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_ Democratic?Published Thursdays. Wat. R. BhrftoH. Bdltsr aad Pskltalm si ISBT/Oi* *y w ^ i The Times invite* contributions on live subjects but does not agree to publish more than 200 words on any subject. The right is reserved to edit every communication submitted for publication. On application to the publisher, advertising rates are made known to those interested. Telephone, local and long distance No. 112. Entered at the postottlca at Fort Mill. S. C.. as mall matter of the second class. THURSDAY. SEPT. 1. 1921. ?- ? ? ? .. . Times are terribly out of joint it: the United States when men who served this country on the battlefields of Erope find it nee ronuij IU eiiusi III lilt* socaueu Spanish Legion to fight the Moors to keep from starving. Yet that is what is happening in New York city ami perhaps other big cities in the North. For going thousands of miles to face an enemy with whom the Spaniards recently have shown their inability to cope, these Americans art* to be paid the munificent sum of $100 as bonus money and 90 cents per day for their service in the Spanish army. Could anything more convincingly illustrate the unworthy attitude of the United States government toward the World war veterans than the condition of these men? Denied the small annuity the American l.cgion has asked Congress to extend ?ln ex-service men generally these soldiers, homeless ami jobless, with nothing to eat and perhaps no one upon whom to Jill fill* iivuiuliin.,.. 1.. - Hu..ioiun? c in uirii uiMi'C^, are forced by hunger to offer their lives under a foreign flag thousands of miles from home. Of eour.se many of them will take their last look at their native luml when tin ship on which they sail puts out to sea. But what difference does that make so long a:, there is money in the United States treasure to pay the railroads millions they have not earned and war contractors other millions they are not entitled to? For the time being nothing can be done to right the wrong the Republican president and the Republican Congress are doing / the World war veterans, but 14 months hence there will he a nationwide election in this country and if after March 4. 1933. the Democratic party?the only party in America with enough appreciation of its obligation to the peo pie to conduct the affairs of the government honestly?does not again come into its own in tin national house of representatives it will be because the country is \\illing to be robbed that the profiteers ami treasury looters may continue to rake in the millions, while the people, including the former soldiers, convict them selves at the ballot box of deserving nothing better. Now that several Kuropean governments have accepted Pres ident Harding's invitation to hold a disarmament nartv in Wuul>. ingtou. beginning November 11, entertainment of the distinguished visitors is giving the state department considerable anxiety. The foreign delegations probably will include scores of experts ami clerical assistants who must be properly housed und fed. Precedent indicates that Uncle Sam. as the host, will be called upon to pay the entire bill, which promises to exceed the amount Hellenmaria Dawes of the budget commission proposes to take from government employees. This extraordinary expenditure comes at an inopportune time for the ad uiinstrution. which is working so earnestly in the columns of the daily papers to reduce the high cost of government. Then, again, there is no telling how long the giiests will remain in Washington. They may like Washington lodgings and food so well that the bill will run into the millions. The item of printing alone i& estimated at around a quarter of a million. 4*w TBS LIT! or A TBEB (United State* Senator Tom Watson.) A number of the house of representatives made a speech last week on the subject named in this headline and he sent me a copy of it with the request that I read what he said. There are some reasons known only to ine and the trees why 1 will never read this speech. However much 1 honor and understand the feeling of the congressman who made it. The tree of life and the greeu fields in which it is blooming used to be the burden of the song of my mother in her widowed old age. When she began to croon the line? "In the green fields of Eden. Where the Tree of Lite is blooming. There is rest, rest for me." 1 would pick up my books and walk out of hearing, for the tones were those of one who was living with the deud. Being less than 21 years of age. and firmly bent on lighting m\ o\\ n way upward in the world, it did not discourage when inv pocket had no money in it, but it did depress me to listen to this hymn of the men and the women who lived in the past. Kveu Napoleon said that the I time comes when nothing interests us. and when that time comes we are virtually dead and buried. Keep the old folks busy at something, no matter what it is; kiep them believing that they