Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 February 1907 — Page 3

Indiana State News

REVERSES STEED’S SHOES. But Village “Sherlock*” Trail and ■' Capture the Alleged Incendiary. Fire recently destroyed the barn of Joseph May, near Rushvillc, and a man said to have strongly resembled Jonas Mercer, whom he had opposed as a son-in-law. was seen driving at a gallop from the scene of the blaze shortly before it was discovered. Investigation showed, however, that the tracks of the flying tsteed led in the direction of the tire and not from it. The local constabulary was mystified until a local disciple of “Sher--lock Holmes” deduced that the tracks were those of a horse \vearing reversed shoes. The shrewd ones immediately followed the tracks toward their apparent beginning, which proved to be Mercer’s barn. Within they found a horse, the tides of which recently had been removed. The nail holes in the hoofs of the animal indicated that the shoes last attached had been reversed. Mercer was placed under arrest. In default of bail he is held in jail.

PREACHER DIES WRITING. Sudden Death of Rev. William >J> Russell at Frankfort. Rev. William J. Russell, 48, pastor •of the First Christian church of Frankfort. died suddenly of apoplexy while seated at a typewriter in his home writing a letter to the Rev. Mr. Abberley of Cincinnati. Rev. Russell was apparently in good health. Tw r o years ago Rev. Russell was called from a charge at Pittsburg, Pa. For five years prior to that he was pastor of the Christian church at Rushville. He had also held charges at Columbus, Ohio, aud Grand Rapids, Mich. He was the author of several books, the best known being "What Is Tour Life?” His widow and two children survive. 'GIRL ELECTROCUTED BY WIRE. Touches Live Coil Lying In Street and Drops Dead. Da isle Adams, aged 21, assistant mattoii of the Gordon Orphan Home in Shelbyville, was electrocuted by a broken electric light wire. With Edith McGuire she was walking along the street when she dropped her eyeglasses and stooped to pick them up. She touched the electric wire, which was lying in the street, and dropped (lead. Miss McGuire’s foot struck the wire and she fell, but was revived. Restored to Father. The three children of W. D. Neff of “Goshen, whose wife took them with her when sire went to live with IKK: Manny it is sftid, have been returned to their father by order of the court, and Mann was arrested for illegally living with Mrs. ■ Neff. for Misstep of Blind Horse. In Wabash Josiah Alger has brought •suit for $3,000 damages because the city had no fence along the side of a street, his blind horse to walk over an •embankment, throwing him, his itfagon and horse a distance of thirty feet and permanently injuring him. Shipping Indiana Horses East. • # Charles N. Perry, a Shelbyville horse buyer, has shipped a carload of twenty-, two horses to Quakertown, I*a. The horses were valued at $3,030, or $lO5 a head. Perry has shipped sixty-six head to the eastern market this month. ’“*■ "Warren County Courthouse Burns. The Warren county court house was ■destroyed by fire in Williamsport and ■only the Jieavy brick outer walls are Standing. The cost of the building wns SBO,OOO, and the loss, estimated at $50,<KX), is covered by $25,000 insurance. Chlengo Slayer I* Guilty. Frank Caresto of Chicago, charged with the murder of Guy Hinkle, was found guilty of manslaughter by a jury in Valparaiso. His punishment was fixed at from two to twenty-one years in the Michigan City prison. Noyes for State Chemist. News has reached Terre Haute that Th\ W. A. Noyes, formerly connected with Rose Polytechnic Institute there and latterly with the government at ■Washington, has been selected as State chemist of Illinois. Collide at Indiana Itnrbor. By a collision between freight trains ■on the Indinna Harbor railroad two trainmen were fatally hurt. They are J. W. Stevens of Indiann Harbor and W. I. Davison of Rochester. Died While at Brother’s Funeral. Paul Potter, uonr Wawaka. was called to Bolding, Mich., to attend the burial of his brother* and later a telegram was received notifying his family that he was also doacb —; Twelve Injured In Wreck. By the wreck of a suburban train on the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern railroad at Hammond twelve persons were injured, none fatally. Commits Suicide in Jail. Edward Townsend lmngod himself in the city jail in Richmond. He made a noose out of his suspenders. Brief State Happenings. Miss Agnes Saulrnnn, an Evansville telephone operator, uged 18, by mistake took a dose of corrosive sublimate and died in a few minutes. While she was starting a fire tlie-cloth-ing of Mrs. Christian Grim of,Evansville caught fire and she was burned to death. A jury in Terre Haute acquitted Neal Pearcm a negro accused of attacking Mrs. 81. John, aged (JO. The defense was that the woman labored under an hallucination. Worry over a SO,OOO inheritance, which dwindled to SOOO, is held responsible for the insanity of Betsy Platt, committed to Long Cliff hospital, Loganoport. Sha thought relatives were trying to get her share and stood guard over her home with a gun. ,

