ATX
WHAT WE DON'T KNOW
ABOUT THE WAR ISN'T
WORTH THE
TELLING.
BY AL FAIRBROTHER
HE STOLE A KISS
War Times Didn't Have
Any Effect.
HE war news was oppres
sive, and we had almost
looked in vain for some
thing to break the monot
onyand in despair was
about to say there was
nothing doing when, be
hold, we saw where a man
in Richmond remained on
earth; remembered the sweets of other days,
and stole a kiss.
The plot was one that even Sherlock Holmes
would have never dreamed no human sleuth
could have staged such a setting.
It is related that the man in the case with
his baby entered the room of a neighbor and
said to the kid: "Come, and let the lady
kiss you, baby," and the innocent child was
willing to show its affection, and Mrs. Percy
Forbes, the woman in the case, with motherly
instinct of course wanted to kiss the little
darling and as the child offered its face for
the osculatory embrace the man the fiend
the Beast snatched the child away and offer
ed his own unlikely mug and the lady kissed
it. ' . ' :
Then there was a gentle reverberation and
the lady ordered the man and the kid out of
the house and went to search for her husband.
She found him and told him of the indignity
that had been heaped upon her; of how the
brute had obtained under false pretenses a kiss,
and the husband was just about to go and
hammer the man's mug into an unkissable
condition when he was advised to arrest the
fellow which he did.
" Ordinarily we would not give an item like
" this front page m prominence, , OrdinarUy . a
three line squib would suffice to tell the story
but in these war times when all men are
thinking about murder and money, to know
that one sly old coon figured it how he could
steal a kiss from another man's wife and get
away with it suggests to us that the story is
worth while.
Of course there will be retribution and re
morse on the part of the man who stole the
goods ; there will always be some sort of a fun
ny feeling by the lady to know that when she
expected her lips to meet the innocent face of
pure childhood they sideswiped a stubby
growth of beard worn by a horrid man and
so this little incident adds another chapter to
the things which happen as the busy world
spin 'round, and as a grave and careful
chronicler of the times we record it here.
0
The Markets.
The markets were closed when this is writ
tenhad been closed a long time and we do
not see but what the world is going on all
right. Those with securities to sell couldn't
sell to advantage anyway, lust now, and the
gamblers who would wreck things are held
down. The hope is that when the markets open
' the men who have lost in cotton and wheat
will find some good industrial securities owned
by men on the other side who must unload and
that all lost fortunes by Americans will be
retrieved.
He Should Be Saved. '
The following news item floats the rounds:
"Governor Craig will be asked to spare the
life of Harry Smith alias Jim Stafford, who
was convicted of the murder of Forest Nettles
in Iredell superior court last week and sentenc
ed to die October 2. A petition is being cir
culated which asks the governor to commute
the sentence to life imprisonment. Accord
ing to the testimony-Smith shot Nettles in
cold blood, but the commutation is asked on
the ground that the killing occurred during a
general row and there is doubt a3 to the credi
bility of some of the evidence against Smith.
It is stated that Judge Adams and Solicitor
Clement will recommend commutation and
some of the jurors will sign the petition."
The hope is that Governor Craig will com
mute the sentence. The.facts in the case show
that there was a general row, and in the mix
up when the blood ran high and passion was
not to be controlled, the prisoner shot a fellow
brother. He wasn't a professional murderer.
He didn't go about in cold blood and lie in, wait
for a victim to pass along and kill him, as he
would -have shot a dog.
' It. was a quarrel bad blood was up but
the State doesn't want to become a murderer
because Smith was a murderer. The two
wrongs will not make one right. Keep Smith
all his life in prison; put him to work; and let
him be useful the same as other men are use
fulbut Smith must be held a prisoner be
cause he took a life and thereby forfeited his
right, to run at large. But to judicially rnur
. deT him will do no good rand to keep him for
life, letting him earn his way, is a much better
tiing. -
. We hope Governor Craig will commute this
r Titence. The4 fact is capital punishment has
'i in tv's of rw. ,
SUBSCRIPTION $1.W A YEARf SINGLE COPT S CENTS
LOYALTY TO HOME
Jefferson Standard Life Does
Right Thing.
OTS OF CORPORATIONS
wouldn't have done what the
Jefferson Standard Life Insur
ance Company, of Greensboro,
did. Many of them would have
forgotten what they could do
and seen only the gold in sight.
But perhaps it is best to print
the resolutions and let them tell the story.
