University of South Carolina Libraries
THE LAROEST CIRCULATION of Any Nowopaptr In tho Fifth Conoroaolonal District of E. C. EVERY ONE P£ID IN ADVANCE LEDGER SEMI-WEEKLY-PUBLISHED TUESDAY AND FRIDAY. WE GUARANTEE THE RELlASlLlTV of Every Advertiser Who Uses tho Columns of This Paper. BEET ADVERTIEINQ MEDIUM. A Newspaper in All that the Word Implies and Devoted to the Best Interest of the People of Cherokee County. ESTABLISHED FEB. K, 1894. GAFFNEY. C. C- TUESDAY, MAY 28, 1907. •1.00 A YEAR. LIMESTONE COLLEGE CLOSES SESSION CROWDS OF VISITORS HERE FOR THE EXERCISES. Aiddress by Prof. G. B. Moore—Ser mon by Dr. H. W. Battle—Other Commencement Notes. (Commencement at Limeston e Col lege is now on, and large crowds of visitors from all over the State, and many from adjoining States, are in attendance. The exercises began Saturday night with the annual meeting of the Cooper Literary Society, the most prominent feature of which was an address by the Rev. Prof. Gordon B. Moore, D. D., of Columbia. Prof. Moore's address was a masterly one, and is printed in full below: In our life as a people, in what ever aspect we study it, we observe a tendency to progress and a ten dency to conservatism. Human achievement in all its forms, whether nocial. political, economic or ethical, Is the Joint product of these two forces, neither wholly neutralizing the other, both alike essentlad to the common result known as our civili sation. It is not easy to assign to each its relative sharp of Influence and importance In maintaining the •world-order, as a constant develop ment and progressive realization olf reason. The world ns we.know it, and v as science investigates it, shows us that these tenden cies are not antagonistic hut com plementary and mutually limitins^ giving us as their resuKtant the actual world. Perhaps in all human affairs conservatism will appear to he In the ascendant, progress being a rare and exceptional phenomenon, and brought about through fortunate accidents. Very few races and peo ples shows any tendency to progress or dream the dream of change. Like the fabled Ixion. the mftny are bound to the revolving wheel of custom from age to age. They stand still while whole centuries and millen- inms pass by. We are apt to sup pose that progress is natural, that it is a necessary outcome of human life, because our opinions are in fluenced by our own national his tory, and that of the great branch of the human family to which we belong. A wider outlook corrects this mistake. A stubborn, uncon querable conservatism holds sway, and millions, yea, hundreds of mil lions of human beings are he’d fast by their ancient moorings Some dynamic agency is necessary to tear men from the domination of prece dent, and rend the fetters of custom and free the mind for a new strug gle with the forces of nature. Some happy adversity must force men to make a new social or economic ad justment; some sharp whip of neces sity must be plied before men will give up immemorial status, and en ter upon a new career. The printflple of conservatism seems to reach down to the very bottom of nature. Nature holds on to everything she has. She holds in her rigid iron embrace every par ticle of matter in the wide universe, and not an atom can be torn from her grasp or destroyed. And every ounce of energy that has ever throb bed anywhere still exists somewhere, actually or potentially, in her vast domain. Transformations are per mitted under the laws of mutation and evolution, but nothing is ulti mately given away; nothing is alien ated from the general estate and sum of things. Nor does this principle hold only in the sphere of physics, or of che mical elements. It prevails in the realm of life as well. And this principle which in physics we call the conservation of energy, in orga nic nature we call the law of here dity, the persistent pursuit of a type, a determined, relentless grip upon the past, which nothing can at once relax without the destruction of. the form of life concerned. Life recapitulates its long history, and any advancement is made upon the basis of past achievement And when we take n P the study of mind, this conservative tendency appears in the power of habit, in the auto matic and j^flex action of the ner vous systenhn the resistance of in coming stimuli in a certain ratio, ac cording to Wleber's celebrated law. And so also- the law of association illustrates the same tendency; and imagination even in its most highly creative flights, and ideas, and reasoning, and even our very sense perceptions arc under the same im perious necessity of respecting the past. The brain or central nervous system is a delicate hut powerful register in which experiences are preserved, unified, wrought into rational products; and no new, un related experience has any meaning. In the presence of mental pheno mena. we are almost awed by nature's solemn appeals to her own former de crees. Whatever it may be, you must not disregard the past, yea, you cannot, even if you would. You cannot separate yourself from what, constitutes your very being. And when we approach the high est product of creative activity, the crown and glory of