Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 January 1917 — Page 2

WITH AIRMEN OF THREE NATIONS ON RATTLE FRONT ON THE SOMM

.!> , " ' Correspondent of the New York World Found the Men of the American Escadrille Holding Their Own With British and French Because They Have Been Animated by the Same Spirit of Efficiency.

By LINCOLN EYRE. (Correspondent of the New York World.) Headquarters of the American Escndrille on the Somme Front.— With the French aviation «ls an art ; with the British, a sport, and with Americans—at least, with those on the Somme a business. 1 came to appreciate this during the four hours I spent on the aviation field which the Americans share with three of the crackest of all crack 'French eseadrilies. One cannot witness the return to earth froth flights In the danger zone of an American, an Englishman and a Frenchman without realizing to what an extent nationality counts nowadays in the curiously temperamental science of battle flying. The American escadrille is composed of youths who, compared with their French and British comrades and their German antagonists, are the veriest apprentices of the air. It is holding its own against big odde, because its members are inspired with every American’s ruling passion—efficiency. They fight with the machinelike precision that has made American business big. Their viewpoint embraces neither the Briton’s sporting proclivities nor the artistic finesse of the French. v No “FHI»s” to Thfr Report. Adjutant Giras Lufbery, the escadrille’s star by right of mention in the official communique for bringing down his fifth enemy’s plane, landed from a volunteer excursion into “Germany” —everything beyond the French lines is “Germany” to an aviator —soon after my arrival at the field. I watched him dismount and make his report to Captain Themralt, the Americans’ French commander, as follows: ,T ~ “I met a couple of boches at 9,000 feet over Bouehavesnes and dived on one of them, a thousand feet or so below me. He was an Albatross, I guess, doing observation work. The other was an Aviatik, protecting him, so he started for me as soon as I started for the Albatross, Who was beating it away fast. caught up in time to shoot a drum at him. It looked like he was falling, but I didn’t have time to watch, because the Aviatik was shooting at’me from above. I spiraled down out of-his reach and then turned up again, looking for him, but he’d disappeared. Maybe I got the Albatross, though. You haven’t heard from the observation people, have you?” Lufbery’s tone was as matter-of-fact «. as a stock broker telling about the day’s doings on the Street. He omitted to remark that his plane bore several fresh bullet holes, 5 any one of which, a few inches to right, or left, would have_.scored a bull’s-eye for the Avlatik's machine gunner. Doubtless he figured the holes were not worth mentioning, because they hadn’t ira-, paired the fighting efficiency of his craft. “A Jolly Good Day.” Soon afterward a British airman, obliged to seek his allies’ hospitality through lack of petrol, swung down in front of the JiYench hangars. He was quickly surrounded by a crowd of French pilots and mechanicians, eager to inspect an so different from their own make 3. he shook hands all around, lit a cigarette and observed airily: “Jolly good day today, eh what? Perfectly ripping to have a go at the old boches again after all this rotten weather. I’ve just been having a bit of a show with four of , him—all Avlatiks.too —but it was too much like the hare facing the hounds, you know, so I came away in a hurry. .Don’t mind chancing it with two boches, you know, but four to one’s not cricket, by Jove, is itr His machine in order again, the ; Englishman started off for his own lines. Before leaving, however, he entertained his audience on the ground with *r series of loop-the-loops, spiraling and other stunts that made the Frenchmen gasp. A dozen times it looked as If this sportive gamboling were going to end fatally. “He’d better save that stuff for the boches,” one of the Americans remarked, and a t French pilot replied,

HAS HIS APPENDIX FOX-TROTTED OUT

1 . „ [ Chicago.—Ragtime is i the latest fad in the operating [ room. It was used by two sur--1 geoqs to assist in giving anes- ! thetics. Dr. Thomas A. Carter [ and Dr. Martin Ritter brought i « talking muchine into the oper- [ atlng room at the Columbus hos- | pltal and put on popular airs to | distract ‘resisting* patients’ atl. tention so they would be susceptible to anesthetics. "I believe It will prove a big i success,” said Doctor Bitter. “Many patients resist anesthetics. and music soothes them P. W.' Coombs of 5223 North Winchester avepue, was the patient who had his appendix foxiflUMeiWkzmri:

“Yes, it’s a mistake to do tricks Just for fun.” * The “Master of the ,Bkies.” The next man down was Guyneiner— Lieut. Georges Guynemer, holder of the Legion of Honor, the Military medal and the Croix de Guerre with 14 palms, he who, since the German Boelke’s death, *is undisputed master of the skies. Even before I saw the famous “Vieux Charles” Inscription on the cockpit of the little Nieuport I knew it was Guynemer, from the throng of aviators and mechanicians gathered about the machine. There was something impressive about the silent way they watched this stripling rise up out of his seat and clamber to the ground. Even before removing his goggles and helmet Guynemer pointed out to his mechanicians what mast be done to the plane—the cavalier thinking first of his steed, When hjs flying clothes had been taken off he turned with a smile to the group of airmen waiting to hear, as they always do when Guynemer returns, what he had to say. One would fancy that having seen 22 foemen tumble earthward under the lightning of his machine gun, he would have become a bit blase about it. But Guynemer is a great artist, and great artists are never blase about their art A casual question from one of his comrades started him off on an Odyssey of the skies that fairly rang with unconscious poetry. What he had to tell was no more important than Lufbery’s laconic report; the way he told it was like Chenal singing the “Marseillaise.” All the Celt and all the artist in his make-up rushed to the surface. His eyes flashed, his hands shot out in nervous, expressive gestures, his whole slim body seemed to vibrate with emotion. His 3 listeners, being Frenchmen, were enthralled. One realized why this boy of twenty-one is

:<the adored of . all France. $ “What’s he goexcitedabout?” asked one of the Americans!, wfc knowledge of French and Guynemer is imperfect! “He must have brought down about ten today to go on like that.” From Verdun to Picardy. Without attempting to pass upon .the merits or demerits of the various racial characteristics outlined above, ' I may say that the Americans have won for themselves a perfectly good place in the sun of allied aviation. The proof of it is their having been shifted from luxurious establishments at Bar-le-Duc and Luxeuil to leaky cabins amid the eternal mud of this field in Picardy. Tested in toe mazing furnace of Verdun, they were not found wanting. So now they are privileged to share with France’s aerial aristocracy the hardships and glories of the greatest battle of them all. -• Their quarters are a long, shedlike structure, into which wind and rain enter without knocking. Each pilot has a cubbyhole the size of a Pullman drawing room, but wholly devoid of Pullman comforts, partitioned off as a bedroom. The bed is a camp cot. There is no head except that grudgingly dispensed by a small stove in the common messroom, an apartment resembling the least desirable dwelling In the most primitive of lumber camps. There is electric light, but for inscrutable military reasons it is switched off promptly at ten every night—“just when you’re in the middle of the most exciting chapter,” as Sergeant Dudley Hill put it. There are two forms of recreation — a phonograph and “Whisky.” The latter, indeed, is a tonic without which the Americans’ existence would become drab and doleful. For the censor’s sake let me hasten to explain that “Whisky,” being animal and not vegetable, cheers but does not inebriate. He is, in fact, a lion, the escadrille’s pride and joy. Therefore he is permitted to growl about Somme discomforts, which the pilots themselves never do. When the weather is particularly vile and things in general look particularly blue, somebody twists “Whisky’s” tail, and he does the growling for everybody. Temper Gets Shorter. Consequently his temper is getting shorter every day and his teeth longer,

j so that lie will. soon, he sufficiently matured, as the distillers say, '£o fulfill his appointed destiny, which consists of being carried over into the German lines by airplane and deposited there. What “Whisky,” full grown, is likely to do to the boches tickles his present masters immensely. Meantime, being little bigger than a Well-developed dachshund, this first aerial non plays “scrub” to a varsity team, of dogs of divers sizes and provides welcome comedy relief in the grim melodrama of the Somme. ',■« “* Of the nine Americans comprising the original escadrille in the Verdun sector last June only one, Lufbery. is ion- duty on the Somme today. Victor Chapman, Kiffin Rockwell, Norman Prince are dead. Clyde Balstey, who is in the American ambulance learning to walk, will never fly again. Elliot Cowdin is also in Paris, under treatment for heart trouble and nervous breakdown, which make his return to active service doubtful. James McConnell is convalescing from a bad fall he had

