Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 43, Number 65, 26 January 1918 — Page 1

THE

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VOL. XLIIL, NO. 65 gI'0d,',teadnun'Tclegram RICHMOND, IND., SATURDAY EVENING, JAN. 26, 1918 ' SINGLE COPY, 2 CENTS

PEACE WITH THE GERMA NS By BOOTH TARKINGTON, of THE VIGILANTES i

Q. Are we at war with the German people ? A. We wish to be at peace with the German people, but we are at war with the German Empire. That is, we are at war with the government which controls the German nation. The German nation proclaims itself to be the German army. The German nation is composed of the German people. Our army is fighting the German army. Yes, we are at war with the German people. Q. Why do we fight them? A. Because they support and obey the German government which murdered American citizens, and proclaimed its intention to continue murdering American citizens unless we changed our laws in such a way as would assist the German Empire to conquer all opposition and become a power ruling the world. We fight the German-people in order to have our Capitol in Washington and not in Berlin. Q. Why do the German people oppose us in this natural right and desire?

BLIZZARD AND SEVERE COLD WAVE TO BE HERE SONDAY Storm May Rival That of Two Weeks Ago Which Tied up Traffic Through Nation is Prediction. FUEL CRISISJS SEEN Another severe blizzard is on its way ! Weather Forecaster Moore Saturday morning said the big afnr, omv. within SA n'v'" " " - - "-"-i hours. It will be preceded by a heavy snow, accompanied by a 40 to 50mile gale and followed by another spell of weather way below zero, says Moore. The blizzard is expected to be nearly as serious as the one of two weeks ago Saturday and may tie up transportation as badly as that one did. May Be Fuel Crisis. It is likely to create another fuel crisis if it continues, as the pupply is perilously short nearly all over the country. All indications are that it will continue for several days. Weatherman Moore says there isn't any prospect of moderate weather at any time short of a week or ten days. The storm commenced Saturday morning with a high wind! and snow, which turned to rain and which later turned to sleet. If a sleet storm accompanies the blizzard, tying up wire service, the country will be prostrate at the feet of King Winter. All that made the other blizzard bearable was the fact that telephone and telegraph service was open. GILBERT TAKES WEIDNER'S PLACE Harry Gilbert, a Richmond business man and Wayne county farmer, Saturday was made Wayne County Food Administrator to fill the place made vacant by the resignation of E. J. Weidner. THE WEATHER For Indiana by the United States Weather Bureau Snow and colder tonight and Sunday. Cold wave with rtrong north winds. Today's Temperature. Noon . 3 Yesterday. Maximum 37 Minimum 26 Por Wayne County, by W. E. Moore Snow tonight and Sunday;' probably arriving this afternoon. General Conditions The storm crossed the Lakes last night and moved down the St. Lawrence valley. Another storm of great dimensions is central over the plain states, causing general snow as it moves eastward rnd Is being followed by a severe cold wave from Canada. This severe o'.d wave will bring temperature below zero throughout the central states with heavy snows in places.

SCHOOLS CLOSE MONDAYS

The Richmond public schools will close Monday and every Monday for nine weeks, according to a statement made Saturday afternoon by SuBt. Giles. Million-Dollar Fixe Caused by Hun Spies NEWARK, N. J., Jan. 26.More than a million dollars worth of property was destroyed today in a fire believed to be the work of German spies, which burned up oil barges, a pier, warehouses and freight cars on Newark bay, close to the plant of the Submarine Boat Company and store houses of the quartermaster's department of the army. Koll Says He Will Run For Congress Hans Koll, in a reply submitted Saturday to a statement by Mrs. W. W. Zimmerman In Friday's Palladium intimated he will run lor congress on a platform of "A better understanding among all nations after the war." His statement follows: ' M""""1 DI "? uwuuw. v,y : -. . My attention' has been,' called to a somewhat heated communication by Mrs. W. W. Zimmerman. It is generally not advisable to answer any communication of that character until the offended party has found sufficient time to formulate every possible excuse for his often quite well-meaning but ill-advised antagonist. However, since you saw fit to give Mrs. Zimmerman's letter such a prominent place, I should like to ask her three questions this evening and then shall make it my pleasure at a later date to take up item after item. I shall, of course, treat Mrs. Zimmerman with much more courtesy than she treated me: (1) By what right does Mrs. Zimmerman doubt my sincerity as an Am erican citizen, just simply because I hold to the opinion that wars are won on the battlefields and not by newspapers and lecturers. (2) Did it ever occur to Mrs. Zimmerman that as far as unselfish devotion to the United States and my home-town of Richmond is concerned I might be a better citizen than she is? (3) Does Mrs. Zimmerman know that defamation of character is not only unethical and reflects upon the perpetrator, but that it is also pun ishable under the laws of the State of Indiana. If it was Mrs. Zimmerman's IntentIon to hurt my feelings, she can well shake hands with herself because she has been a complete success, although she may have hurt the feelings of my many friends, who know my sincerity, 6till worse. It may interest Mrs. Zimmerman to learn that my conscience Is sufficiently clear, that, if I get any encouragement at all from my many friends, I intend to ran for Congress at the next Congressional Election on the platform of: "A better understanding among all Nations after the War." Sincerely yours, HANS N. KOLL. PERSHING BOUGHT BRITISH UNIFORMS WASHINGTON, Jan. 28. More of the secret testimony before the senate military committee made public today discloses that on Dec. 13, General Pershing was authorized to buy 200,000 British uniforms for American troops and 200,000 blankets in Spain.