intelligence, namely, human society, we discover conservative forces at every turn. They preserve the existing order, binding it to the past. Such mani festly conservative agencies as custom, law, government, ceremony and religion, will readily occur to every one. And the steadfast repre sentative and conservator of the in fluences descending from the past into the present is the woman. Why this is so we need not now inquire. It Is not important for us on this occasion to consult biological prin ciples to ascertain if possible the foudation of this trait in nature’s everlasting self. The fact is, the variant, and we may say, the vagrant element in society is rarely the wo man; it is in general the man. The woman is civilization’s register, the incarnation of past social achieve ment, the consolidated result of ethical and "spiritual refinement. She holds the ground conquered through ages of struggle, and is un willing to risk her heritage in a w’ld moral experiment. She is the con servator of attainment. Of the conservative factors al ready mentioned, it is not necessary to speak in detail. Let us select two or three for the sake of Illustra tion. First, the ceremonial of our civilization is in the beeping of wo men. I refer to the vast unwritten code of conventions and social forms, the rules of conduct that are seldom referred to in works on ethics, but which are as truly ethical as the Decalogue or the Golden Rule. The proprieties of life that establish barriers against social anarchy, and that promote reverence for person ality, are in th e custody of our wo men. They have charge of the whole social ritual; they are guardians of the inviolable sanctities of form and usage. We can scarcely overestimate the valu e of these things to the cause of civilization and morality. The fact that it is just as truly im moral to be impolite as it is to tell a falsehood is recognized by every refined woman. Social conventions have their foundation in most cases in moral considerations; and hence the fine moral intuition of women in sists upon holding them fast. Queen Victoria, a representative woman the last century, is said to have been a stern and rigid disciplinarian in all that pertained to the ceremo nial of British royalty, as well as to British civilization in general. In this she displayed fine insight. What would become of British royalty un der the mighty shadow of English democracy, were it not f or the cere monial that carries forward with veneration the ancient monarchy? The mighty sweep of popular govern ment pauses before the ritualism that surrounds the throne, and lingers for a moment in reverence there. Once break over these bar riers. and tho throne will crumble int<> dust. And So with our social ceremonial. All true women Insist upon it almost as if Jt were a part of the eternal ortter^ certainly as indispensable to the dignity of social life, and as a necessary barrier against immor ality. The aggressive, spectacular, uncjrmventjional woman is not the conservative woman. We may notice also that in relig ion, another great conservative fac tor, women bring down to us and carry forward the past. I do not contend that conservatism here Is wholly beneficial,’ but rather that it is always necessary. Each genera tion cannot work out for itself an entirely new religion, or even a wholly new interpretation of a tra ditional religion. In France, today the storm-center of the conflict between the State and esslesisticism, some intelligent wo men are joining the ranks of the anticlerical party. One of them writes; “The French republicans to day are striving to establish a de mocracy, and they encounter on every hand a tremendous obstacle —the church. Now of all the allies of this church, women are the most zealous, the most influential, the most numerous. They it is who have prolonged the existence of a doctrine condemned fatally to disap pear. Remove women from the church, and the Catholic edifice re ceives a mortal blow. Knowledge is the cource of all liberty. Woman since the beginning of the world has been the victim of religious tradi tion.’’ Wlithout endorsing this quo tation as a whole, we may observe that it strikes a true note wih regard to woman’s relation to religion. But France’s difficulty is not with Chris tianity, nor indeed with religion, hut with an authoritative, infallible church, armed with unchangeable dogma. That is the trouble. In free England and in free America woman may hold on to her religion in all the aspirations she cherishes, in the wide range of activities, inviting her utmost efforts. The church was made for man, not man for the church. Dogma i s useless, unless there is a principal of growtfi and expansion and adaptation in it. A final and in flexible dogma may become an instru ment of despotism in the hand of unscrupulous, and irresponsible pow er. Christinlty is always distorted when in its name intolerance and butchery and St. Bartholomew days are authorized and approved. It is a mere nominal Christianity. And in like manner, when Christianity is ap pealed to to suppress woman’s as piration for a larger intellectual life and freedom, and a fuller self-reali