These resolutions were unanimously adopted
at the semi-annual meeting of the board of
directors in this city last week :
"Whereas, nearly all Europe is now engaged
in a state of war, the result of which will mean
at least temporary hardship, not only to those
engaged in the horrible conflict, but to many
people in our own country, especially those
living in the Southern States, who are engaged
in growing and dealing in cotton and tobacco;
and,
"Whereas, this company desires to assist in
every possible manner in the upbuilding of its
own section, particularly in times such as pre
sent, so far as it is consistent with sound in
surance methods and the absolute safety of its
policyholders ; therefore,
"Be it resolved, that while great opportun
ities are being offered for investment in first
class securities that are perfectly safe and
sound and yield large interest returns, it is the
policy of this company to continue its loans to
first mortgage real estate in those sections of
the country from which it derives its business
in life insurance."
That certainly has the right sound. This ac
tion should bring home to all our people a sug
gestion of their duty and that is to patronize
the home insurance companies. Here in
Greensboro we have fire insurance companies
and life insurance companies as good as any
anywhere to be found, and they are deserving
of patronage. This resolution by the Jefferson
Standard is worth remembering. It is a spirit
that is worth while. A spirit that builds up
and supports the people who in turn support
it. Keep the South's money in the South is our
motto and it seems to be the motto of many
others.
. 0
Glad Of It
We are really glad to see the Governor issu
ing so many pardons to people guilty of crime
but we think the reform should commence
in the court house. Last week the Governor
commuted the sentences of Robinson Rogers
and Waldo McCracken, two officers of Hay
wood county who were put up for manslaugh
ter. Guilty of manslaughter they were sen
tenced to eighteen months, but the Governor
concludes that four months are sufficient pun
ishment. That is pretty light sentence for kiling a man
manslaughter ought to carry more than eigh
teen months. These officers claimed they were
trying to maintain order at a school commence
ment and they were guilty of manslaughter.
Funny peace makers they were but they get
their sentence cut to four months.
The same day in Greensboro a nigger stole
a gallon of whiskey and was sent to the roads
for twelve months. The difference between a
human life and a. gallon of whiskey is great,
we know that, in these desperate times of pro
hibition. ' A man who kills a fellow brother is
sufficiently punished if he serves four months
and the one who steals a gallon of whiskey
must serve twelve months. Three fours are
twelve. Query: Is a gallon of likker worth
as muth as three citizens?
Governor Craig is certainly making a record
for turning them out. The list is long and
grows longer. But when a man is sent to the
roads for eighteen months for manslaughter he
should remain. If he isn't guilty of , man
slaughter then the Governor should turn him
loose. In fact he should not have been sentenc
ed. But if he is guilty of crime and the crime
is manslaughter then he should serve his full
sentence of eighteen months or not serve at
all. .And on this proposition we are willing to
stand before the world.
The Panama Canal.
The panama canal was formally opened Sat
urday. Business will now be on through this
wonderful waterway -but the great opening
the time for the music and the fuss and feath
ers will be in 19 IS..-By that time the war will
be off or on in definite shape, and we will know
what is what. The big boat went throughout
without a hitch, and therefore we conclude the
Panama Canal so long dreamed and costing
so many hundred millions of dollars is a suc
cess. -
,v':.'V: -'." 1 1 1 0 ' .
Two More Cases. . .
-. Several more cases, of the bubonic plague
have appeared in New Orleans, two deaths are
reported, and the authorities are doing all they
can to stop its spread. There was a time when
the bubonic plague's appearance in this coun
try would have caused big type on the front
page, but in these days of manufactured war
news tie ftejjue takes a back seat., . .
SATURDAY, AUGUST 22, 1914.
A VETERAN IN GAME
( -
OUR Gallery of People Worth While would
not be complete if we failed to print the
familiar face of Colonel Wade Harris editor
in chief of the Charlotte Observer. Colonel
Wade has been constantly on the job in news
paper work so long that the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary and yet he isn't
old ; he is good for many more years of intel
ligent, constructive work and he never did
better work in his life than he is doing now.
We tried to trace him back, and while not
wearing gum shoes, all the tracks we could
find were from Concord to Charlotte. For
many years for all the years since we have
been down in these pine woods, the name of
Wade Harris has been familiar in newspaper
circles. He did work on the Observer, and
when the Chronicle was started he became its
editor, and for several years wrote more orig
inal stuff each day thail any man with a pencil
in North Carolina. After the demise of Cald
well, Harris became editor in chief of the Ob
server, and the editorial page put out each
morning by Mr. Harris and his able lieutenant,
Mr. Klutzz, is all the evidence wanting to
show that Harris understands the game. He
has taken the thirty-third degree in newspaper
work has come up from the print shop, and
learned well all the details. Mr. Harris is sin
cere in what he does considers his profession
among the most honorable of the earth, and
strives to keep it so. There is no subject un
der the sun upon which he cannot write enter
tainingly and instructively. He is the Old
Man of North Carolina Journalism and yet
the years have not sat heavily upon him. Here
is wishing him long years of uninterrupted
happiness, and in placing him in our Gallery of
People Worth While we have but performed a
simple duty.
Happy Jim Robinson.