THE EVENfNG REPUfetICAN, RENSSELAER, IMP.

foul? months ago. Thaw and Chouteau Johnson afe on their way to America on-leave. Bert Hall, for reasons best known to himself, has left the American escadrille to join a French group. Besides Lufbery and Dldier Masson, who is in his second year as a French aviator, the “veterans” of the escadrille are Dudley Hill, with four months’ service; Paul Pavelka, Robert Rockwell and Frederick Prince, Jr., Norman’s brother, wlth elx.week»} and Willis Haviland and Robert Soubirant, with one month. Yet in the sobriety of their point of view these fledglings, despite their inexperience, differ little from the war-scarred “Old Guard.” Skylarking bay* p *sL A different aspect has come over the escadrille. Its skylarking days are past. Its members have gained a l very comprehensive understanding of what they are up against. They fly when It’s their turn to fly. and sofnetimes when it Isn’t, if circumstances seem to require it. They hunt down the enemy as resolutely as ever, but they do so because it’s their business to, and not for amusement. They take no unnecessary chances, and their professional enthusiasm lacks the devil-may-care quality of the early days. They find no more enjoyment in their work than an infantryman does in a bayonet attack, but they go through with it gallantly and well. “How long is this d n war going to last 1 ?” one hoars them Inquire nowadays. They never asked that question at Bar-le-Duc, but then It’s a long way from Verdun to. the Somme.”

TO BE RED CROSS NURSE

Miss Muriel Oakes, one of the most popular young ladies in New York society is going to France to serve as a Red‘Cross nurse. Miss Oakes thinks that all young women who are not otherwise occupied and who can arrange to do so, should take advantage of the opportunity to serve humanity. The photograph was taken at the Russian bazaar in the Seventy-First Regimetat armory, New York, when she was helping to make that venture a success. She is shown selling souvenirs.

PLAN TO STOP AUTO THEFTS

Georgia Congressman Claims He Has Found Practical Solution nf Problem. Atlanta, Ga.—Automobile thefts in the larger cities have reached such alarming proportions that many plans have been conceived by various auto owners for breaking up the practice. Georgia claims a most practical solution, submitted by Congressman William Schley Howard of Atlafita. Mr. Howard’s idea is to have the license laws require a duplicate license tag to be carried by the owner. This is to be shown on demand to any officer of the law. Mr. Howard suggests that each city detail one or more plain clothes men to this special work. Any man starting a car could be asked to show his Identification tag. This demand would cause no embarrassment or resentment on the part of the owner, in Mr. Howard’s opinion, but would make it impossible for a thief to get away with a car without the necessary tag.

Promises Odorless Onion.

Chicago.—The odorless onion will soon b 6 given to the world, according to various delegates to the ninDi am nual convention of the Vegetable Growers’ association of America. » “It will be an onion that anyone can eat and still go abroad among one’s friends,” declared a local dealer. “It will be a tearless onion, too. Its popu, larity will soon approach that of thd strawberry and the watermelon.”

Reaching the Ideal.

Of course, none of your neighbors are perfect But then, are you? But if you are to due another what you ought to be and can be you can IN aa perfect as it Is possible for mdttala to be here upon earth, —Exchange.

