University of South Carolina Libraries
Published Wednesday and Saturday ?BY? OSTEEN PUBLISHING COMPANY SUMTER, S. C. Terms: , $1.50 per annum?in advance. Advertisements. One Square first insertion .. ..$1.00 Every subsequent insertion.50 Contracts for three months, or longer will be made at reduced rates. All communications which sub serve private interests will be charged for as advertisements. Obituaries and tributes of respect will be charged for. The Sumter Watchman was fouud w in 1850 and the True Southron m is66. The Watchman and Southron now has the combined circulation and influence of both of the old papers, and is manifestly the best advertising medium in Sumter. The saw mill men of the South are neld up for condemnation by the Emergency Shipping Corporation for not supplying timber for wooden ship construction as rapidly as needed. The fact that the labor that the saw mills must have to get out the timber has been drafted into the army or in duced to leave the mills to work in shipbuilding yards by the lure of higher wages than the mills have ever been able to pay, seems to be lost sight of entirely. The saw mills can not tum out timber without labor and if the labor that they have heretofore | depended upon is taken from them byj the army and by the ship yards, how are they to meet the demands of the ship building corporation? * ? ? Blease is not charged with disloy alty because of what other men say about him, but because of what he has said himself. He is condemned by the words of his own mouth. The man who votes for Blease is a -ainst Woodrow Wilson, for Blease has said that Wilson is guilty before Almighty God for the blood of every young man who is killed in this war. * * * Sumter county needs good citizens to represent her in the legislature and the State needs its most able, patriot ic and level headed citizens in the legislative department of government, as never before, and it is the duty of men competent to serve in this ca-\ pacity to volunteer for this duty. The flower of the young manhood of the State is in the army, giving their all in the service of the nation, and the men above the draft age should not shirk service in places of responsibil ity in civil life. If a young man can give all his time, and perhaps his life, the middle-aged men can afford to give twe months out of the year to service ;n the legislature. * * * The government price fy?r wheat is $2.20 per bushel. Congress tried' to increase the minimum price to $2.40 per bushel and passed a bill to that effect, but President Wilson vetoed the bill, saying that he did not believe conditions justified the price suggest ed by congress. There is no law to prevent a farmer or dealer in wheat demanding more thain $2.20 a bushel, but that is a matter of barter be tween seller and buyer. The govern ment price is $2.20. Dark Corner News. Dark Corner, July 31.?There was a heavy rain here last night and the earth is soaked with water this morn ing. Crops are doing finely now. i these rains do not cause the cotton to shed its squares. The health of the community is very good at this time. Mrs. Joe E. Johnston had some fever last Sunday, but seems better now. W. J. Ardis who has been sicl since the first of June has got so he can be around a little again, but he had a tough time with bronchitis and malarial fever. Dr. Swope of Abbeville assisted I Rev. Bowen of Paxville in a meeting; at Pinewood Baptist church last week. We were glad to have Dr. Svope and hope he will come again. It was my good luck to dine with Mr. J. Roliin Kolb and his kind wife last Friday. And I saw some of that fine crop he has, but the rain shut me off from seeing it all. yet I saw enough to say his crop is, as usual, good. Messrs. McCIellan and Palmer are surveying out O. J. C. Rose's land in this corner and adjoining lands. Politics is still cool in this corner | and 1 see the candidate seed sprout! very slow in Sumter county this sea-! son. While I notice from The Time^ that our sister Clarendon has lots of good germinating seed and perhaps; some to spare, magistrate in Sumter! and judge of probate is all that is be-1 tag contended for in this county. Mr. C. A. Johnson of this corner; was called into the army last week, j but was turned down on account of j disability and sent hack home after, only two days at Camp Jackson. Private J. Corbett Weeks now of; Camp Jackson, visited relatives here} from last .Saturday until this morn-] when, when he returned to camp. Hej sure fooks well and looks as if sol-| dier's life agrees with him. Hard Times. Helping The Farmers. Verda. Ala.. Aug. 1.?On three days! each week business men and their em ployes here desert their counters and' offices for the plow and hoe and take1 to the surrounding fields to assist the f;-rni<Ts with their crops. This is owing to the shortage of farm labor and was sugg'-st'-d by the local Coun cil of Defense. The plan has proved r> cuceess. a Hunting Submarines. London, July 14 (British Wireless Sei vice)?A sea sport which has aris en out of the war?hunting German submarines by airship?is described in The Times. The writer's story con cludes with telling how the crew of the u-boat apparently preferred death to being captured. One of the crew of an airship spot ted a submarine lying on the bed of the ocean, in fairly shallow water. "The wireless sparked." reads the account in The Times, "and soon away on the horizon there appeared a lit tle destroyer, followed far astern by four squat trawlers, all racing toward the spot above which the airship cruised around. "The destroyer came up first, * of course, and it was not long before, guided by wireless instructions, her guns were trained in readiness to greet the unsuspecting u-boat should it bob to the surface. It seemed ages to the impatient crew before the trawlers arrived, but things moved rapidly once they were at the scene of action, for they knew their job of old. 1 "Working in pairs they approach ed their victim