Benjamin Johnson Passes His Eighty-Fifth Birthday Quietly

Eenjamin Johnson, who celebrated his eighty-fifth birthday anniversary, Saturday in a quiet manner, is one of the best known business men in Richmond. He has been associated in business with his son, John H. Johnson, for a number of years. The firm is known as'the B. Johnson and son, contractors dealers in railroad tie3, etc. Born in Columbian county, Ohio, near Salem, Johnson came to Richmond In 1854 at the time when work on the o!J Garfield building on North

A. Because they are obedient to the orders of their leaders. They have been carefully trained to obedience. Q. Are they so obedient that they would fight if they believed their leaders to be in the wrong? A. Not with the fervor shown by the German people in this war. Q. Then the German people believe themselves to be fighting for a right and just cause? A. Unquestionably. Q. How can that be, since they are fighting us because we would not allow them to rob us of our rights? A. They believed that our rights were injurious to Germany. Q. Then they respect no rights except those which they consider beneficial to Germany. Q. Do the German people believe this to be a selfish state of mind? A. No, They call it patriotism, and ii; inspires

LECTDRER IS ACCUSED OF DISLOYALTY Professor Cooch, of Dayton, Said to Have Made Seditious Statements. unpatriotic utterance made in an address by Professor Joseph Cooch, of Dayton. Ohio, at a meeting of the Associated Bible Students in the town hall at Economy, January 23, are be ing investigated by the Wayne County Council of Defense. Arrests and pro secution of several persona of Econ omy as well as Professor Cooch may follow. The lecturer said in part, "I was a socialist but I have now found some better form of expression and am a Russellite." A "Russelltte" is a mem ber of the Associated Bible Students He attacked the ministers and the churches for encouraging men to en list and said it was an unlawful union of the church and state from a bibli cal standpoint..- . v.,; j , Accuses Ministers He accused the ministers of giving a passport to heaven of all men who died on the field of battle. "Revolution will reign all over the country as soon as the war is ended followed by anarchy and then Chris1 will set up his government. This rtate of affairs is nearer in the United States than most people think. All the people in Dayton needed during the recent coal famine was a leader," pre some of the statements attributed to the speaker. COUNTY HAS AGENT NOW Wayne county now ha3 a county agent. Township trustees. County Superintendent Williams and a group of farmers met at the court house late Saturday afternoon and passed a resolution calling for the appointment of F. N. Zechiel to be county agent at a salary of $2,500 a year. This action followed action Saturday by the county council refusing to appropriate money for an agent's expenses. Now the citizens who favor the agent must go Into court and obtain mandamus to compel the county council to pay the expenses. The council has no option but to comply. The vote in the council was three for an agent and two against. The ayes were Nusbaum, Druley and Stevens and the nays were Allen and Davenport. The law requires a vote of five at least before the council can appropriate money for an agent directly and without mandamus. The county will not have to pay more than $300 to $400 a year of the J agent's salary. The state pays $1,000 a year, the national government thee same. The county must appropriate $1,500 for expenses, but the state then hires a woman agent and pays all her salary, relieving the county of $1,100 expense It now has. Zechiel is from Culver, Ind. He is a practical farmer of large holdings and successful experience. He offered his services to Purdue as county agent anywhere he was needed. Eighth street which is now a part of the high school was begun. Is Prominent Friend. He is a prominent member of the South Eighth Street Friends' church and attends services regularly. Mr. Johnson attributes bis long life to sober and righteous living. He is a great reader and is interested in all current events. He has a special pride in Richmond which has been his home for so many years. There are two children, a daughter, Mrs. Charles S. Marvel, and a son, John H. Johnson. .