TRACING LOST CARS

■ ’ ( <* ) *■' i . , . SHERLOCK HOLMES TASK FO* A RAILROAD COMPANY. • • s ■ t '■%- •- . : For Some. Unexplained Reason Care Frequently Disappear and the Job of Finding Them l» Difficult. At times when the scarcity of freight cars causes the railroads to place an embargo upon certain classes of goods, the problem-of keeping track of-its cars to see that they do not run away and beconfd wanderers upon the face of the earth is a stupendous one for each company. When a freight car is built, It is given a number before it leaves the shop, and thereafter it is' always known by that number until it is worn out and scrapped. When a new car receives Its number, and starts out upon its business career, It is entered in the record book, and a careful account df Its Panderings and earning power are kept there. This record book is a history of the car, and by consulting it, one can learn how many trips It has made, what cities it has visited, how many times it has been to the repair shop, and also where it is supposed to be at any given time.

But in spite of all this care in keeping a record of each car, now and then for some unexplained reason, one disappears from sight —literally running away. Some of the big companies employ car tracers, but as a rule a printed tracer is first sent after the car to bring it back home. This printed tracer in a blue envelope, is sent to the person in whose jurisdiction the car was last supposed to be, and if it had pnsecd out of his district the tracer is seat on to the next one to whom the car‘was assigned. This little printed tracer failing to bring the car home in a reasonable length of time a man known as a tracer is sent after it. The tracer is really a railroad car detective. And sometimes it is more difficult to track a runaway freight car than a criminal. There are tens of thousands of miles of railways, and hundreds of thousands of freight cars, and to find the one carrying a certain number is often like hunting a needle in a haystack. The tracer may arrive in a city, where the runaway car is supposed to be, at the very moment when the car is leaving it in the opposite direction. It may cross his track on a parallel line, or dodge around him on a short line. It may be headed north, or rolling merrily toward the Pacific, while he is going toward the Atlantic. A runaway car apparently is as depraved its any criminal. It hides on a lonely siding, or gets lost in a short swamp line. One such runaway rested nearly a year on a siding in southern Texas simply because it got lost, and no one seemed to know just what to do with it. The nearest freight agent had no record of it, and no tracer had re-quested-iis return. .Going on the principle that what is “everybody’s businelfe is nobody’s business,” this local agent made ho effort to hunt up the owners. If the order had been received by him to return it he would have obeyed, bht lacking such orders he left it on the siding. In the courts of time, it was occupied by a family of squatters, who lived quite comfortably in it for six months, and were Touted out only when quite by accident, the car tracer discovered it. — Popular Mechanics Magazine.

Double-Tracking the Trans-Siberian.

News has been received in Tokyo reporting-the completion of the tracking of the Siberian railway. The news, says the Far East, still lacks official confirmation, but if it is well founded, it is bound to prove a welcome relief to the present congestion of traffic on that line. It recalls the fact that during the Russo-Japanese war the trans-Siberian was a one-rail road, the best the Russian engineers could do being the construction of frequent switches, so that trains could pass in either direction. And yet by Spartan regulations tfyey managed to feed munitlons for over five hundred thousand men over that “double strip of rust.”

A Stage Episode.

Miss Margaret Ulington, the wellknown actress, tells a story pf an amusing unrehearsed effect that occurred one night when she was acting in the comedy, “Mrs. Dane’s Defense.” Miss Iliington was playing the part of Mrs. Bulsome Porter and in one scene she had-to make a very serious and dignified exit. On the night in question, just aw she was going off, Mlss*~Tllington unfortunately tripped and fell full length upon the stage. This was bad enough, but, as luck would have it, the next line in the. piece, which was immediately spoken by another character, was: “Mrs. Bulsome Porter seems very much upset!”—Lonsdale (Pa.) Reporter. * t- — — ———"

Putting Euripides in His Place.

That Euripides might be styled a “lowbrow*” i® the language of today is the opinion of D% Paul Shored of the University of Chicago, and one of the best-known professors in the United States, who spoke recently at Stanford. “Euripides dragged the stately four beat anapestic verse of Sopbicles down to the level of the frying pan and the bourgeois,” said the doctor. He added that “Whatever Euripides thought, he had to sa&-and his thoughts were as plentiful as microbek”—San Francisco Chronicle.

