. IH-. aiur tniy fl more ex j.-. ~! u| uorklM ! than a big-. it> , on. .i ijfl I toni.s that It..- atoan up h'-relfl . as "hit ing tl:.- ioa I Scores of tli -m tiav. 1 *.st y ! breakbi an.-, wm i,.:.; in lorchaids. m. 'ln- vo.Euy ■ in tin- fall Youngtij i drive to Detroit and Canada 11 I good liquor v1 • :'iey are tin I the stmt in local circulatwi “The Anieri-an Mercury'4l Bible ot the local higlii.ron, ! "The Sat;.r<i.:y livening PoZ ;ead but sne.-i. a The difta ) between this vL'.aa.-autl Gna I Village is negligible. Decatur . v. ry < 10-e to its I <er of population in the t i Slates as wo-1.-.l out from th I sus figures oi en years ago.B ' .atur is the normal typical IN cent Atne.icmi small town, 1 ' New York is th. normal.tfpidl ) per ce lt Ameri' ail big rltj ! votdd be dil'fn ult to tell in . places apart e.o-. p: for a dirit ! feretice in the -kyliue. o — 1 Rufus Stuckey visited fritd Fort Wayne las' nig.it.