Jasper County Democrat, Volume 7, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1904 — CONTRIBUTED. [ARTICLE]

CONTRIBUTED.

“An Idol of Our Own Making.” Editor: —If those ninety-four petitioning depositors want any more legal help, in the prosecution es the McCoys, let them go down in their own pockets for the money and not bother the county with it. One half of those ninetyfour petitioners are, in the main, almost as guilty as the McCoys. One half of them have, in a measure, been partners of the McCoys in the high game they have played. Men who have lost thousands in this bank wreck have been intimates of Tom McCoy since childhood; they knew his business methods; they were associates with him in much of the wild and wicked life he has led; by their fawning and following they have led scores of innocent people to patronize his rotten bank, and now they come and ask the county—the taxpayers —to furnish extra cash to prosecute the very criminals they themselves have helped to make. This entire bank trouble is just as chargeable to the people of this community as it is to the McCoys. Without our aid, without our blind following and sickening fawning, this loss and disgrace would never have befallen us. The McCoys were what we allowed them to be —idols made with our own hands. A Depositor. —o — Road Signals Between Automobiles and Teams. Editor Democrat: Now that automobiles have come to stay, it is best that there should be a good understanding between drivers of the machines and the public at large,, referring especially to the drivers of horses on our streets and highway. Every vehicle for carrying passengers or merchandise has equal rights on public highways with every other vehicle, whether propelled by hand or machinery or drawn by animals; but it is the duty of each person in control of such vehicles to respect the rights of others, and this applies as fully to the driver of a horse as to the driver of a machine, or to the mother wheeling her baby-car-riage.

For instance, no person who does not understand the handling of horses has any more right upon the public highway with a timid or fmctious horse, or with rotten harness, or without a constant control of the lines, than the driver of an automobile has to run recklessly or without complete control of his machine. Therefore, since it is extremely difficult for the machine-driver to know to a certainty just how either persons or animals will behave upon his approach, and furthermore, since a constant stoppage for teams is most annoying where time is an object, particularly when such stoppage is really unnecessary, the following well-known railroad signals are earnestly recommended in the belief that their adoption by both parties will promote a very friendly feeling and help to educate horses to the new conditions: First, let the machine-driver blow the crossing signal on his horn when approaching teams or obscured road crossings until convinced that his approach is noticed, meanwhile keeping his machine under control. % Second, let the horse-driver always give one of two return signals to the machine-driver, namely, either the “Come A-head” signal, by raising his arm straight up above his head and waving it from side to side, or the “Slow down signal,” by holding his arm out level with his shoulder and moving it up and down. The machine-driver will then go on past the team, or will stop, or slow down, or get out and lead the team according to circumstances and the signal he gets. Third, if the horse-driver fails to give any signal whatever, let the machine-driver govern himself

accordingly and always enquiro why no signal was given. If this is done, and a little care is taken on both sides, horses will soon take no more notice of the machines here than they do in other places where automobiles are more numerous. F. A. Ross. I. M. Washburn, M. D. J. J. Montgomery. Chas. T. Dye. W. T. Elmore. E. Besser, M. D.