are doing useful things?if you truly love them and wish theui to I in - 1 ger with you yet a while. As to trees. they waved in Paradise and lleuven cannot be imatfiiied wit limit tlw?m Oih? great soldier is commeuinn.ted throughout the world by etlttiligs of the willow under whit'll lie used to rest, as lie meditated upon the world lie had lost. Another greut soldier said wilh his last breath. "Let us pass over .he river and rest under the shade of the trees." Still another greut inaii. whose monument towers above all others on earth, spent his last afleruon of outdoor life marking the inferior trees which were to be felled in order that the ] grandeur of .Mount Vernon might not be marred. Napoleon said that the most I beautiful sight to his eyes was a , lovely girl, clad in white, walk- j ing on the green grass, under the I trees. Byron's poetry never reached i higher, purer mark than when he pictured the clump of trees under which he and Mary Chawworth plighted the vows which a change in the dream of life brought to nothing. There is ?or was, not many I years ago?a rose tree at Cologne which for ten centuries had bios ] soined for every generation of lovers, and hud given its flowers and its fragrance to every tourist of the Rhine. There is?or was. not many years ago?an oak in Kngluiui w hose foliage screened the fugi tiv** rrinee Charles Stuart when Cromwell's squadron of Ironsides were seeking him and his life. There are yet living Some of the trees that sheltered liohin Hood and some of those which formed the bower of Fair Rosa niond. The immortal sermon of Chrismt was preached under a tree, and these noble words of a lofty minded mystic are strangely like those of our Sermon on the Mount. Men become attached t?? trees, having for them a peculiar affection. and the youthful dreamer dreams under the trees; and. under them, the old men see visions. There is no music like that of tin* wind in tin* trees, the weird dirge of the pines, the wild flutter of the maples, the whisperings of the white birches and the I hoarse roar of the oaks. Nothing more beautiful can be seen than the red beech bursting into its tviwtrtr./li-.icu . I Vtivno, UUIIUU^ more regal than the hickory's blaze of yellow-gold in the autumn sun; nothing more gorgeous than the Tyrian purple that | the Spanish oak wears?wears : proudly when other trees are | reefing their sails for winter and i their sere leaves have come siglt, ing to the ground. Spring and summer and au| tumn have power to glorify the ' trees and winter is powerless to I strip them of their beauty. The | FOBT1PLL THO&8 sleet may come, but it armors | them in silver; the snow may {come, but its winding sheet does not enshroud the dead; the winds may toss their leafless limbs pack and forth, but there are voices in the winds and we hear bur names called in the night?called by voices we will not otherwise hear. The merciless treud of * our struggle lor existence has played havoc with the trees, fc'crests have disappeared; annual fires sweep over the barrens andf den> to uature her right to renew her favorites; the old-tiiue shade trees near the home have been ruthlessly cut down, to add an acre of fresh land to the cotton patch; the natural enemies of the trees have not been combatted; the deadly caterpillar hangs cut Ims sign and nobody pays any attention or will take the trouble to destroy, the pest ; the pinkhead cuts olf limb after limb and no one will burn the brush, much less pursue the foe to the tree. We lose the trees, and thefi we stupidly wonder what has be| come of the birds. Many of the kinds that Were eoiuiiiou when 1 was u boy are ' no longer to be seen: they lived on the eggs of the enemies of the trees; or upon the borers which sought to kill the trees; and inasmuch as we ourselves have allowed the grand old trees to perish the birds have become extinct. When Byron penned those exquisite lines to his sister he could j think of no simile more tender | than the fountain that sprang in the desert; the wild waste that still treasured its tree; and the | bird that sang by the fountain, amid the leaves o! this tree. When Aristotle and l'lato ' taught the subliiuest lessons of antiquity, they walked with their students under the trees. W hen .Julius t aesar wished to i win forever the love of the Komun people he gave them his garj dens ami his groves on the Tiber. When the liuby Ionian king j wished to deeply please his bride, | a mountain gin, lie built for her | the Hanging Hardens?one of the seven wonders of the world? in winch every tree and flower grew; and the wise men tell us | iliat at least one of those trees |.still flourishes, when the king is forgotten dust, when his queen is forgotten dust, when his empire is a vague memory, and when his onee lertile fields have become sandy wastes or marshes laden with the fever which struck down Alexander the Great. When the traveler in the desert becomes dizzy from thirst and fatigue, the mirage