Decatur Democrat, Volume 52, Number 38, Decatur, Adams County, 23 September 1909 — Page 1

ft AU THE TIME

■gSSL , X-Jl'lSM Volume 141 WILL TURN THE GAS ON Indiana Lighting Company Make the Announcement —Reservoir is Filled HAVE USED CARE • " s ■ MWaaMMW Lines Are Tested—Gas at Nine O’Clock on Thurs- „ day Morning Here / Decatur will have artificial gas to|day. This announcement was officially made by General Manager Mulholland yesterday. Gas was turned into the big reservoir yesterday and this morning the register showed It chuck full, mehning a storage of 100,000 feet of nine o’c’ock Thursday morning the gas will be turned into the mains, and all will be ready for the patrons toqise the convenient fuel as soon as they have contracted and have had: their homes properly tested and prepared. It ha» Been some time slncte the lines were ■ed and it will be well if every one Uses the utmost cai® before the gas K. turned into the houses. As soon as the gas has been turned on here, the Indiana Lighting company will as they agreed, begin the work of hying the line to Bluffton, where they also hold a franchise. The company's office here will be the same as used by the old company, In the Bowers block on Monroe street. This building will be remodelled at once and will be refitted with new and modern furniture and fixtures. While this work is being done they will.use the Niblick room on Second street as an exhibit room. They will soon have a car load of stoves, hot plates, .lights, etc., there for the inspection of the public. Tomorrow when the gas is turned on there will be several men at the offices and If any one notices that gas is escaping about the premises they are requested to call the office at once and the matter will be attended to. While-the time of turning the gas on here has been somewhat delayed, it was for good reasons, and the public here is well satisfied with the manner in which they have been treated by the Indiana company. The lines have all been well tested Ma every possible care taken to avoid iny chance of an accident. From now >n Mr. Mulholland will have charge it. this plant and he has not yet rfiounced who will be in charge of Ke local office. ARGUimBKH Wolfe Case Will Go to the ('-Jwy at » About Nopn.',.,‘ I Tomorrowit is Believed CONCLUDE EVIDENCE FI I mi—nwi .a rhe Will of William ReichI ert Was Probated in I Court this Morning ■ (The evidence in the Wolfe case was Ocluded at about 3 o’clock yesterday Rernoon. the defendant was on the land the greater part of the morning nd while he admitted throwing the lub at Mr. Mangold, said he did not ■tend to hit him or injure him. He mb cross-examined at length. The Jtense rested at noon and this afterIred a number of lr. Mangold’s good fe’s previous good shown by the de* llowed two hours jument and Prosed for the state, I by Peterson, ErBe Mr. Luts will ( i. The case wlll ( “SOB

• <• * I . I

The last will and testament of Wil-' liam F. Reichert, late of Monroe township, was probated. After pro-I vlding for the payment of debts and funeral expenses, the document sets forth the desire that all the property, real and personal, go to Mrs. Reichert, during her life and at her death to the only son Julius, latter, however, is to pay to each of four sisters the sum of SI,OOO within ten years and with four per cent, interest, pro-vided,-however, that should any part of the >I,OOO be paid to the sisters by their father before his death, this amount is to be deducted from the amount to be paid by Julius. The will was written May 14, 1899, and witnessed by Nicholas Rich and David N. Sprunger. On January 1, 1903, Recording to receipts filed with the will, three of the daughters, Mary Fuelling, Mrs. Fred Boerger and Emilie Walters were paid their sl,(]|9O'in full and this leaves but ope share due to an unmarried daughter, who lives at home. WANT PREACHERS A Famine in this Profession Because of the Poor Salaries Paid AVERAGE IS SMALL Demand Greater than Sup-ply-Spreading Gospel on Yearly Pittance Average Yearly Salaries Paid by American Protestant Churches Methodist ...U.. ....About |4BO Baptist ........No complete statistics Presbyterian .....About S7OO Congregational 1907 Episcopal About S6OO Writing in Munsey’s Magazine for October, Walter Prichard Eaton declares, in the course of an article on “Tfce Ministry as a Profession:” "The Protestant churches are alarmed over the dwindling number of students In their seminaries, and the increased difficulty of securing worthy recruits for the ministry. The minister’d lot, if possible, is to be made easier, no less for practical considerations—even if these are not always confessed—than for ethical ones. We pay the workman $3 a day —or a little more—to,build the church and we pay the clergyman $2 a day—or a little less—to preach in it To increase the salaried of ministers to a point where they can support and educate their families in decency and have a small margin over for the necessity of books and the luxury of a reserve, to a point where they are beyond the gnawing cares and nervous drain of poverty, crying J need of the Protestant churches today. The demand for young, active ministers is at present greater than the supply, and a youth of marked ability is practically certain bf ’a comfortable living almost M soon as he steps out of his dlvinlty'iScboQl. It is the young mand toddy, especially in the large city churches. The ministers themselves say that their 'dead Hie’ is reached at the fiftieth tear. Present conditions have noir, imposed more than poverty; because of the,increased cost of living, they have come to impose privation, and intellectual, it n<R sometimes almost physical, starvation. On the other hand, to ask men to come into the ministry, to tempt them to come, because of the financial rewards, is to debase Christianity and to insult Its Founder. For* tunately, there seems to be no immediate danger of this particular Insult” ——-o — " PAV TAXES BEFORE NOVEMBER 1 The last day for the payment of taxon in Adams county as well as throughout the state, comes as early this year as it has ever come, or in fact, ever will come unless the state j law The law provideq that the second installment of taxes must be paid not later than the first Monday in November or a penalty of ten per cent, is added. The first Monday in November this year is the first day • of the month making it necessary fori all residents of the state who owe .takes to settle by that date or pay : the extra penalty. , 5 i . ■ ■