zation under the guidance of evident ethical laws, you may be sure some body has' bludered. Perhaps the conventional expounders of this nom inal religion are at fault. This great religion of ours, as apprehended and understood in the Western hemi sphere, breathes a freedom unknown in the stifling air of the Orient; and this we are going to find out, in spite of all the doctrinaires that plead the so-called finalities of revelation. They must not set up their own subjective finalities, the mere limitations of their own Insight, as tho furthest boundary of reality. And in this presence, it is scarcely necessary to say that Christianity, the religion that Jesus founded, whatiever may be said of dogma, is as friendly to woman as to man. It smiles from the everlasting throne of Veason up on every spark of reason that files upward, and will forever. There is another group of con servative agencies in society which I have not mentioned; Literature, art, Industry, education, 'fhese may or may not be dynamic. It 1 may he interesting to notice one or *two of these forces^ The ordinary work of fiction, like the numerous volumes that, pour from the press year by year, are not dynamic. They con tain the usual round of human events accounts of love and friendship, hat red and jealously, revenge and devo tion, adventure and incident, moral reflection and speculation. But I suppose we would readily admit that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was dynamic, that it struck Are, and helped to kindle a edntinent to a blaze. And so it is with all forms of in dustry, with which woman is becom ing more and more Identified in our time. Manufacturing processes may h-v mere repetitions from generation to generation. Until there is some shifting of an industry to a new point, or some improvement in the process by invention, or by scienti fic discovery, no progress takes place. The ordinary use of fire is not dy namic; but the daring son of earth who first stole fir e from a volcano, or from the kindling of a holt from the sky, or learned to draw fire from a flint, was more important in the history of mankind than a score of Sir Isaac Newtons Herschels or Galileos. And so the savage who stumbled upon a piece of crude cop per and wrought it with his stone hammer, prophesied the great steel kings of our day, whose forge- fitrst light the world’s pathway of progress. And we know what the discovery of the use of steam has done; yea, we hear its doings in the hum and roar and thunder of indus try on every side; and we feel the earth tremble under its majestic tread. An event that occurred near the beginning of the Hundred Years’ war between England and France, deserves mention here. When the queen of Edward III, Philippa of Hainault, brought over weavers from her native land, and established a new industry in England, the wonder ful manufacturing career of England began. How entirely thoughtful and woman-like it was. And yet all the exploits of Edward and the Black Prince on the continent, their mighty battles and famous victories, sink into insignificance beside the queen’s achievement. And as England’s wide commerce floats upon the high seas today, it would he well if every great merchantman bore on its mast head, or npqn its huge smoking fun nels, th e name; Philippa, of Hainault. A very materialistic fact, common place, unnoticed, has a meaning for England that we cannot measure. A fact of this sort is truly dynamic, not some spectacular event like the “Field of the cloth of gold,’’ a mere piece of pomp, a pageantry, dying quickly even in the memory of the captured senses. No, no. It is the invention of the spinning jenny, the cotton gin. the power loom, the ap plication of steam to the machinery of manufacturing and transportation, that move civilization from its an cient seat, and shift the centre of gravity of the whole industrial-world. Inventions of this sort produce changes in the very structure of so ciety; and affect the drift of popula tion and morals and government alike. I do not think that the ordinary process of education is dynamic. It consists for the most part of a repe tition of work intended to keep the world up to its present state of culture and social efficiency. You toil for years to reach the plane upon wihch your grandmother stood: and even then you are not always sure that your moral and spiritual outlook is as clear and as broad and as bracing as hers. Ordinary education is a protest against reversion to a lower stage of intelligence, it is only when Rousseau enters with his Emile, or Pestalossi with his Ijeonard and Oertmdt or Froebel with his child- education, that an important change takes place. These are dynamic in the transmission of culture frrtm genera Lion to generation. The educational process quivers with new life in all its extent. But there must be respect for order; we must maintain the ordinary as a condition prerequisite to progress, wh must stand by the achievement of the past, its thought structures, its in stitutions, forms of law, ethical and social conventions. Anarchy dcs- tiops all possibility of progress Pi ogress rests upon past achieve ment. Thought