Colonel Jim Robinson, who calls himself
"Old Hurrygraph," writes to this newspaper
as follows from the mountains of North Caro
lina: "I am up above the clouds the rain clouds,
the war clouds, and the clouds of doubt and
fear as to the beauty and grandeur of this love
ly country, and its unexcelled climate, Every
view is a scene of beauty in nature unparalell
ed. I was standing by the famous rock Mon
day, looking out upon the great chasm of
mountains below coverfed with fleecy clouds as
white as the driven snow. Only the face of the
great Grandfather mountain was visible above
this ocean of whiteness. The sun gilded every
riff and ripple with a golden sheen. The white
moved up to the precipice of the Blowing
Rock, and backed up against the great rock
walls. Then there appeared, two hundred feet
below me, three beautiful rainbows, all in a
line. It was witnessed by many spectators,
who gathered together and the shadow of their
heads were thrown in the center of it, and it
represented a lovely halo around them. It was
a scene not often witnessed, yet it was but one
of the beautiful views, that are ever present
ing themselves in a country filled with beauty."
How happy a man might be up so high that
sugar could go no higher up where the war
clouds and the rain clouds couldn't touch him.
That is where Jim seems to be, and he writes
like he wasn't caring much about things below
the clouds.
From Everywhere.
We get fine letters from all kinds of people;
we get words of praise from many sources.
Everything is not yet a year old in its new
form, but it is being read by thousands. - It is
a hummer from away back and before it is,
five years old it will be going into thousands of
North Carolina homes where it never went
before. Everything is a Fixed Fact. ' It feels
happy to know that it has made a "hit."
' Why Not?
I The country is going to levy a war tax of a
few hundred million. Why not North Caro
lina pass a law like she; did on freight rates.
Kick against the war lax it does us no good.
OS SALE AT THE NEWS 8TANU8 AND ON TRAINS
IS IN POVERTY NOW
Once Prominent Woman Now
Dependent On Friends.
YEW years ago time is fleeting
but back in 1884 and 18X5 Mr.-.
Ik'lva Lockwuod was out over
the country making speeches ap
pearing before big audiences at
good prices giving a little talk
about women in public life and
especially telling about her cam
paign for the presidency she be
ing the only woman who ever attempted to
run for that high office.
Mrs. Lockwood afterwards enjoyed a good
law practice; she made money and had the
ability and opportunity to lay aside a littk
kale seed for the rainy day that comes into all
our lives, according to licensed poets, and oth
ers. But we see the pathetic news in the papers
that the gifted lady is now in her 84th year,
and destitute. Friends pay the rent in a home
for her, and other friends are now busy trying
to interest Carnegie to establish a $5,000 fund
so that she can live comfortably from the in
terest of it. Mrs. Lockwood's work for years
in the cause of peace is the reason for appeal
ing to Carnegie. Mrs. Lockwood was one of
three foremost organizers of the Universal
Peace Bureau in Berne, Switzerland. While
it seems just now the Peace Bureau isn't run
ning full time, it does seem sad to know that a
woman of Mrs. Lockwood"s talents should be
suffering.
However, thousands of persons who forget
to lay aside some of their earnings, who drink,
eat and are merry in their youth, find Age con
fronting them without the wherewithal to pro
vide against want.
Mrs. Lockwood can look back to the days oi
her glory to the days when the papers were
full of her and she was full of herself the days
when money came to her in blocks big enough
to do about as she pleased. ,
All of us will be willing to hope that the
gifted lady will not be obliged to go to the
County Home that would hardly be right in
a world filled with charitable and appreciative
people.
. . 0
The Days Of Prophecies.
Every time a war breaks out or an earth
quake docs something a little erratic there are
those to rush for the libraries and dig up the
prophecies of men long in glory, Just now
they are printing what alleges to be a prophecy
of Tolistoi, and the chances are he never wrote
such a thing as they say he did. The man who
reads his Bible finds in Revelations plenty to
prove to him that this great war now on in
Europe was foretold but all other wars have
been foretold by the same authority. The pro
phets haven't called the turn on anything of
the future. They may predict and when they
miss it a thousand times and guess it correctly
once we seem to recall only the one time.
War has always been, and war will always
be so long as Nations prepare for it and teach
men to fight. Behind it all is the Dollar. That
is the cause of war has always been and will
always be. We hatch up some plausible ex
cuse, often, but the real reason for all wars in
these days is money. There was a time when
men fought about religion killed their mil
lions, but those days have passed, and we are
fighting for money for power, to "protect in
terests" or add new territory.
Unless the present war is over within ninety
days the chances are it must run its course
like a spell of fever-rand that means three
years if it means a day. And naturally there
are those who have prophesied war. In fact it
has been freely predicted that some day there
must be a war betwen Labor and Capital and
it may happen. When it does you will find
the fellow with the prophecy all ready to turn
it in and say "I told you so."
