Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 53, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 March 1914 — MONTICELLO ALMOST ABANDONS SERVICE [ARTICLE]

MONTICELLO ALMOST ABANDONS SERVICE

■>, ‘ Subscribers Tie Up Receivers and Say That They Will Continue Boycott Indefinitely. Monticello is in the throes'of a serious telephone war. All who had signed the agreement to discontinue the service unless the company made concessions looking toward the adjustment of the difficulties with country subscribers, tied up their receivers Sunday and refuse to use the instruments for any purpose. Others are joining in - the boycott. Almost every business house in the city has discontinued the service. Six of the physicians have advertised that calls must be made in person, by messenger or by postal card. Five grocers are publishing the following advertisement:

“It is probable that after Saturday, Feb. 28th, we will have no tejephone service. All grocery orders will have to be made by mail or in person. We ask that you remember the position we have taken on the telephone question to help adjust the matter, and give us your business.” Saturday night a public meeting was held and a communication from the telephone company uwa® presented. It said that it was impossible to adjust the contentions with the 100 farmers in the neighborhood of* Buffalo in so short a time and that it could not accede to the demand for service free of tolls to Idaville, Yeoman and Reynolds, as the company did not own those lines. L. D. Carey, attorney for the people, gave advice aa to how to proceed in carrying out the ultimatum whidh the subscribers had issued. A suggestion was made that a committee of ten be appointed to handle the questions at issue, but the motion was withdrawn because of lack of authority to act inasmuch as the committee would have no power to act for the telephone company. The Public Service Commission Is being advised of the situation and will probably act soon, although the Monticello Journal says: ‘Today the. telephone service of the town is nil when it comes to communicating with the business men of the town and is lik-ely to be for months to come as there are qnly a few phones left in business houses.”

Isaac Wells, of Barkley township, who is a candidate for the repub lican nomination for sheriff, has run across one rather peculiar proposition in making the ra e for the nomination. As a school boy he was nicknamed “Jack,” and the name has always stood with him and many who knew him best did not know he had any other name. The consequence is that as he goes about the county he is told by many that they did not knew he was the man who was running. So “Jack” has had his announcement re-written and it now reads “Jack”, as well as Isaac, and he wants it understood that “Ike” and “Jack” are one and the same person and that he don’t care which he is called so long as he gets your vote. Fred Hupp, of Stillwell, has a Shropshire ewe of which he is pardonably proud. Thursday of last week she gave birth to four lambs, all of which are doing well, and give promise of growing up to become flrsfrclass wool producers. One lamb is the usual birth rate, two are quite common, three are very rare, while four is an unusual event and cause lor comment. Possibility of dissolution of the Elgin board of trade by governmental order or through voluntary action by the directors of the organization, was hinted in Chicago when it became known that the present federal grand jury had listened to witnesses in relation to alleged Axing of butter prices A young man suffering with smallpox was taken Saturday from a Pennsylvania railroad train with his mother and brother and taken to the municipal hospital in Pittsburg. All other passengers were vaccinated. -P. J. Schuyler, a lawyer, testified in the arson trial before Judge Sullivan in Chicago Saturday that his flrm had paid Benjamin Fink $2,000 in South Bend to turn state’s vldcnce. The money was repaid by insurance companies, he said.