SOUTH BEND WOMAN SEES BROTHER AT FRONT IN NEWSPAPER WAR PHOTO

IP I

Sergeant G. S. Peacock (marked X), A Cniith

Elder Metzdorff is Held as German Propagandist; W orked at All Jobs From Reporter to Distillery Hand

The second Metzdorff is being confined in the Wayne couuty jail. He is Hugo Metzdorff, father of Helmuth, who was arrested several weeks ago and still is being held here awaiting federal investigation. Both the Metzdorff's are suspected of being prolific sources of German propaganda. They both were employes of the Starr Piano company and they both have worked in many places and at many jobs in the United States. Both are German subjects and thus are classed as alien enemies. Arrested at Factory. The elder Metzdorff was arrested at the factory Friday, his room was searched without revealing evidence of anti-American activity, and he now is being confined at the Jail in a separate cell from that of his son. Agents of the department of justice probably will investigate the two cases together. The father recently protested to the district attorney that the jail associations were bad for his son and asked his release. He came to America in 1904 and the son in 1914. Another Blow at Kaiser. In Metzdorffs arrest, the County Council of Defense believes it has ! WAR MOTHERS TO ORGANIZE Wayne County War Mothers are asked to meet Monday afternoon at 2:30 o'clock in the Commercial club rooms for the purpose of forming a permanent organization. Mrs. A. W. Roach, Wayne county's official war mother, will preside. There will be an election of officers and plans for the War conference-in Richmond, February 4, when the War mothers will act as hostesses, will be discussed. COLD IMPROVED WASHINGTON, Jan. 26. President Wilson's cold showed some improvement today but he Temained indoors and no engagements were made for him.

them individually to make heroic sacrifices. Q. But collectively, do such ideals make a noble country? A. No; ihe individual sacrifices himself in order that the conduct of his country may be lawless, ignoble and malevolent. Q. But does the individual German regard the conduct of his country as ingoble and malevolent? A. No. He believes it to be divine. Q. How can that be? A. His leaders have' given him interpretations of so-called "moral law" which direct him to that belief. He accepts as supreme leader a person called a "War Lord" who proclaims himself to be actually the mouthpiece of a god. In addition, the German leaders have carefully taught the people to believe tha Hght and wrong, internationally, are questions to be submitted to the one test : Whatever works to the material disadvantage of Germany is both spiritually and materially wrong; whatever works to the material advan

S' S J the brother of Mrs. W. A. Robinson n . .. .J I struck another effective blow against German propaganda and insidious support of the Kaiser's program in Richmond. Metzdorff is a man of superior attainments. Educated in agricultural and commercial schools of Germany, he has enriched his mental equipment by studious application, and travel since he landed in America in 1904. His travels took him all over the United States and Mexico where he worked In every capacity from court reported on the Abendpost, a German newspaper of Rochester, N. Y.. to a common laborer in a distillery at New Orleans. But no matter what the nature of his work was, Metzdorff brought to it efficient training and systematic application. In his notebooks, the authorities found formulas used in the distillery at New Orleans, English equivalents for German technical terms, and painstaking entries about the nature of the vocation he happened to be engaged in. Had Been Farm Laborer. He worked in the circulation department of a German newspaper at St Louis. Two chisels elicited that he had worked in tool shops and repair works. He has been a farm laborer,

MONDAY'S CLOSING ORDER

The board of works, the rnaypr and the fuel administrator today issued the following proclamation regarding the closing order Monday:

Every business place and factory, excepting food producing!

and dispensing and drug stores, must be closed. Moving picture shows will be open Monday but will close Tuesday. ' - Grocery stores, hotels, restaurants, meat shops and bakeries will be open Monday. All clubs, lodge rooms, cigar stores, pool and.billa.rd halls will be closed Monday. ' F. S. BATES, Fuel Administrator. MAYOR W. W. ZIMMERMAN.. W. N. JOHNSTON. JOHNPELTZ. T. C. TAYLOR. ' Board of Works.

tage of Germany is both spiritually and materially right. Q. Have the German people accepted this standard? . A. They have accepted it. Q. But do they not see that such a standard, if allowed to prevail," means servitude to Germany on the part of the rest of the world? A. Their leaders desire to bring about such a servitude and believe that their own merits warrant it. The people worship their leaders and call them "the State." Q. But will not the German people some day reject such a standard of right and wrong? A. Our soldiers are fighting them in order to hasten that day. Q. What would prove to the German people that their standard is wrong? A. Proving to, them that the leaders who taught Continued On Page Nine.