structures are not final; laws may be bettered; there are-no last expressions of human in telligence. We must therefore stand by what we have, and yield only on the clearest rational grounds to the claims of the extraordinary and the new. Nature herself In all her great departments of activity wants to be and is conservaive. She holds the past and the present togeth- r with an iron grip. A few years ago, after listening to a lecture on social evolution In which quite broad and sweeping statements were made, I asked the distinguished lecturer whether he thought the family would be evolved into something higher. I venture to' say there is scarcely an intelligent, refined woman in the United States who would hav e dodged the question, or given an evasive answer. You might call her attention to the phalanstery of Fourier, the socialist, or to other speculative dreams, but she would reply in every case: “This is no substitute f° r the Anglo- Saxon home. 4 What the future may hold no one can tell. But there is not a suggestion among all the orac les of the ages and the sages that the family, the bottom stone of our civilization, is a temporary expedient, a make-shift in the mighty process of evolution.” This is what the average woman would say, and what the man would say who is blessed with a little womanly insight. The home must be perfected, and then outgrown, before we can pass on to something higher. I believe that education is the greatest task before us at this time, because it involves the solution of the greatest problem we have. What is our greatest problem? It is demo cracy, multitudinous, many-headed and many-voiced democracy: not trusts and giant corporations, and railroad domination and dictation, and the prevalence of graft, and the lack of public virtue. Democracy itself is our problem; because we have found no way of weighing rather than of counting votes. It is absurd, when we come to think about it, that the vote of the intelligent, disinterested, wise man , counts no more than the vote of the vicious ignoramus. Under our system o(f government a vote may be freighted with political wisdom and sanctified u/ an enlightened sense of social needs and public justice, and yet it counts no more than the sordid, selfish vote which the grafter or venal demagogue has purchased in the <>P e n market. And there seems to be no way under our laws by which this essential inequality of men i n the exercise of the powers of sufferage can be expressed. We are committed to majority rule, bound over to a numerical decision, in all matters referred to the popu lar tribunal. This is the peril anc the problem of democracy. And we are just as ignorant of any politica device by which to meet this problem as the ancients were of the princi ple of representative democracy. As the ancient democracy was direct, so ours is undiscriminating, boasting of equal rights to all, and specla privileges to none. And the very thing ip which we boast is perilous. What course shall we pursue? There is hut one thing left us to do, and that is to raise the average of virtue and intelligence. We canno , hope to equalize the intrinsic value of votes as exponents of personality; but we may neutralize the effect of ignorance and incompetency at the poles, through an increase of intel ligence and patriotism. The prob lem of democracy must be worked out largely in the school room. Mere political action cannot do all that Is needed. In the school room we must smooth out the wrinkles and cues of the anti-social spirit, and form men for the duties of intelligent self- government, and for the exercise of the sovereignty that resides in the people of this great country. We may be convinced that in order to attain the common good which government presupposes, compulsory education must be accepted as a necessary policy. If so, let us adopt it with the same remorseless deter mination that we should cherish*in resisting the impending overthrow of our nation by some foreign enemy. Destruction from within is as bad as destruction from without. Those who cling to status when it means helpless ignorance and political weakness, are in the way. Let them get out of the way of progress; and all along the far flung battle line of State and national advancement, let this watchword fly. Let sentimental considerations retire before the urgent needs of democracy. The problem of democracy is a huge one, but I believe Anglo-Saxon genius is going to solve it. We must educate; we must educate the whole people; voluntiarily, if they will; by compulsion, if we must. A few millionaires, a few cultured men and women cannot make us a great and happy people. Ttye an cient world had these toweringr mo noliths. representatives of wealth and culture, but at their base lay a seething, crawling, mass of ignor ance and vice and wretchedness. And whe n the monoliths fell there was no ancient world. Then let each one of us take up the task of bringing i n a better day, a day .of wider knowledge and high er character and deeper life. Let the strength that you have go into this great work. It cannot be finish ed in a day. All progress does not conip about through