Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1912 — GENERAL NEWS. [ARTICLE]

GENERAL NEWS.

WASHINGTON —The evidenceo at’ tacking James Wilson, secretary of agriculture; Was offered in the investigation into the Florida everglades scandal by the house committee on expenditures in Mr. Wilson’s department. Representative Clark, of Florida, whose charges against Secretary Wilson precipitated the investigation, made public a letter from Arthur E. Morgan of Memphis, Tenn., president of the Morgan Engineering company, formerly supervising engineer of United States drainage investigations, but now a special drainage engineer in the department of agriculture, charging that the dismissals of C. G. Elliott and A. D. Morehouse were due directly to the everglades controversy and that the men were being ! “sacrificed to shield Secretary Wilson.”

ST. LOUIS, MO. —The cross-exacina-tion of John B. Swinney was completed in the Kimmel case in the United States court, in which the Identity of Andrew J. White, a former convict, who says he is George A. Kimmel, and Kimmel’s life insurance are involved. His redirect examination followed. • Meantime, R. M. Snyder, Jr., of Kansas City, son of the deceased capitalist, whose name was connected with the Kimmel mystery by Swinney’s testimony, arrived to be a witness for the defense. The insurance company expects to prove by him that R. M. Snyder was in New York at the time Swinney testified Snyder was in Oregon on a gold-hunting expedition, in which Kimmel was killed. 4

LISBON, PORTUGAL—Most serious floods are reported from all parts of Portugal and the loss -of life is large. Many rivers and, smaller streams have overflowed their banks, inundating entire villiages. All communication by rail, water or highway is interrup’ed and this fact is preventing the dispatch of help to the stricken towns. The number of victims of the floods In Portugal is not yet known, but it w'ill be large. Large numbers of injured are being cared for in hospitals in the flooded districts. <

WASHINGTON—CharIes M. Schwab, the wealthy steel magnate of Bethlehem, Pa.,' testified before the senate committee in protest against the house Democratic steel bill. He said the Underwood rates on larger steel products would be of a most serious consequence to the industry; without protection he would want no financial interest in the steel business, and wmuld regard as wasted the $35,000,000 which recently had been invested in his business.

BELFAST, IRE.—Winston Churchill has come and gone, with every bone in his body intact after making his advertised home rule speech in a tent on the football field to an enthusiastia crowd. There were no-hostile elemenis in this assemblaze except a few suffragettes, whose interruptions, on account of their personal dislike to Mr. Churchill, were suppressed by the police. .

MINNEAPOLIS, MlNN.—Victims of poisoned candy plot, three-year-old Bennie Reedy and Simon O'Malley, fifty years old; a hackman, are dead from eating arsenic sweets placed at the door at the O’Malley home. Louis Spencer, who also ate the candy, is at death’s door at the city hospital, while Clara Grates, who also tasted the sweets, is unharmed. • LINCOLN, NEB. —Deputy Warden Davis of the state penitentiary is dying as the result of a murderous attack made upon him in the prison chapel by Albert Prince, a negro convict. Davis was slashed six times in the abdomen and body and once on the cheek. The doctors say he has practically no chance for life. WASHINGTON— The Sherwood socalled “dollar a day” pension bill was rejected by the senate committee on pensions, and another measure, which would involve an annual expenditure of $24,000,000, proposed as a substitute by Senator Smoot of Utah, was adopted.