from opposite direc tions, steaming toward each other. Between each pair a strong "sweep" was stretched and allowed to hang in a huge loop that it might traverse the seabed. The vessels met and crossed each other's tracks immediately above the doomed craft. The ' 'sweeps' of either pair engaged the u-boat fore and aft simultaneously and held her in a gigantic cradle.' "Thus far the German boat had shewn no signs of alarm although those with her must have heard the churning of the trawlers' screws. Now j she suddenly seemed to awake to the ; menace that threatened her." The article goes on to describe the fate of1 the submarine. "She wriggled and j ?quirmed about in a frantic endeavor j to escape but it was useless. Not a j loophole was there to be found, and at length, realizing the helplessness; of her plight, she ceased to struggle, j This fact was duly wirelessed by those on board the airship to the destroyer below. Trapped securely, the enemy vessel could still rise to the surface did she so desire, and, to give her an opportunity to do so, the British craft now waited for several minutes. She preferred to lie still; and so, at a flag ged signal from the destroyer, the j starboard foremost trawler and th -? port aft one attached a tin of high ex- j plosives to each of the 'cradle wires" and allowed it to slide downwards un til it rested upon the u-boat's hull. Then those in the airship flagged a signal and upon the two trawlers two firing keys were pressed." "Followed then the uprising of a geyser of water, and when the trou bled ocean became calm, of the sub marine there was no trace other than an extensive patch of oil floating up on the surface of the sea." Decide fe* Yourself! The State does not say and has not said the man who votes for C. L. Blease for senator is disloyal. The State says nothing of the kind?but. the people ask these questions of all voters: Do you believe that in the sight, of the Almighty, President Woodrow Wilson and the majority in congress will be answerable for the killing of ^very American off of American soil in this war "as an unwarranted sacri fice of fresh young American man-j hood?" That Mr .Blease said in his Pomaria speech about four months after the United States entered the war, and h< reaffirmed the Pomaria speech at Yor:-. June 20, 1918. Do you believe that the Unite:! States would not have been in this war but for English money? That Mr. Blease said in his Filbert speech, j Are you unable to see any just o~ righteous reason why the United States was plunged into this i,var? That Mr. Blease said as to himself in the Charleston American long aftc? ihe war began. Would you, if you had the power.} iisplace every officer, executive, judi- j cial and legislative, who had a part :n j bringing the United States to a reco~-: nition of the state of war with Ger-j many? That Mr. Blease said he woula , do if he had the power, about fouri months after we had entered the war. | It is for you to decide for yourself whether or not you can support a can -1 djdate for senator who holds these J opinions and at the same time support j your government. The State has merely printed the ex -i pressions of Mr. Please as they were reported by his own newspaper. If I you think you can vote fo?- Mr. Blease j without indorsing what he says, ii i you think you can separate your can didate from his declared principle?:! when you cast vour ballot, that is your affair. One thins; is certain: You can't vote for Dial, Pollock, Skmet or Rico with out indorsing Woodrow Wilson and tlx majority in congress and the Ameri can cause. You can't vote for any two of them without thereby sending to the boys in France the message that you at home are supporting then:.? The State. War Profiteers Everywhere. Buenos Aires. June 30.?Argentina although not in the war is suffering it= material consequences, as evidenced by the constantly increasing cost of living, scarcity of work, lowering o: wages, development of "trusts." cor nering of articles of consumption, and extensive private speculation in pub lic necessities. The government is be ing urged lo adopt emergency meas ures similar to those pursued by other countries where the war pro duced such conditions. It has been suggested that special committees !> ? appointed by the State to intervene, or that additional powers be extend ed to those branches of the public administration, such as tie- police, hygiene, labor, which from the nature of their functions are best equipped for coping with the evils. Compari son of prices of various articles of prime necessity in force last year with those ruling today indicate tha.1 many increases may not b<' attributed directly to the war but rather to arti ficial factors engendered \>y specula tion, price-juggling and cornering ?f supplies. ASK A RURAL POLICEMAN". Peevish Correspondent Makes In quiry That Only Law Officers Can Answer. I To The Item: : As a citizen of Sumter, I would like j to ask through your columns why it is : that most all automobile owners of ; the city had to secure State license ; tags by a certain date, while there are a few that are constantly using the streets of Sumter with "yellow" tags still affixed to their cars and continue , to do so with seemingly no degree of ; concern for either State or city law i forbidding the use of same? Why are some car owners given ?such wanton freedom along this line? I What is true along this line is also : true concerning speeding. Please inform us. if possible, why; ? such conditions exis,t, .for we are all, j supposed to be law-abiding citizens, j "One Who Wants Information." i THE NEED OF XTRSES. A Message From Surgeon General j Gorgas to The Young Women of, j The United States. I "I want every young woman in the i (country every woman between 19 and! J and 35, to read carefully what I have! j to say, and to give it earnest atten-? ! lion. It is a message which every i I girl ought to welcome because it tells j j of an opportunity to help the gov-' I err.ment. j The army and the country face a i strong shortage of nurses. The army alone will require some | thing like twenty-five thousand nurs j es by the first of next January. We I have about thirteen thousand of this J number. We need twelve thousand 1 more. We have got to have them or the army will run short, and this would be an outcome increditable o.aii intolerable to the American peoph1. I Only graduate nurses who have th.