mocks him from the far horizon. lie sees running waters; he sees the spray let" fountains; he sees green trees; if he perishes, his last vision will be that which most refreshes the physical mail, and which almost any of us can enjoy, if that sort ol music is in the soul. | RAIL RATES TOO HIGH. And Production of Wheat Suffers Accordingly. High freight rates have slackened farm production, according to Secretary of Agriculture Wallace, and, if the present situation continues, production from the farms will be reduced materially. "We cannot afford to let. our agriculture he destroyed," Mr. Walare declared. "In attempting to relieve the distress of the farmers, we are dealing with ! fcreat economic forces. All our people ought to share the burden j of the present depression." , The farmer is now bearing I more than his share of the eeo noiuic load, Mr. Wallace continued, because the purchasing power of farm products is below the average of other commodities, i Reductions in freight rates on I farm products, especially on hay. ' the ho rotary said, would be reflected in a larger volume of traffic ami therefore in greater revenue for the railroads. In .reply to questions of attorneys for the railroads. Secretary ! Wallace said that wheat from | Argentina could be laid down ! at Atlantic ports and in foreign pofts at less than the price Amer- | ican wheat must bring under > present conditions. 1 The boll weevil is no longer a novelty in Fort Mill township. During the last ten days the pest I has been discovered on a number of farms it had not hitherto j reached and it now seems practi- : er.llv certain that it will have in- | vaded every cotton field in this section before the end of the summer. ' An Ii (Continued from I'age 1.) had shot himself accidentally and was lying beside the railroad track too weak to move and all bnt unconscious when lie was ar- 1 rested. ' "Is your name .lames Howard . as stuted in tin- indictment." a "iked tile judge. " 'It is not." answered the prisoner. " 'What is your name, when is your home and what were you doing in this community 011 .lie night of the hank robbery." lie was next asked. " 'At present I refuse to an- j swer either of the questions, hut if you care to have uie answer , them in writing later and p.iss : the answers to you. I shall be , glad to do so." j "The ease was quickly elos mI, with practically nothing having been said in behalf of the boy , other than his own avowal of iunocense. Then the jury retired and the youth was seen to \vi ite | , FORT MILL, 8. 0. r~~ I ODD BANK ROBBERY. some!I)ing on a slip of paper 11 which was handed to the judge. The message it contained was .00 much for the aged jurist. 1'ieseutly he leaned forward 011 his desk, his hands in his face. Then it was noted that his frame sunk ii: his chair as his face did on the desk. Ity the time court | attendants reached him lie was dead. The court room was thrown into confusion and the jury never reported a verdict. "The boy was taken hack to jail, hut tin' following night lie escaped and no serious effort was made to rearrest him. "A few months afterward the deputy sheriff who had arrested the hoy admitted in a sworn j statement that it was he and not : the hoy who rohhed the hank. '*11 ?*? ? is the message the boy wrote the judge: '1 am your own ' grandson, .lames Morris. I had I I* ft father's home to spend the j holidays with you. At the station two miles north of here 1 . missed the train and was walking! to your home when I accident-ij ally shot myself." "Years before. Judge Morris' son had moved to the Southwest, lie had never before seen his grandson." Country Road Tonnage. The necessity of keeping country roads in good condition is shown by a report recently com piled by the department of agri w i - > runurc Knowing i n?* extent to which they are useil in hauling farm products to market. According to the report, which shows the tonnage of 11 products hauled on country roads, giving the yearly average for the period from 191to 1919. there were 'J7 j tens of these 11 crops hauled for every 100 acres of land. The av- ; erage tonnage of the 11 crops hauled on the country roads each year for the period mentioned amounted to neary 87 million tons. The 11 crops refrrcd to in the report are corn, wheat, oats, | barley, rye. rice, flaxseed, cotton (including seed), tobacco, potatoes and cultivated bay. S tc into this b savings ac H dollar W one of th H ings ban W we loa | T1 p |j me da " ^I TIT A rLU COVEF New shipment just newest low prices. We have a complete TAl'KSTKI AXM1NSTI C()N(?()LKI lilNOLKl'.N \l 1 'l"l< IV/! i-Tft il 1 I I Let us quote you pn YOUNG & THE FORT MILL FU JOB PRI AT THE TIMES OFFICE I ivitation re invited > come s ank and start a count with one more and take ese pocket savks h ome with ||j lelp you save, n them free. ivings Bank I Fort Mill 1 ^__J11 OR tINGS received at the : showing of? KS IKS L iM I ices. Wftl.FF RNITURE MEN. ' V NTING : - - PHONE 112