Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 285, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1913 — Page 2

JOHN RAWN

PROMINENT CITIZEN By EMERSON HOUGH

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Synopsis.

John Rawn Is born In Texas. Early In life he shows signs of masterfulness and Inordinate selfishness. He marries Laura Johnson. He is a derß In a St. Louis railway office when his daughter Grace Is born. Years later he hears Grace’s lover, a young engineer named .Charles Halsey, speak of a scheme to utilise the tost current of electricity. He appropriates the Idea as his own and induces Halsey to perfect an experimental machine. He forms a company, with himself as president. at a salary of SIOO,OOO a year, and Halsey as superintendent of the works at a salary of $5,000. Rawn takes charge of the office in Chicago. Virginia Delaware Is assigned as his stenographer. She assists in picking the furniture and decoration for the princely mansion Rawn has erected. Mrs. Rawn feels out of place In the new surroundings. Halsey goes to New York with Rawn and Miss Delaware to explain delays in perfecting the new motor to the impatient directors. He gets a message that a deformed daughter has been born to his wife. Grace Rawn. Rawn bargains with Miss Delaware to wear his jewelry and appear in public with him, as a means to help him in a business way. CHAPTER V.—Continued. He began to be just a shade more familiar; but she looked at him, still curiously helpless, because she found him strong where most men are weak and defenseless. He caught some sort of challenge in her attitude and In spite of himself trod a half step forward. . . . She evaded him. He heard her laughter rippling in the hall, and followed. . . . Soon they were in the crowded lift, packed insagainst shirt front and aigrette, silmcpmd Jewels, arms and bosoms bared for the evening's fray. It may be true that no gentleman is grown in less than three generations, but it is not it requires three generations produce an aristocrat; and here was simple and perfect proof of that assertion. Head waiters make no mistakes! The head waiter of the main hall unhesitatingly took John Rawn and his companion to as good a table as there was in the room. He knew the air of distinction when he saw it! Heads, in plenty, of men and other women, turned as they passed through in that careless throng of the worldwise and blase. They walked by quietly, simply, took their -places with no hesitation. The two ate and drank discreetly, comported themselves, in fact, easily as any of these scores of others. They did not lean toward each other and obviously talk secrets, they did not laugh uneasily and stare about. Among the many well-bred women in that room—where at least a few such were present —none showed an easier accustomedness than Virginia Delaware. Her eagerness, her feverish anxiety, all now were-gone. She 1 was perfectly in hand. It was her pleasure now only to prove her fitness for such a scene, to comport herself as though she had known no other surroundings than these in all her life. Once more the miracle of possibility in the young American woman was shown. 0 Rawn, discreet as his companion, looked on with approval. “You’re it!” he once whispered across the table, as he bent above the menu. “You are the part!" Suddenly there came to him out of this occasion an additional surge of self-confidence. Yes, he said to himself, he, too, could travel this gait. He could step easily into this life, the summit of life in America — as he thought—as though born to it. He could Bpend money with the best. He could obtain for himself as beauti ful a woman to wear his jewels as any man here in all this great city. He could as widely advertise his power, his wealth, as any of these. Did he not see envious eyes bent qpon his companion and upon himself? It was done! He had won! He had succeed ed! ——■- ‘ V After all, it had been easy, as he had found so many things easy in the test.. As to the young woman with him, John Rawn’s cold heart went out In admiration. “By Jove!” he said, "she’s a lady, that’s what she is. She’d be —” Yet it is to be ndTed that his admiration for this young woman was primarily based not upon the usual impulses of men so situated, but upon a vast self-respect, for that he had placed her here and so proved his own Judgment to he good. Some souls are slow to any love but that of the approbation of self being tfie breath of life to them. Even the beauty of Virginia Delaware—and she was beautiful —was swallowed up in John Rawn’i love and admiration for himself. There was, thps far, no suggestion of Impropriety between them, now or later. They dined long, deliberately and well. Miss Delaware drank no wine, Rawn himself only abstemiously. The keenest delight of the evening felt by cither came not of food or drink. The intoxication of the city’s night life fell upon them, entered itheir souls. Distant and ylow-voiced musical instruments set the air athrob with sensuous melody. As they sat thus calmly, apparently, as most might have said, old habitues of scenes’flke this, apparently persons of wealth and distinction, Rawn felt once more bent upon him the look of a passer-by. There approached the table where they sat the couple he had seen earlier that evening, a state--1; and beautiful young woman, whose features now were a trifle more anljmated, whose eyes were brighter; and