Decatur, Indiana. Thur PAYING TRIBUTE Minnesota Grief Stricken Over the Death of Her Governor FUNERAL TOMORROW He Will Be Buried Beside His Mother at St. Peter, Minn. St. Paul, Minn., Sept. 22.—One of • the most remarkable tributes ever paid to the memory of a public man in Minnesota is being accorded the late Governor Johnson today. .The unusual interest and sympathy manifested during his illness has turned into the profeundeet grief, for surely no Minnesotan ever got closer to the hearts of his people than did Governor Jbhnson. From the hour that the governor’s death was first publicly announced by the tolling of a school bell in Rochester all usual public activity was abandoned. All banks, stores and offices wer closed and the buildings draped in black and purple crepe. Governor Johnson’s body was escorted to the special Chicago Great .Western train by a throng of citzens from every walk of life. On the train were Mrs. Johnson, a few of her personal friends, state officers and friends of the late governor. Upon its arrival in St. Paul the train was met by detachments of all the local companies of the National Guard and an essort of police. In spite of a heavy downpour of rain thousands of people swarmed arouhd the train, and the procession to the state capitol, with the militia acting as escort, was witnessed by thousands of people. Upon arrival at the capitol the body was placed in the rotunda, where it will lie in state until this afternoon. Four commissioned officers of the National Guard, four sergeants, four corporals and four privates will stand guard by the casket until its removal from the capitol. This afternoon the Rev. J. J. Lawler, chaplain of the governor’s staff, will conduct services in the capitol. Thursday the body will be taken to St*Peter, where final services will be held under Presbyterian auspices, with the Rev. E. E. Clark in charge. (Interment |will be in, ((the family cemetery at St. Peter, where Governor Johnson is to be burled beside his mother. Governor' Johnson’s Life. Governor Johnson's mother and father were poor immigrants from Sweden—both arriving in St Peter, Minn.,, in 1853. They were married in 1858. The father, Gustav, was a man of some inherited property and fair education, but he wasted his inheritance before leaving Sweden, and when he came to America took up the blacksmith’s trade, which he had learned as a boy. At first he conducted a small but prosperous blacksmith shop in the country near St Peter. Later the family moved into the Tillage, and it was her®, July 28, 1881, that the second son, John, was bora. The father was cursed with the drink habit and, in consequence, after h few years of prosperity, the family was rtdjwefi to desperate straits. So dire wm Ito poverty that the mother had to take in washing for a living, and John acted as her delivery boy. When in his twelfth year, the destitution of the little family, consisting then of the mother and father and three children, bad reached such a point that John begged his mother fbr permission to quit school to help her. She reluctantly consented, fearing that her son would never be able to return to school. This fear was fully justified for after that time the future Governor of Minnesota knew the four walls of the school room no more. Hie boy went to work In a general store in the village at $lO a month, and every cent of this generous salary was lurnjed into the family His spare < .momenta from the store were still I devoted to delivering laundry for his mother, and the earnings of mother 1 and son were sufficient to keep the little establishment going. As time went on their condition improved with 1 [John’s increasing salary. Two years i after going to* work he was receiving I sl2 a month, and a little later was ] getting more. From this time on the • ■ ‘ .. ’