revolutions and eruptions and upheavals in society. Revolution means that evolution has stopped, and that violent forces must set it forward again. Revolu tion means that, conservatism is Hinging to the bad things of the past, the outgrown things that ought to be left beside time’s unresting sea. True conservatism is bringing forward the good things of the past into the better things of the pre sent, a s a pre|»aration for the best things to come. It is standing stead fastly by the great moral conclusions that the race has reached, and seek ing to improve the social institutions that embody the highest achievement of the ages. And women preeminent*] ly represent these great moral con/ elusions and social institutions. Youn^ women, go forth as missionariqB of culture, as apostles of enlighten ment, as supporters of the moral or der upon which, as an everlasting foundation, all progress must rest until the end of time. The Commencement Sermon, The largest crowd yet attendant upon the commencement exercises, assembl ’d on Sunday to hear the commencement sermon preached by Dr. Henry W. Battle, of Greensboro, N. 0. The large auditorium, which hag a seating capacity of about one thousand, was comfortably filled and the sermon had the close attention of the audience from its beginlng to its close. The text was from Hosea 2:19: “I have betrothed thee to myself forever.’’ The subject deduced was pecu liarly appropriate to the occasion, and the speaker represented Christ as the Divine wooer, and union with Him under the similitude of the mar riage bonds, with a beauty and forcefulness that moved every heart. iW e called on Dr. Battle immediate ly after the close for a copy of the sermon for publication and was greatly disappointed to learn that he had neither notes nor manuscript, and that it would be impracticable for him to reproduce it. We felt so cer tain that we could obtain a copy from him that we had made no ar rangements for a stenographic re port; and, hence, much to our regret, we are unable to lay the sermon be fore our readers. If we were to at tempt to give an outline of it from memory we should mar its beauty and symmetry, and do It Irreparable injustice. We ca n only say that those w’ho failed to hear it missed one of the great opportunities of a life-time. paderewsk; Lecture Recital, On last Tuesday night occurred the first of a series of musical affairs to be given at the college during commencement. This was a combined lecture and recital on the life and works of the foremost living pianist, Ignace Jan Paderewski. Paderewski has had a phenomenal career. He was born in Podolia, a small province in Russian Poland, in 1860, making him at present a man of forty-seven years of age. His early life was lived among extreme poverty and hardship. When he was a boy of twelve, his father became mixed up in some political troubles, and was exiled to the mines of Siberia, since which no word has ever been heard of him. This left the family with no means of support save that which the mother and Ignace could earn. About this time, Paderewski’s great talent, for music became very noticeable, - and a wealthy man who had been a long time friend of the exiled father, of fered to send him to the Warsaw Conservatory of Music, then one of the leading Institutions of Europe. T^e offer was accepted, and Pade rewski studied there till he was nineteen years old, earning some money during the last few years by teaching. He then went to Vienna, where the great teacher Letsshltitsky took him. After several years of study in Vienna he made his debut as a con cert pianist, and his appearance In this capacity set musical Europe wild with excitement. Nothing to equal his playing had been heard since Liszt and Ruhenstein. He was/ acknowledged by all to be the great-j est living pianist. Since then he has\ played in nearly every civilized quarter of the globe, alMays with the same success—crowded houses and thousands of dollars. On (me long concert trip, when he played 110 times, he earned the sum of one million dollars. A brief summing up of Paderewski is that his wish to be ranked among the great pianists of the world is sure to be fulfilled. During the concert various compo sitions of Paderewski’s were played or sung. The first selections were from his opus 8, three* of his works from this opus being admirably in- terprted by Miss Mary Alice Dew, of the Limestone College music facul ty. Perhaps the best known number from this opus is the Chant du Voyageur in B major, a delightfully written sketch. Miss Dew played each piece with interest and a credit able execution, and was warmly ap plauded. Miss Loulie Potter, one of Lime stone’s most talented students then played two of the pieces from opus 10, the Love Song and Scherzino. These were much enjoyed, and de servedly so. Miss Mary Alice Churchill was then heard in a Cappriccio, which required a brilliant technique, and was well played. Three of Paderewski’s songs were sung by Miss Edna van Vliet Higley. Miss Higley sang these with rare good feeling and was heartily en cored. Miss Potter again appeared on the programme, playing a Caprice and following this by one