with her the same dyspeptic director, sallow, with pointed dark beard. His face flushed still more as he saw John Rawn and his companion. He turned an admiring gaze upon the latter, whom of course he did not recognize. Rawn caught the gaze. It was the keenest delight of his evening that he could smile back, showing his own teeth also. “By Jove!” muttered the ex-direc-tor to himself. "I beg pardon!" haughtily commented his own fair agnapanlon, who had caught his gaze aside. “You know that person? Who is she?” “I don’t know, my dear —I’m just trying to think. Her sac looks like the goddess on some stock certificate I’ve seen— ’’ “Indeed?” “Yes, goddess with a, handful of lightning bolts.” “Indeed?” “Yes. We might call her the ‘Lady of the Lightnings’ tonight. She surely does shine like the bright and morning star, the way she’s illuminated—eh, what?" "Indeed?” "Well, hang It all! She’s a looker, too!” “Indeed?" “Yes, indeed! And they both look like ready money.” The ex-director gave a little laugh. “You don’t know them?” asked his companion, more placated as they reached the corridor, where Virginia Delaware was at last out of sight. “No, I don’t know her—never saw her before, unless, as I said, in an en-

“No, I Don’t Know Her—”

graying. Don’t worry—l haven’t got any of the engravings—now.” “Who is he?” “Fellow by name of Rawn, from Chicago.” “Oh!”

CHAPTER VI. John Rawn, Prominent Citizen. The blare and blaze of American life went on In all its capitals of industry. Buildings sprang up, factories poured their smoke unceasingly into the sky. Men ran hither and thither like ants, busy about what seemed to them of importance. Vast hives of heaped-up stone 'twice daily poured out their population of small creatures, some of them crippled, hurt, shorn in the battle of life, their faces pale, their bowed and stunted before their time. OUt of the rich west poured always a steady stream of the products of the soil and of the mines, wealth unspeakable, dug from resources of this admirable country of ours. Many produced It, a few controlled It, all required it. But there came a sort of hush over all the country, as though an eclipse were passing, or some gloom cast by a cloud coming between these cities and the sun. Men said that business was not so good as it should be, though the country was richer than ever. None understood the popular unrest. Many - pondered, many attempted to explain, but they found all save the easy and obvious explanation. The masses remained morose, dissatisfied. Pamphlets appeared. In the journals pretending to give voice to popular trend of thought there were now to be seen many screeds from many unknown men. Some men said that prices should rise, others that rates of transportation should rise, but that wages should decrease. Others said that wages should increase—a few only of these, not many; for those who needed most a larger wage were those ihost dumb of expression, least able and least apt to make any public protest. Our proudest may be our poorest —our neediest our most silent.

In John Rawn’s slowly growing factories near the western capital wages did not He kept on his fight with the labor organizations. For this reason he met additional expense and additional delay In carrying on his plans, but still waged war, relaxing not at all, meeting pickets with policemen, force with force. The popular discontent of the day meant nothing to him. His eye was fixed ahead. To Halsey's

THE EVENING REPUBLICAN, RENSSELAER, IND.