raday, Sept. 23 If Op * mother was not compelled to work for the family maintenance. The son provided the entire income, and the mother returned to her proper work of housekeeping and caring for the family. From the general store John went into a drug store, where he stayed for about nine years and became* a 'licensed pharmacist. Later he was employed by a railway contractor inj. Minnesota and lowa, and at that time, in his early twenties, his income averaged about $75 a month. All the time, whether at home or away, he regarded himself as the head and mainstay of the family, and provided funds, in addition, for educating>the brother and sister who survived eariy childhood. The turning point in Governor Johnson’s career—the point from which he began to be a public mind—came with the opportunity to become editor of the village paper, the St Peter Herald. Johnson was in the neighboring city of Mankato when the offer came, allowing him to pMtohase a half interest in the Herald and become editor. He had to confess that be was without funds for investment, that he was supporting his mother and family and had heavy expenses to meet in the way of does tor bills and funeral expenses for three of the sisters who died in early youth. Moreover, the father had permitted taxes to accumulate on the little hoifie in St Peter until they amounted to >125; and when the property was * sold by sheriff, Johnson bought it with money saved from his $75 a month, so that the mother and the younger children would not be disturbed. His friends in St. Peter advanced the money to buy the half interest in the paper. The new editor developed a great aptitude for the work and with it took on a larger service in the community. The governor’s mother lived in comfort and peace until three years ago—lived to see governor of Minnesota. A short time before her death She said this afc*fe devoted soft: “No mother ever had a more loving and more dutiful son than John has been to me. During the poverty and suffering which came to us, he was our comfort and our support. I do not know what we could have done without his aid. He was always kind and tender with all of qs»’> continued the mother between sobs, “and in every true sense was the mainstay of our little home. He cheerfully turned over his money to me on every pay day .and before he wqs 14 years old he was making enough so that I was no longer compelled to take in washing. I never have been prouder of him than I was the evening he came home and told me his salary had been increased and that he would no longer permit me to do this kind of work. I think, too, that this was one of the proudest momenta of his fife. He took care of us in times of sickness and death, paying all the expenses, and doing it with a spirit which has made him doubly dear to us. Very few mothers have bepn blessed with such a son, and to all who have been so blessed, I offer my sincerest congratulations. He has been one son in ten thousand.” . . «... ■ _ .o' . COMING HERE FRIDAY NIGHT “The Farmer’s Daughter” the offering at the Bosse .opera house on Friday, Sept 24, is credited with being one of the best rural dramas ever written, possessing besides the usual quota of quaint story that is good and simple, one that easily recalls the clover-laden hills of “Old New England.” It is good to know that' plays of this character are stiil prime favorates with the theatergoing. public and the comments about “The Farmer’s Daughter’* are particularly strong in aprpoval. In fact it Is being hailed everywhere as 1 the successor to “The Old Home- * stead” and “Way Down East” The 1 company presenting the play is said I to be above the average, every player i being engaged for his or her peculiar i fitness for the role taken. The scenic i embellishment is nothing short of < beautiful, add so nature 1 that each < act recalls some Incident of childhood i on “the old farm.” < —-o. .— —- ] A deal was completed today by I which Gus Yarger, who sold his Adams t county farm a few days ago, bought < the Neal Crowl farm, known as the old i Wisner farm, northeast of Bluffton In 1 Lancaster township. There is 40 acres 1 in the tract and he paid for it $3,500. 1 Mr. Yarger intends to build a hand* 1 some new modern country residence i on the farm and will move there about j the first of the year, when he gives < possession of the Adams county farm, i -Bluffton News. <