TILLMAN IN A TIRADE.

Essays Bole of Clovrn, Followed by That of “Furloso.” " Senator Tillman Monday made one of his characteristic attacks on almost everybody in the United States Senate. In a

I speech blistering with personalities, holding up to savage ridicule almost a score of his colleagues, the South Carolinan in what I purported to be a reply to Senator Spooner on the Brownsville I question became so offensive that the Senate later sat in executive session and expunged some of his most objectionable remarks from the record as being beneath the dignity of the Senate; At the very begin-

B. R. TILLMAN.

ning of his address Senator Tillman, launching into personalities, drew a satirical picture of the Senate as a minstrel show. In the character of Pitchfork Ben he characterized himself as one of .the end men in the show, while opposite him, other end, was playing Senator Spooner, a “juggler of international reputation,” who also sang “bass, alto, soprano or tenor and was superb in any role.” The minstrel circle between he peopled with other Senators who have spoken on the negro affair. * After completing this picture the Senator suddenly became serious and with frenzied and fervid oratory repeated remarks he had previously made on the subject of lynching negroes. Ife prefaced his defense of lynching with this declaration: “It is but my nature to be blunt and outspoken and I have never taught my tongue the art of double dealing, and if there is an vice in man I abhor more than any other it is hypocrisy.” Mr. Spooner followed and denied that he held malice toward Mr. Tillman and thought his colleague would regret his words when he saw them in.print. Senator Carmack of Tennessee said that in all of his experience in the Senate he had never heard a speech so studiously offensive as that of Air. Tillman. He referred to the fact that he had been included in the South Carolina Senator’s criticism, saying that Mr. Tillman’s strictures on him had been without provocation. “It is with no feeling of resentment I say with respect to some men that it is their misfortune rather than their fault that they do not know how to Speak the language of courtesy and good breeding,” he said.

The Political Pot.

United States Senator Tillman said at Birmingham, Ala., that President Roosevelt had no business discharging the negro troops at Brownsville, as he doubted very much if the President was vested with authority to take that action. * Postmaster General Cortelyou has announced definitely his decision to resign as chairman of the Republican national committee March 4, when he expects to take the treasury portfolio. It is nnderstood that be will be succeeded by Harry New of Indianapolis. The Nebraska government ownership league was organized at Omaha, with the intention of extending its operations over the entire country for the purpose of advocating the acquisition of all railroads by the United States government. A Populist leader, M. F. Barrington, was made president. The frank admission made by Secretary of War Taft that, though he was not seeking the presidential nomination, he should not decline the opportunity to run for that great office, has precipitated the long-expected fight to a finish between the administration and Foraker factions in the Republican party in Ohio, Notwithstanding that the New York Dsmocratic Attorney General, Jackson, through a court order, had obtained possession of the boxes containing the ballots cast in the mayoralty election of 1905, Mayor McClellan of New, York again obstructed action by securing a stay of action from another judge. At the same time a bill providing for a recount of the votes was introduced in the Legislature. A majority of the State committee of the New York Independence League has deposed Max Ihmsen, the Hearst representative, as chairman and has declared for autonomy and against control by Incorporators. The movement was beaded by Timothy F. Driscoll, who said the purpose was to run the league as a regular political party. The executive committee, however, would not recognize the authority of the Driscoll acts. Twenty-eight members of the Texas House of Representatives have joined in introducing a resolution calling for a rigid investigation of the conduct of United States Senator Bailey, charging that he had accepted money and favors from an official of the oil trust in consideration for his political and official influence in securing the readmission of the Waters-Pierce Oil Compuany to do business in Texas, after the forfeiture of its charter had been approved by the Supreme Court of the United States. The widely published statement that \V. J. Bryan had said to a reporter that the presidential nomination wns something that no Apierrcan citizen should decline, is declared to be false by Mr. Bryan in his paper, the Commoner. He says that he never made the remark credited to him, and all that be did say was that he was not ready to make an announcement on the nomination, whether a nomiration should be declined or accepted would depend on the conditions, the pla't; form, etc. He thinks that the platform ought to fit the issues, and that the candidate ought to fit the platform.