of the master’s verv best writings, his Theme with Variations in A major. This was splendidly played, and received much favorable criticism from the music ians in the audience. Mr. Loring’s talk on the life of Paderewski occupied about fifteen minutes, and was heard with in terest. ARGO ARGO ARGO ARGO ARGO ARGO ARGO ARGO ARGO ARGO. Mav 27-31. A SENSATIONAL REPLY. Made by Mrs. Lol a Mill* to Her l Father'a Affidavit. Editor The Ledger:—The following | affidavit was sent to your corres pondent by Mrs. Lola A. Mills, with the request that it be published in the newspapers; J “In reply to proof of my recent / communications . being erroneous, I wish to say (and you will perceive I’m an ignoramus i n law, of which I am not ashamed) I did not know Mr. Otts was a notary public until seeing same in the papers and do not supposp his jurisdiction extends in to North Carolina, where he came to obtain my signature. Whoever swears I said anything to them of contents of this statement or ad mitted same, swears a lie. The facts in disputed affidavit were not ‘stated and admitted by me ’first be- ing duly sworn,’ as Mr. Otts brought the paper, previously composed, when he came to obtain my signature. I judge he obtained the ‘material alle gations' from the reliable witnesses by whom he is going to prove same. “I’ve n «ver entertained a doubt but that these things would he sworn to maliciously as they were told to Mr. Mills in the beginning of this trouble. And we soe from sworn statements sent you for publication who is the first to come forward in so doing. Never had cause to know, heretofore, C. A. Turner was a champion of duty and Justice. Am glad to know he has realized some duty toward his son-in-law, except bearing the wedding expenses to ob tain the promise that he (Turner) should hav e a hand in dictating the management of me and drawing up temporary business contract to get damage suit against him signed off. There’s a reason why, In this case, too.’ “I solemnly swear I have never admitted to C. A. Turner that I was criminally intimate with Frank Deal; that I never told him I had made a full statement in the form of an af fidavit to be used in applying for bail; that I never told him anyone had offered me and my child support to deny all relations with Frank Deal; and also that I would leave Grover if financially able to pay my board elsewhere. 9 j ‘ Messrs. Mills and Otts have been urging me to go elsewhere. Mr. Otts told me when over with this affidavit to get me to sign it, that if I would go some other place, my expenses would be fully paid until trial was over. Since then he sent me by C. A. Turner fifteen dollars. “In justice to Mr. Turner, will say I never made any denial of charges against me to him, knowing it would b e useless, as his past life has sap ped every particle of his confidence in any woman. He has often fc'd to me; ‘Every woman has her price’ and his past treatment of me had proven beyond a doubt that he ex pected ‘his blood’ to spring forth again in me. “We did discuss some outside com ment on the case. He has doubtless taken this discussion, together with my not denying it, (he several times said to me; ‘I don’t want you to tell me anything about it,’ and I didn’t materially), and drawn his af fidavit from this, aided bv his im agination. Lola A. Mills. “Grover, N. C. “Subscribed to and sworn to be fore me, this the 24th day of May, 1907. ‘M. R. Collins, j. p.” C. A. Turner, referred to by Mrs, Mills in the above statement, is her totter, who recently made an affida vit supporting the contention by Mills’ attorneys, that the original af fidavit, alleged to hav© been made by Mrs. Mills, was authentic and correct. W. H. Mills is now in jail in Gaffney charged with the murder of Frank Deal at Blacksburg a few weeks ago. Mr. Otts, when asked if he had anything to say as to the last state ment of Mrs. Lola A. Mills, said: “At the trial of Mills every motive for her diverse statements will be shown. I appreciate the courtesy you ex tend to me, but it is no part of my duty to notice every inspired com munication she may mak e to the public.” / GUARANTEED BY GAFFNEY DRUG COMPANY. If the head aches, if the hack and side are painful, if there Is distress and nausea after eating, if you are sleepless, nervous and out of sorts get a 50c box of Ml-o-na from the Gaffney Drug Co. with the absolute certainty that the remedy wilf cost you nothing unless it gives you fre^ dom from all ills and paints and re stores vou to health. Use Mi-o-na stomach tablets, and your ill health will soon be gone and you will forget that you have ever had indigestion or its resulting ills. It’s too bad to see people who go from day to day suffering from phy sical weakness when Hollister’s Rocky Mountain Tea would make them well. The greatest tonic known, 35 cents. Tea or Tablets. Gaffney Drug Co. How to Open a Can of Salmon. To open a can of Argo Red Sal mon properly, lay the can on its side, insert the can opener at the seam, then stand the can on end, and pressing the top firmly down, work the c an opener around the top, re moving the entire top. The Argo will then come out in one solid piece. Mav 27-31.