■■ -= ' /.. ■■ MANY LIVES ARE LOST Frightful Tales of Storm , Devastation on Louisiana \ Coast Line A TIDAL WAVE The Property Loss Will Figure Ten Millions—New 1 Orleans Flooded I New Orleans, La., Sept 22 —(Special to the Daily Democrat)—The refugees that are reaching New Orleans this morning from the southern Louisiana coast declare that the tidal wave that swept the coast of Grand Island westward to Vermilion Parish, at least three hundred lives were lost. Telephone messages from Houma declares that the coast line for twentyfive miles was swept Jn by a tidal Fave that reached inward for a distance of two miles in many places. At least five thousand people live in the territory swept by the flood and three hundred is a low estimate Os the number that has met death. The wave rose suddenly and the homes of fisher4nen and planters were inundated almost without warning. AU telegraph lines leading to New Orleans are still z down and only the outside community r a can be reached by telephone. The loss to property will reach more than ten millions. Four hundred people who were held up on two Louisville & Nashville trains were brought to New Orleans last night, and many of them had been without food for two days. Three hundred city squares in New Orleans is under water. THE FUNERAL HERE Benjamin Hill Died at Hammond Sunday Evening After Long Illness AT DAUGHTER’S HOME Was Well Known Here— Death Due to Tuberculosis and Cancer of Eye ■ S i Benjamin Hill, for mqny years a resident ot this city and community, : died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. i Blanche Smith, At Hammond. Indiana, i Sunday evening at 6:30 o’clock. The 1 ! remains were brought here yesterday* l afternoon over the Erie and funeral < services were held from the Valley 1 church, and interment made in the > cemetery nearby. Mr. Hill was seventy-five year#" old and a ‘pioneer]! of this locality. For years he was ' known as the fife player, his services ! being enlisted on every public occa- J sion. For some time he has been I' disabled to such an 'extent that he w was almost helpless and has made his ' home here with a son, Jesse Hill, un- 1 til recently recently when 'he went to ' Hammond, where his death occurred. He has suffered from tuberculosis for t < some time and to this was added the;' pain and sufferings caused by a can- J cer which affected the eye. He »as ’ well known here especially among the older citizens. 7 ' •

* a hC. -r— OINCULATieM 2800 WKffiKLV

Number 38 -!— ■*!■■■"■■ 1 ■■ ■<—— OLD <ABHIONED SPELLING BEE Will Be Given at the Methodist Church on Next Friday Evening. State Supt. of Public Instruction Aley has urged that the old time methods of spelling be established throughout the state. The system of “spelling down’* is rapidly coming in use again. Now the Epworth League of the M. E. church is to have one of these spewing matches in the lecture roojn of the church Friday evening. A good program will also !>e rendered. The Epworth Leaguers are noted for their ability in entertaining and should be well patronized. The old people will spell against the « young people or vice versa, and a prize will be given to the best speller. The words to be used will be from the first four books of the New Testament Something to eat and drink. This is not all. A good time. A small sum of ten cents will be charged to all persons above six years of age. The money goes to a good causemissionary. Come and bring your friends. 7:30 p. m. — _o- =_ THE cm AFFAIRS ♦ Taken Care of at Regular Session of the Council Last Evening REPEAL ORDINANCE — Petitioned for by Draymen and Others — Monroe Street Sidewalk Lost The regular semi-monthly session ofTity council was held Tuesday evening and quite a little business was transacted during the hour. All the members were present and Mayor France presided. The minutes of previous meetings were read and approved. Attorney Beatty then presented a petition signed by 140 citizens of Decatur asking for the repeal of the dray and hack ordinance, and the same was referred to the judiciary commitee. There was no argument and no excitement The street and sewer committee reported that repairs were necessary on north Second street and the city attorney was ordered to notify Haugk & Woods, the contractors, to do same at once. This committee was also authorized to hire some one to build the cement approach at the corner of First and Monroe streets. The clerk was ordered to notify the gas company to repair streets and sidewalks damaged by the repair of their lines and to make same as good as they were before. The assessment roll on the D. I. Weikel sidewalk was approved and the clerk ordered to certify same to the treasurer fyr collection. The contract and bond of Henry Stevens for the Frank Brown sewer was read'and approved. A resolution was then read to build a sidewalk from the river bridge on Monroe street to the G. R. ft I. railroad. TBie resolution lost, however, the vote k being Buras, ( . Chronister and Martin “No” and Christen and Van Camp “yes.” Lew Corbin filed a petition asking that the band' rooin be allbwedPth® free use of electric lights two nights a week and this was referred to the electric committee. A letter was read containing an offer to buy the old boilers at the city plant and. the finance committee were authorized to sell same to the best advantage. By a resolution the funds in the fire department, '52,522.11 were transferred to the general fund,' The salary resolution to allow the pay to city officials for quarter ending September 30, carried. The Reports of the clerk and treasurer for August were filed and referred to the finance committee. The following bills were allowed: Frank Fisher .....$ 9.00 George Keizer & Co 17.76 ! Ft. Wayne Oil & Suply C 0... 7.36 Lgunday Creek Coal Co 34.13 Peerless Coal Co 12.38 Enos Lord 22.40 Bass Foundry & Meh. Wks... 72.05 Wells Fargo Express Co JO Chicago ft Erie 266.25 ■W. J. Archbold 1.80 H. Harruff 20.00 City of Portland 10.80 Union Oil Works 17.01 Schafer Hardware Co. 19.02