complaints on the one side, his directors’ discreet grumbling on the other, he paid as little attention on the one hand as upon the other. John Rawn had a dream, and he knew that his dream must come true. His dream was one of a wide-reaching and relentless poweY, shared by those few men destined by fate to own the so-called American Let the people do what they would, all they could This was his dream. It had come to him in all its fullness one evening in the great city of the east. He exulted As to the industrial situation in'lnternational Power, Rawn now began to prove himself a good business man, and he received more and more the grudged confidence of his associates, who came from almost every rank of big business. Through the aid and advice of these, his~ private fortune began to mount up enormously. So also did International Power make money. The only sore place of the directors’ overstrained nerves centered in affairs at the gaunt building in the suburb, where a dozen mysterious machines, toothed and armed, cogged and coiled, still stood in a state of half-comple-tion, as inchoate and mysterious now as they had been at their inception. There was something else, which not the most suspicious guessed—John Rawn himself did not know! His success was a vast bubble. Halsey was the only man who ever had knowD the full secret of mantling one of the miraculous receivers which they all had seen and all had accepted. Rawn, bold enough, kept this to himself, although he feared to go to Halsey and make any demands. Halsey held grim peace for months—indeed, for more than four years in all, counting from the first motor made in the Kelly row woodshed. It was risky, but for once Rawn dared make no desperate move. Halsey talked little. He'was very sad since the birth of his hunchbacked child. Sometimes he talked to Virginia Delaware about it; never to his wife, Grace.

And still the seven days’ wonder of International Power remained to puzzle the Industrial world. No inkling of the real intention of the company ever got out. There was, as Rawn had predicted, no market for the stock, for the reasoj, that it was not listed and .for the further reason that it was not sold. It was held in a dose communion of hard-headed and closemouthed men, and there were no confidences. betrayed. The thing .was too big to conform to ordinary rules. In the. center of all this stood the figure of John Rawn, suddenly grown large and strong. He ruled his army, officers, staff and line, cavalry, infantry and auxiliaries, as one born originally to command. He brooked neither parleying nor thwarting of his will—except in one instance. He never made any demands on Halsey, never gave him any peremptory orders after that one day in the office, months earlier, before Halsey made his first trip to New York.

These months seemed to have aged John Rawn, none the less. He grew grimmer and grayer, more taciturn and reserved. At the clubs he was one of the most talked-of men In town, and one who talked least himself.. As his hair grew grayer at the temples, his jaw grew harder, at the corner of his chin coming the triangular wrinkles which go with hard-faced middle age. Enigmatic, self-centered. Tiecould not have been called a happy man. He smiled but rarely, joked not at all, engaged in no badinage, told no stories, found no lighter side of life, played no golf, had no vacations. Like some vast engine of tremendous driving power he went on his way, admired in a city and country full of able men, as one competent to hold his own with the best and strongest of them all. And still of all his traits stood out the one of self-confidence. He played a game of enormous and continuous risk —fundamental risk by reason of Halsey, incidental by reason of his widely ballooned market operations; yet his nerve held. Moreover, he was learning the price of success—an absolute devotion to the means of success. .When he learned that the child of his daughter was not a son, but a gfrl. and that it was a hunchback for life, a sad-faced, unsmiling child—he set his jaws hut said few words of condolence, either to his daughter or her husband. In the headquarter offices a vast, smooth running business machine had new been built up. RaAvn was an organizer. The laxness and looseness of the old railway offices in St. Louis, where he had got his business schooling, were missing in the headquarters of International Power. Employes had

SELL CHILDREN AS SLAVES

Plan of Callous Welsh Father Recalls Actual Practice in Some Places. Great indignation was caused recently when a, relieving officer in Wales said that a man had told him he ‘intended to make an application to the J board of trade for permission to sell his children. According to the relieving officer, this mau said that “sheep were selling well at present, and he believed that his children would also sell well if put up at "public auction.” Such callousness on the part of a father is almost unbelievable in civilized Britain, and it will no doubt astonish people to hoar that in many parts of the world the selling of human beings still goes on with lamost as much energy as In the old days of slavery. For Instance, at Ravensburg, In the