The Ohio basin embraced an area of 201.700 square miles, or 16 per cent of the great Mississippi Valley. The valley is divided Into five divisions, of which the Ohio and its tributaries are second only to the Alissouri basin, and include a watershed of 35,000 square miles more than that of the Mississippi itself above the Missouri River. Waters from fourteen States find their way to the Gulf of Mexico through the channels of the Ohio great drainage system. It stretches as far northeast as New York and as far south as Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi. At no point on the Ohio or the Mississippi is what is

HUNDREDS DIE IN WRECK.

People of tlie United States Face Peril of Railway Disasters. The people of the United States have a “new peril” to try their nerves and wrench their hearts. It is a peril of the new twentieth century—the peril of railroad travel. Approximately 500 passengers have been killed in the last few months in the most appalling series of railroad accidents the country, it is charged, has ever known, brought about by the desperate' efforts of the railroad companies to make more money. It has not been a question of signals and switches and regulations: it has been a question of hurrying trains Throughr—the flyer, the'fast freight—-of" getting from one end of the line to the other, so that they can be started hack again. Railroad employes have admitted on the stand that they disregarded signals —that they had to, to make schedules. Twenty , years ago persons traveled on railroad’ trains with comparative safety. There were some accidents, but few men dreaded a trip by rail. Even ten years ago the peril was not great. In 1897 only 222 passengers were killed. But look at the last four months I A total of 500 human beings, passengers on trains in the United States, were torn and mangled, scalded and burned to death in railroad wrecks —-225 per cent more deaths in four months than in the whole of 1897. The slaughter of the toll of 1907 began with terrible mortality. The railroads are overworked, overcrowded and overcapitalized. Earnings that should be devoted to improving and replenishing the equipment and paying for a better class of labor are diverted to dividends to keep up the value of watered stock. The accompanying table gives the worst of the recent railroad disasters. There were many more the country over where the casualties were one, two, or three. InDate— Killed. Jured. Nov. 12—Woodvllle, Ind., Baltimore & Ohio, collision. . 61 39 Sept. 18—Dover, Okla., Rock Island, passenger train, through bridge 25 ~ Oct. 28 —Atlantic City, N. J., West Jersey & Seashore Electric, open draw. ryirds3 18 Nov. 29 —Lawyers, Va., Southern Railway, Sam'l Spencer, President of Southern, among victims 7 '.. Dec. B—Danville,8 —Danville, Va., Southern Railway, passenger and freight collision 5 Dec. 11 —Vergenne3, Vt., Rutland . Railway, passenger and (weight, collision ....... 9 Dec. 23 —Enderlin. X. D., Milwaukee & St. Paul and Ste. Marie, collision 10 37 Dec. 30 —Terra Cotta, D. C.. Baltimore & Ohio, collision. 53 60 Jan. 2 —Volland, Kan., Rock Island, collision 33 55 Jan. 13 —Barney, N. M., Rock Island, open switch..,. 5.. • 8 Jan. 15—Waldron, Mo., Rock Island, collision 3 Jan. 19 —Osseo, Minn., Croat Northern, rails spread.. 3 Jan. 19 —Fowler, Ind., Big Four, collision 24 10 Jan. 19—Sandford, Ind., Big Four* powder explosion ...... 40 25

SWETTENHAM QUITS POST.

Jamaica Governor Also Apologlie* for Letter to Darla. In London Friday it was announced on unquestionable authority that Gov. Swettenham had sent an apology for his letter

GOV. SWETTENHAM.

colonial and other government offices'thnt it was quite impossible for Swettenham to continue, in office not only because of the incident involving the withdrawal- of the Apierican warships fr 9m Kingstori_hut also on account .of the protests against his conduct received from the inhabitants from Kingston.

to Admiral Davis to the colonial secretary, by whom it was transmitted through the foreign secretary* to the State Department at Washington. and that Gov. Swettenham had also placed his resignation in the hands of the colonial secretary. It has been freely stated in the British

THE GREAT OHIO VALLEY FLOOD

CANAL BID IS HELD UP.