For fifty years this war that is on today has
been predicted. Men finally thought that it
was too big an undertaking. But it came. And
other wars will come until the end of time.
We talk of peace but there will be no univer
sal peace. Not as long as man remains the
same kind of deceitful animal that he is today.
The War News.
It will be noticed that we put our war news
in small type. The smallest we have. There is
no use to use the big type to tell that men have
been killed to recite the bloody deeds. Most
of the papers are trying to get up thrills by
using the biggest type in the shop. Our war
news is authentic but it is in small type and
only given to record what is happening. The
soldiers need a brass band to urge them on
but we don't see that the readers need any
thing to give them inspiration. Read our six
point war news and you won't feel nervous
over it,
. 11
President Wilson has the sympathy of a
whole world and yet the aching void is there.
THE WAR CLOUD, LIKE
OTHER CLOUDS, HAS,
TOO, IT S SILVER
LINING.
ESTABLISHED MAY 1902.
CHANCE OFFERED
The Bull MoosersWho
Strayed From Fold.
ANY strange things hap
pen but none so strange
as those that present
themselves in politics.
Gilliam Grisson is alleg
ed to have written a let
ter to Mr. Charles A.
Tones. of I.inrnlntnn.
li '
L and the letter is hcinir
widely circulated, or was, this week. The let
ter purporting to have been written by Mr.
Grissom, secretary of the republican state com
mittee, was a long one, and contained one par
agraph that was calculated to make the hairs
come new on a hald head just in order to stand
erect. This paragraph, after telling Mr. Jones
what to do about coming back to the fold and
forgetting the past and all its bitterness read:
"Furthermore, bring back your matchless
leader who followed so long in the foot-steps
of the saintly McKinley, and we'll help in
again making him the national leader of the
only national party."
It was this paragraph that got under the
funny bone of bull moose patriots like Hiram
Worth. It was this paragraph that appealed
to the American sense of humor the idea of
bringing back the matchless leader who has
said a thousand times that there was no repub
lican party who is the father and the father-in-law
of the bull moose propaganda which is
standing so pat that a corporal's guard of the
old line radicals can't be found between Paint
Rock and Southport.
It's no use. The rads and moose might fuse.
They might proclaim. They might swear to
it but you'll never get 'em together in this
vale of tears. Teddy kicked out of the traces
and ninety per cent of the republicans of North
Carolina went with him. In other states the
thing is not so one sided. But it is down here.
A splendid bull mooser told us one day this
week that if Teddy would just write a little
twenty line speech and say that it was princi
ple with him; that it wasn't pie he wanted;
that he had been president and all he cared
for was to see a party come into power that
would carry out his ideas, and he was for
Hadley of Missouri, or Hiram Johnson, of
California, or any other tried and true pro
gressive, you would see a whirlwind.
True, but Teddy isn't built that way. Might
as well look for him to join the democratic
party and unqualifiedly endorse Bryan. What
Teddy wants is power and glory and the
fight he is to have in his own party will be his
undoing forever. There are other bull moose
men who want to be president.
0 '
The Good Of The War.
The Charlotte Observer tells us what good
may come from the war in the following sensi
ble editorial: - :
"Ever notice a business man opening the
Sunday edition of some of the big papers?
Then you have seen him toss aside sheet after
sheet without even a glance at the contents,
reserving perhaps three or four pages which
might contain the news he is after. He win
nows the telegraphic, baseball and editorial
pages and blows the others away as chaff
and that is really about what they amount to.
The Observer has been always steadfast in the
opinion that this is a waste of money on part
of the publishers and a nuisance to the sub
scribers. No doubt the publishers of some of
these superfluous sheets will welcome the ex
cuse the war has given them to take in sail
The cost of print paper is soaring like a kite
and the paper that does not look to curtail
ment in that direction will persist merely for
the love of spending money."
The funny sheets ; the freak sheets ; the
Sheet of Horrors; the imaginary fashion sheet
the wide pages of dope sent out by freight
and used to spoil white paper by many Sun
day publishers have long been understood to
be meaningless except like the proprietor of
the three ringed circus, they want the Greatest
Show on Earth. .
As the one ring circus was the stuph and is
the stuph so the newspaper that doesn't pad ;
that doesn't buy all the freak offerings ; that '
prints the news when news is news and under
stands that twelve or sixteen modest pages
make a better spread than sixty of the intel
lectual dope that is now handed out well,
maybe this terrible war will bring results long
heeded. - '
Not The Question.
In the court house question before the court 1
the other day, the lawyers argued long and
learnedly to prove that we didn't need a new .
COUrt house site. : ""''v. - .
That was not the question. The case was to
determine whether the Porter heirs and others
had any rights in court.'- -! - ' :v '
The question has been decided that we need
a new court house and a now court house site.
And the hope is that we will get It.