small time to gossip lh business hours. Out of business hours, it Is to be confessed, once in a while there was discussion as to the salary of Miss Virginia Delaware, which was reported a wholly testable affair. It was rumored in stenographic circles that she had taken to wearing very stunning evening gowns. Yet not the most capwillingness did not lack raise voice against her, or couple her name with any other. Rawn and she were never seen together excepting during business hours; he never mentioned her name in any company. Once or twice a laughing voice at the National Union, where rich men met in numbers, tried to create some sort of discussion over Rawn’s beautiful private secretary, but it was so suddenly stopped by Rawn himself that it never was resumed. Upon the other hand, few could speak'in definite knowledge regarding the domestic matters'-of John Rawn. He was a man of mystery, though one of known and admitted power. He held what he gained; and, as there must have been accorded to him strength of soul, grasp, readiness, courage, he began to be accepted as one ot the large figures of his day alike In industry and finance. He had by this time fully arrived in the prominent citizen class in his chosen metropolis. Did firemen perisji. John Rawn joined the list of those who aided the widows. Was some neighboring city swept by flames, again he joined—on the front page of the papers—those who gave succor for the needy. Did a f&mine in India or China sweep off a million souls, John Rawn —on the front page—aided the survivors. He was a member of the leading clubs of the city, a director of the board of the art institute. He bought if he did not occupy a box at the opera, had allowed his name to be mentioned at the banquets offered by eager souls to celebrities of one sort or another who < proved themselves amenable *to receptions, banquets, addresses of welcome, and what-not, anything to bring lesser names into print on any page, tails to any kite. In short, John Rawn comported himself as a prominent citizen should. Ever he was the kite, never the tail. He loomed a large and growing figure in his little world. .Above all, there seemed something uncanny in the unvarying facility with which Rawn made money. There is no real explanation of the difference in money-making power, except that some men make money and some do not. Rawn did, without any doubt or question. Not lacking ability and calmness in judgment, and not Ricking full information such as is accorded those said to be upon the sacred inside of the market, he was in and out of Rubber, Coppers, Steel, at precisely the right time. His oil investments in California, played up and down in proper symphony, had made him more than a million dollars, smoothly, easily, simply. The railways market was an open book to him, and public utilities seemed something he could gage while others stood and wondered. There are times when some men win. Rawn could not lose, whether he dealt in Ontario Silvers, Arizona Coppers, anything he liked. He was in with the pack when, in these last fierce days of individual and corporate greed, It finished pulling down a republic, and battened, guzzled at the bowels of the quarry. He partook with thee#* of a broad knowledge of the narrowing raw resources of the country, and was in with them at the death. He was one of those to get hold of large acreages of the passing timber lands, he was counted with those who sought the great coal fields for their own; ran true to scent, with these, the trail of monopoly In any commodity which the people more and more must need. In the one matter of his relations with a certain transcontinental railway, Rawn made a quarter , million as his share of the three-quarters of a billion taken in sales of mineral lands from the railway’s land-grant holdings. That the grants had covered only agricultural lands mattered little, for when the sleepy government at Washington reluctantly took the trail, it was shown a law, cunningly passed a few years earlier, which barred the republic, by virtue of a six-year statute of limitations, from recovering any of its own property! John Rawn often laughed over that. He laughed also when the "suckers.” as they called them, bit just as eagerly at irrigation as they had at mines. He often laughed —it was all so ridiculously easy to pull down a country, when the running was in good company! He was a prominent citizen. {TO BE CONTINUED.)

Tyrol, a children’s market is held every year, where the children of the poor are sold by auction to the highest bidders. As a rule, boys and girls do not bring more than a few shillings. When bought the children are taken away to do hard work, the boys being used for agricultural purposes and the girls for domestic work. Sometimes, when a would-be purchaser cannot decide between two boys he makes the youngsters fight, and buys the winner. A former woman police assistant in Germany created a sensation last year when she alleged that hundreds of children are sold at prices varying from $76 toyfl.OOO, most being sent to Russia. In Germany, so it was asserted, the sale of boys and girls is not confined to the poor. Even the children of aristocratic parents are occasionally sold. prlceß varying from $1,250 to $2,500. Apparently the police do nothing to (top this state of things.—Tit-Bits.