SOUTH BEND, Ind.. Jan. 26. A picture of her brother at the front in an official British war photograph was the discovery of Mrs. W. A. Robinson, 315 North Wood street, this city, who saw the photo when it recently appeared on the front page of a local paper. Mrs. Robinson's brother, Sergt. G. S. Peacock, enlisted with the Canadian forces at the outbreak of the war. The photograph was the more in- . teresting to Mrs. Robinson as she had recently received a letter from her brother relating the very incident pictured. The photograph shows a number of Canadians pausing In the heat of an engagement and assisting an aged civilian to a place of security. In his letter Sergeant Peacock had told of the care the allies always employ to see that children or old persons or any other helpless civilians are moved to a place of safety whenever the fighting threatens a small village neighboring a scene of battle. Sergeant Peacock had also expressed his regard and admiration for the commander of bis battalion, an officer named Miller, who is directing the detachment in the act of mercy pic tured in the photograph. He is seen standing to the left of Peacock holding a white sack. Mrs. Robinson firmly believes that her brother will return to her safely at the close of the war. She declared, when recently interviewed, that he had written to her at frequent intervals ever since the war began and told her his experiences in all of the intense fighting in which the Canad-1 ians have had part. Mrs. Robinson has felt bo confident that her brother will not lose his life that she has worried but little for his safety and points to the cherful tone of his letters as perhaps the real reason for it. and was in touch with a ranch owner in Montana, seeking employment there before the registration of alien enemies, when he was arrested. Metzdorff took three courses in correspondence schoosl. He said he derived great profit from a course on public accounting. He had written about twenty scenarios in his work on a correspondence school course in that branch. One of the illuminating discoveries was a course in detective work and a button indicating that he completed the prescribed study. A note book was replete with directions how to shadow a man on a street car, through a park, in a crowded street. It also) gave general Information regarding detective work. Metzdorff had clipped scores of newspaper stories with human Interest phases that he intended to work up into motion picture plays. He Is an ominverous reader of serial stories. Pinned to the wall was a two-column excerpt from the Cincinnati Freie Press urging German alien enemies to register. Takes "War Practices." When he vacated his room, Metzdorf asked the authorities for permission Continued On Page Ten.

AUSTRIA WILL ACCEPT PEACE WITH RUSSIA WITHOUT HUN

Separate Pact Agreeable to Ally of Kaiser- Slav Program is Acceptable in Main Points. SCHEIDEMANN WARNS LONDON. Jan. 26. Austria has declared her readiness to conclude a separate peace without Germany and to accept the Russian . democratic program, with the exception of self determination of nations, says a dispatch from Petrograd to the Exchange Telegraph company. Another dispatch to thee Exchange Telegraph company from Petrograd dated Friday says : "The Bolsheviki newspapers today report that great demonstrations are taking place all over Austria-Hungary. Workmen's and soldier's organizations have been formed at Vienna. LEADERS WILL BE HURLED FROM POWER IF THEY FAIL TO MAKE PEACE WITH SLAVS AMSTERDAM. Jan. 26. Pblllp Scheidemann, president of the Social Democratic party in Germany, answering Chancellor von Hertling's' speech in the main committee of the Reichstag, warned the military leaders of the imperial government that if the' did not bring about peace between Germany and Russia, they, would b? hurled from power. PEACE TALK ENGAGES ALL ATTENTION OF BELLIGERENTS 'By Associated Press) Discussion of war aims or peace terms is claiming public attention almost to the total exclusion of military affairs. Active operations, in fact ara in progress nowhere just at present except in the way of the never-ceasinjj cannonading along the various fronts and the reconnoitering activities that necessity compels even in the dead of winter. Echoes of the speeches delivered by Count von Hertling, the German Imperial chancellor, and Count Czernin, the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, in reply to Premier Lloyd George and President Wilson are plentifully found in the comment of the press at home and abroad, and there seems comparatively little diversity of opinion in t:,e various allied capitals. Germany is Adamant. The prevailing riew in London, as reflected in the press is that Germany has adopted what amounts to an uncompromising attitude, desiring to listen to no peace terms but her own. while Austria, more conciliatory because of internal conditions, never the less is unremittingly faithful to her German ally. A representative French view Is that the central powers are revealed in the speeches as trying to drive a wedge between the allied nations by attempting to open separate debate with each, and that Chancellor von Hertling in particular has made an effort to eliminate the question of Alsace-Lorraine from President Wilson's peace program. Some of the foreign commentators attach considerable importance to the invitation . of the German chancellor for continued conversations on the subject of peace terms. One striking view is that of an important London newspaper, which regards the two speeches as a combined diplomatic offensive against the entente allies with the attack chiefly aimed at President Wilson.