GOOD JOKE ON A RAILROAD

Eastern Company Unwittingly Gives Away More Thpn 500,000 Tons of Coal. ' A million-dollar joke on the Delaware & Hudson Railroad company, perpetrated away back in 1906, when the railroad generously deeded 1,200 acres of mountain land to the commonwealtlr otPennsylyaniaas e site for the State Hospital for CJritqlnal Insane, came to light at Eairview the other day when a coal dealer tried to make a contract with the hospital to furnish its coal. The dealer learned to his amazement that the hospital has on its grounds more than 500,000 " tons of chestnut, pea, buckwheat and other steam sizes of coal, all within easy haulimg distance of its, powerhouse. Upon inquiry he discovered that the hospital got the coal along With the land without paying a cent The explanation is that when the land jyas deeded to the institution coal mines threw away every year thousands. t of tons of coal In the culm dumps, then thought to be useless, but Which are now yielding large returns. In 1906 the world had not learned to use small steam sizes of coal. The mines were yielding so plentifully then that grades of coal as large as chestnut were frequently dumped into the culm bank. Before- the Delaware A- Hudson turned over theland to the state, it used the mountain on which the hospital is now situated as a dump. The road had a gravity line to carry coal from its mines at Carbondale to Honesdale. In 1905 this tine was abandoned and a steam road built, and this made the mountain useless to the railroad company. But in the nine years that the gravity road was in use the road had filled swo large ravines with culm. _ The thought that this might be valuable never entered the heads of the raifroad officials, nor even of the state officials who accepted the grant of land for Pennsylvania. Bur a few years later, when the hospital was constructed, a marked change had taken place in the value of culm. The hospital authorities found that they had enough fuel in the two ravines to last them, at the lowest estimate, fully 30 years.

CATTLE PASSES OF CONCRETE

Western Railroad Makes New and Val« uable Use of Its Culvert£ip«n Instead of using culvert pipes for drainage only, a railway has installed a number of such pipes on its line between Minneapolis and Superior, as cattle passes, These new culverts

One of Several Large Culverts, Made of Oval Conrete Pipe, Which Serve as Cattle Passes Under a Railway.

are of re-enforced concrete and are made in sections five feet six Inches long. Each section is oval in shape, being 7 feet 5 inches in height and 7 feet wide. A flat space, 2 feet wide, serves as the bottom of the passageway. These pipes have been found fully as satisfactory as the arched or boxlike culverts which are commonly built where a pass for stock must be provided beneath an elevated track. The various sections of the pipe, after being placed, were cemented together. —Popular Mechanics Magazine.

New Use for X-Ray.

In Switzerland recently the Roentgen rays have been jnade use of with great success for the examination* of re-enforced concrete work about which any question may have arisen. The advantage of being able to make an examination of the condition of # such-re-enforcements or the proper disposition affd situation thereof, without destroying the concrete structure are self-evident, as well as the desirability of being able to make an inspection of the position of the re-enforc-ing iron rods upon the completion of the cement-parts of a new’ building or a new structure.

Alaskan Progress.

A generation ago men would have recoiled from the idea that the Klondike gold fields, even if they existed, would ever be developed. The very possibility of parrying civilization into such a country, building cities, creating industries, operating mines, would have . been doubted. But the thing has been done; now -we are looking to Alaska as a country that ere long will not only produce metal and mineral wealth, but will make itself pgrfculturally self-supporting.

Chose an Appropriate Hymn.

A correspondent' of the Yorkshire (England) Post writes: “Eveij a. night Zeppelin may have Its humor. On a recent Sunday* evening air-raid alarm signals were given iust as the vicar entered the pulpit of a Yorkshire church and gave out the hymn. By an extraordinary ooincldence.. the congregation 1 found itself ‘Singing tt welcome the of the nigbt.’