Unless Oliver Gets Partner United States May Do the Work. The bid of Oliver & Bangs to complete the construction of the Panama canal for 6.75 per cent of the cost has been rejected so far as Anson M. Bangs of New York is concerned. But if Mr. Oliver can enter into a satisfactory arrangement with some other contractor, who is financially responsible, he will be given the contract, it is said. Some of the Washington correspondents seem to think that the government will build the canal itself without subletting any portion of the work to contractors. While doubt was expressed as to the advisability of pursuing the contract plan any further, it was virtually decided to advertise again for bids, although not in the belief that any of them would prove acceptable. The chief purpose in readvertising is to afford Mr. Oliver an opportunity to enlist new financial backing and submit another hid. W. J. Oliver of Tennessee and the wilderness, is the largest employer of negro labor in the world. He has forty contracts now on hand, which include tunneling Lookout mountain, damming the Tennessee river and thrusting railroads through Louisiana cypress swamps. If his bid is successful he will go down to Panama with an army of 5,000 southern negroes who have long been in his employ, organized like an army, with a trained superintendent at the head of each division. It wns intimated that Mr. Oliver might arrange to co-operate with McArthur & Gillespie. It -is known thnt the financial credentials submitted by Mr. Oliver and the McArthur syndiaate have been found satisfactory, and the statement is made that a compromise proposal will be considered, provided Oliver succeeds in making a satisfactory arrangement with McArthur & Gillespie. The Oliver & Bangs lid was 6.75 per cent, while the McAr-thur-Gillespie bid was 12.50 per cent.

Foreign Commerce Convention.

The first national convention for the extension of foreign commerce of the United States was in session thrcA days at Washington. Every Stnte in the Union was represented, and the movement wns started,Jjy the New York board of trade and trans|»ortation. The tariff. *hip subsidy and the* iiertinent plans were discussed, nnd addresses were made by Secretary Root and the President.

* known as the “danger line” as high as at Cincinnati, where no great impediment to transportatisn or inconvenience to residents is occasioned until the 50-foot stage is reached. At other points the danger line varies from 22 feet at Pittsburg to 45 at Cairo, ill., and Vicksburg, Miss., to 16 feet at New Orleans. Although the highest known stage at Cincinnati is 71 feet % inch in 1884, the big Alississippi and Missouri floods of 1903 forced the water to a height of 82 feet «at Arkansas City, Ark., 85 feet at New Orleans and 105 feet at Melville, Louisiana. gSS The shaded portion of the center of the map indicates the flooded region.

SHEA CASE WAS COSTLY.

Disagreement of $70,000 Jury Stay End Prosecution. It is claimed in Chicago that preparations for a new trial in the Shea conspiracy case will begin at once. The $70,000 jury in the celebrated case failed to reach an agreement nnd was discharged after deliberating for fifty-four hours, with the ballot 7 to 5 for acquittal. The defendants, while claiming they are anxious for a new trial, do not believe tlie ease will ever be prosecuted by thp State because of the great expense to

which the county has been put already 'and to the difficulty in securing another jury.

KAISER A VICTOR.

Colonial of National Extension Indorsed. • Emperor William’s poliey of colonial 6xten*ion and national growth won a sweeping victory in the general election of members of the new Reichstag at Berlin. The radicals, the conservatives and the national liberals who voted for the government’s measure when the Reichstag was dissolved Dec. 13, 1906, materially increased their representation at the expense- of the socialists and the clericals. The socialists will lose seventeen or eighteen seats. ,

INDIANA LAWMAKERS.