SOME GOOD NEIGHBORLY SUGGESTIONS

(By L. M. BENNINGTON.) If you are a bit forehanded with the late fall work r and a neighbor has had hard luck, why not take the boys and a team over and give him a lift? It will pay big heart interest. ( We all have good reason to be thankful that we are living in an age where the farm is more highly regarded as an uplifting factor in civilization than before. We have never yet seen a farm so small that a good* farmer could find no work to be done upon it. Some men are honest because it pays, and a few because they cannot help it. The man who will sit baking his back before a hot stove during stormy weather, while his animals are left to huddle in the lee of a rail fence, has a fatal twist in his make-up. It is the first blizzard that gives the animals a hard set-back. Everything

SULPHUR HARMFUL TO YOUNG CHICKS

Lard Grease’ Alone Is Quite Effective in Destroying Hfead Lice on Youngsters.

(By A. J. LEGG.)

It has twice come under my observation that sulphur and grease used upon young chicks to kill headlice killed the chicks also. Only a few days ago a woman mixed sulphur with hog’s lard and greased under the wings of hens that were entrusted with the brooding of 40 young chicks. The grease and sulphur killed all but one of the young chicks. Lard without sulphur is quite as efeetive in destroying the head lice, and it should be applied carefully and in small quantities. The lice cannot live in grease, and die almost as soon as the grease touches them. Two or three applications are sufficient to rid a brood effectually of head lice.’* The applications should be a week or ten days apart.

SUGGESTIONS FOR MAKING GOOD BUTTER

Gilt-edge butter can come only from gilt-edged fingers. The cows are the beginning. Some cows give milk that can be turned into good hard, sweet butter. Others, you cannot make good, firm butter from to save your life. Do ttie best you can, it will still be waxy, soft and of poor flavor. So the cows must be right if you would make butter that 1b right. , It takes a few years to change off a lot of poor cows, unless a man has a good pocketful of money. Cows cost these days; but by taking a bit of time, you can grow calves up through to the dairy which will do good work, and take a lot of comfort doing it, too. After you get your cows, ld>ok out for men to handle them right. Be Buch a man yourself. That is, be kind, be careful, be thorough, You may think these things have little to do with butter that will take the*blue ribbon, but they do. If you give your work this kind of attention, you are hound to win.

Give Your Neighbor a Lift.

for their protection should be Msady against the day. The man who plants a 60-acre apple orchard now and takes care of it for ten years can have no fear of want in the future. - Keep open the windows of the sleeping rooms —pile on the blankets, and keep the fires going all night, if necessary. Warm air can be pure as well aB cold air. The man who fails to cut ice in the winter does not cut much ice with the women folk at any season. No matter if our neighbor is too lazy to do his share of dragging the road. We must drag it ourselves, a 3 we can better afford to ignore him than to miss good markets on account of poor roads. You can generally tell, the quality of farmer by the fence he keeps. —lt’s a mean man who will allow his wife to hang out wet clothes in freezing weather.

SHOULD PROVIDE SUITABLE COOPS

Chickens Generally Seek the Same Roosting Place and Carry Insects With Them. Poultry, roosting in trees, is not exempt from insect enemies. This has been proved by the experience of many who make a business of raising; poultry. An examination of the limbs of trees where the young flocks roost at night, before the birds have been yarded and housed for the winter, will show countless numbers of mites resting .under the loose hack. Chickens generally seek the same roosting place night after night, and oarry Insects with .them. The tree becomes infested and the vermin increase in numbers with wonderful rapidity, finally, sapping the vitality of the birds. Then farmers wonder why food does not fatten. When birds are old enough to “climb trees” they should be placed in coops that can be easily disinfected and kept in a healthy condition, if the best finaih cial results are expected.

Milking by Electricity.

pains. Where? Care in having the cows nice and clean at milking time. Be careful yourself. Care in handling the udder of the cows gently. The cow that feels good gives most milk and the best milk. Care in getting all the cow has to give. It is the last few streams that puts the money in your pail. Care in straining and getting it to the milkhouE® The way milk is separated from cream makes a lot of difference, too. Somehow you must skim clean. If you have a separator, let it be a good one, and learn how to use It right. Ripen your cream in a place where there will be no bad smells to flavor it. More butter than we know of is spoiled by badly ripened cream.

Apples are scarce In many sections and local markets are paying good prices. It may pay to exercise special care in marketing In barrels or bushel boxes; perhaps small baskets would return a larger profit.

Scarcity of Apples.