MORE WHEAT, MORE CATHE, MORE HOGS

Land Values Sure to Advance Because of Indreasing Demand for Farm Products^ ;. , y-j _ ' v . • •' - _ S The cry from countries abroad for more of the necessaries of life is acute today; tomorrow it will be still more insistent, and there will be no letup after the war. This is the day for the farmer, the day that he is coming into his own. He is gradually becoming .the dictator as it becomes more apparent that upon his industry depends the- great problem of feeding a great world. The farmer of Canada and the United States has it within himself to hold the position that stress of circumstances has lifted him into today. The conditions abroad are such that the utmost dependence will rest upon the farmers of this continent for some time after the war, and for this reason there is no hesitation in making the statement that war’s demands are, and for a long time will be, tnexttaostitJtertratrthe claims that will be made upon the soil will with difficulty be met. There are today 25,000,000 men in the fighting ranks in thp old world. The best of authority gives 75 per cent and over as having been drawn from the farms. There is therefore nearly 75 per cent of the land formerly tilled now being unwOrked. Much of this land is today In a devastated condition and if the war should epd tomorrow It will take years t®. bring it back to its former producing capacity. * Instead of the farmer produceiTf>roducing, he has become a consumer, making the strain upon those who have been left to do the farming a very difficult one. There may be agitation as to the high cost of livihg, and doubtless there is reason for ~lt in many cases. The middleman may boost the prices, combines may*organize to elevate the cost, but one cannot get away from the fact that the demand regulates- the supply, and the suppfy regulates the price. The price of wheat —in fact, all grains—as well as cattle, will remain high for some time, and the low price* that have prevailed will not come again for some time. After the war the demand for cattle, not alone for beef, but for stock pur-

poses, to replenish the exhausted herds •• of Europe, will be keen. Farm , educators and advisers are telling you to prepare for this emergency. How much better It can be done on the low-priced lands of today, on lands that cost from ten to twenty dollars per acre, than It __ can on two and three hundred-dollar-an-acre land. The lands of Western Canada meet all the requirements. They are productive in every sense of the word. The best of grasses can be grown with abundant yields and" the grain can be produced from these soils that beats the world, and the same may be said of cattle and horses. The climate is all that is required. Those who are competent to Judge claim that land prices will rise In value from twenty To fifty per cent. This is “looked for. in Western Canada, where lands are decidedly cheap today, and those who are fortunate enmigh to secure now will realize wonderfully by means of such an investment. The land that the Dominion Government is giving away as free homesteads in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta are of a high class; they are abundant in every constituent that gees to make the most productive soils. The yields of wheat, oats and barley that have been grown on these lands gives the best evidence of their productiveness, and when backed up by the experience of the thousands of settlers from the United States who have worked them and become wealthy upon them,' little more should he required to convince those who are "seeking a home, even with limited means, that nowhere can they secure anything that will better equip them to become one of tho army of Industry to assist in taking care of the problem of feeding the world. These lands are free; but to those who desire larger holdings than 160 acres there are the railroad companies and land corporations from whom purchase can be made at reasonable prices, aqd information can bo secured from the Canadian government agent, whose advertisement appears elsewhere In this paper.—Advertisement _

Quick Wit on the Stage.

Presence of mind is indispensable on the stage. Accidents may mar the finest effects or interrupt the progress of the action at lts .mbst vltal point. ————"7 — The elder Sothern affords an Instance that verges oh burlesque. In tiie third act cli-'hx of a play his pistol missed fire. . - “Bang!’*.he shouted. And the villain, with equal presence of mind, fell down dead-

Reckless Disregard.

“The law of - suaiftt and demand,” said the economllt,/is as Inexorable Is the law of gravitation.” “You can’t always enforce either of them. The law of gravitation doesn’t prevent people from getting away tip to the air these days.”

United States has 70,000 rural school teachers. * # Natural gas has advanced 00 cents par 1,000 feet to Kansas. “ - £