Payment for Filled-In Land. In order to bean off an alleged land grab of the Edited States Steel Corporation, Representative Faulkner of La Porte county has introduced a bill which., provides that corporations or individuals may fill In land in Lake Michigan where water is shallow between shore and deep Water- line, and acquire same as their own property, provided they pay the State for this land. Commissioners must be appointed by the Circuit Court must appraise land at not less than one-fourth value of contiguous land. Recently the steel corporation secured the presentation of a bill which if passed wifi enable it to acquire $500,000 worth of submerged land bordering the south shore of Lake Michigan in La Potfe, Porter and Lake counties. Those who are sup- 1 porting the Faulkner bill declare its passage will prevent the steel corporation from dumping stag from its mill at Gary into. Lake Michigan..and thus rapidly fill-, ing in hundreds of acres of submerged land, which will finally become valuable, without paying the State therefor. Landlord and Tenant. When Senator Gavins’ bill, making the appropriation of farm products by a tenant embezzlement, reaches the House there will be oratory.- In the Senate the bill was advanced to third reading after being generously amended, but in the House, where there are more farmer* than in the Senate, it Is expected that there will be a heated discussion as to the relations that should exist between landlord and tenant with regard to the disposition * and sale of — farm products. The measure is one In which every farm tenant and the farming class in general are interested and the House is expected to ornament the measure as it now Rtands with frills aad embroidery _in Jhe shape of amendments which in the end may bring about its defeat. Senate Temperance Bills. The Senate committee on public inorals has several hills under consideration which are aimed at the liquor traffic. but a" the meeting of the committee Tuesday afternoon none of them was finally passed on. Two “blind tiger" bills, presented by Senators- Mattingly and Ganiard, are, in a general way, indorsed by the committee and one or the other, perhaps, will be recommended for passage. The public morals committee also believes it altogether likely that a report recommending the passage of one of the several st,ooo liquor license bills will be made. The committee is making an effort to consider all phases of liquor bills presented before submitting a report tb the Senate. “Blind Tiger” Bill 4’nsses. .After a vigorous fight. Senator’Ganiard’s "blind tiger” bill was passed by the Senate late Thursday afternoon by a vote of 35 to 7. There was an attempt to * amend the measure so that persons having intoxicants in “any rooms or building” might not be subject to inconvenience or embarrassment from threatened prosecution, if they were innocent of any intention to violate the law, but had such liquors for their private use. On the vote to amend there were 22 for and 24 against the amendment. Several of the members who voted against the bill, said they took the stand because of the failure to amend, otherwise they would have voted for the bill. Two Anti-Lobby Bill*. Two anti-lobby bills introduced In the Senate, one by Senator Slack (Dem.), the other by Senator Farber (Rep.), were the cause of the most spirited and prolonged debate in which the upper branch has participated in this session. Eloquence from both majority and minority sides held svay for more than an hour, and mingled with addresses there was both ridicule and sarcasm directed at the two measures. The Slack bill was killed, but the other bill, lives. Capital Punishment Still Lawful. In the House Gus Condo, Representative from Grant county, called up his bill to abolish capital punishment, a special order, and talked at some length in behalf of the measure. Debate was allowed on a motion to concur in the favorable report of the criminal code committee. On a rising vote of 48 to 30 the bill was Indefinitely postponed—in other words, killed. Guide Post Bill la la. The old familiar guide post bill has bobbed up again. Senator Stotsenberg having introduced (by request) a bill providing that guide posts be. erected at every road crossing in the country. This bill has been introduced at several sessions of the Legislature. Senator Benz having been responsible for its introduction two years ago. Governor Slgim a Bill. Gov. Ilanly signed the first bill of the session the other day. This was House bill No. 24. which appropriated $120,000 for defraying the expenses of the General Assembly. Superior Court Bill Passed. A bill by Mr. Baker establishing Superior Courts in the counties of Elkhart and St. Joseph, to be presided over by one judge, was passed by a vote of 88 to 4. Sunday llnrlier Shop Bill Passes. Senator Woot/s barber bill, which prohibita barber shops opening for business on Sunday, was called up by its author, and it passed by a vote of 35 to 6. Tax Exemption Bill Gone. The House committee on ways and ,means recommended for indefinite postponement the bill by Mr. Garrard of Vincennes to exempt from taxation widows and liiind persons ownlug less than $2,000 worth of property. Mr. Garrard expects to - introduce a bill authorixin* the refunding of taxes collected from snob widows ami blind persona, in the hope thntJt will pieet the objection of -oneoneti.tutionality, made to the original messore.