-| ! full course of training are available! j for this high service. These nurses I have to be taken out of the hospitals J and from care of sick at home. This means that when we recruit our full quota for the army, their places in civil life must be rilled. Hence tirts call for student nurses, to fill the va cancies prepare for professional ser vice, and meanwhile to make it .pos sible for our hospitals, both civil and military, to carry on, and for thr* American people to hold the health standards of the country as high as they can. If I were a young woman and want ed to do my country the greatest ser vice in my power, I would go at once to the nearest recruiting station of the Woman's Committee of the Coun cil of National Defense and enroll in the United States Student Nurse Re serve. This enrollment would at once make me a candidate for any army nursing school or for one of the civil ian nursing schools. I cannot con ceive of a more valuable service, a more womanly service. I can give every girl -.vho enrolls in this reserve my personal assurance that she is making herself couht, and I should be ashamed of any womaV^'who did not lend with all of her neart and soul to make herself count in the de feat of Germany. (Signed) W. C. Gorgas, Surgeon General, United States Army. THE PRICE OF ?OTTOX. The Only Reasonable Plan is to Keep Some of it Off the Market. To the Editor of The Item: From a sick room 1 have tried to keep up with the plans for cotton. Our panic sricken friends are doing more damage than all other agencies. In the first place a bumper crop can not be picked out and much of it will be in the lields when plowing Tor another crop. Much of the last crop was not picked until March. Then we are depending on a brok en stick, if we wait for the govern ment to organize a cotton corpora tion to take over the surplus. The only remedy that I have seen was suggested by your fellow townsman. Mr. W. A. Bowman, to retire 1-3 of the crop and reduce acreage next year. This campaign should be vig- j oj ously prosecuted. We will get morej money for 2-3 of the crop than for! 3-3 and we will have the other 1-3 to supply the shortage that is bound to! come when exports become normall again. Who should be the gainer.! the farmers who grow the cotton, or speculators who buy up from strand ed farmers and then sell to anxious buyers? This is a common sense proposition I and should be given the widest pub licity. It should be done now. If wcj I do it. not a bale need be sold under ! S5c. unles.v we just insist on giving it away. If tvvo bales will sell for more : than three then why sell the third? I Keep it. Keep it, to look at Do no". use it. as a basis of credit, for thai I will impair its ownership and will I lower the price of the other two. ! L"t us be assets of the United l States government and not liabilities, j We can if we will. E. W. Dabbs. Governor Mantling has issued ; parole during good behavior to Primus McAdams of Charleston county, con victed in 1883 of burglary and larceny ; and sentenced to life imprisonment, i The attenion of the pardon board ? was called to the fact that this old I neg-o had been serving more then 3a I years for burglary and larceny. in j their report to the governor the pardon hoard said: "Kor us to refuse to rec ommend clemency for this old negro. ' after he lias spent a. lifetime toiling for tin- State, would be to refuse to temper justice with mercy. We rec ommend that he lie granted a pardon." Tin- governor granted the negro a parole during good behavior. Tie- anti-loafing ordinance enacted about two weeks ago by City Council, under the provisions of which all able ^bodied men are required to engage in so:::'- useful occupation, has ha t a most beneficial effect upon the labor situotion in this <-i;v. Tlio PimPer mills and other industries that have been short of labor for months have fi!l<-d up their crews and many chron ic loafers have sought and obtained 11 gular employment. ^oprripht Hart Schaffnor?. Harz) For the Hot Days of AUGUST Nothing You Can Wear is so Cool and Comfortable as a Mohair or Palm Beach Suit. We have j ust received a large shipment of these Suits, and they were bought from $2 00 to $5.00 under the market price. We have marked them accord ingly. If you care for comfort at a reasonable price, now is the time to get it. Palm Beaches $12.50 and $13.50 Mohairs . . ? $15.00 to $20.00 AND REMEMBER?The Tailoring in These Suits is the Finest Money Can Buy. TO STIMULATE MINERAL PRO DUCTION. American Mining Engineers Working to That End. New York, July 2f>.?Some 7,00'.' mining engineers, members of the American Institute of Mining Engi neers, are shoulder to shoulder in the endeavor both to stimulate war min eral production and to convert, min erals to the highest possible service in the war. In an effort to increase the scope of this war service, the Ameri can Institute of Mining Engineers will meet in Colorado during the week oi September 2nd to take up vital prob lems of immediate importance. Mining engineers from every sec tion of the country wili attend. Dur ' ing the meeting, trips are to be made from Colorado Springs to the Crip ple Creek district. Pueblo, the Lead ville district, and Boulder. The week's session will open in Denver on Sep tember 2ncr and will ' that evening move to Colorado Springs, which wili be the principal headquarters for the duration of the meeting. This is the first assembly of the en tire Institute in Colorado since INIV'.. I and an appropriate entertainment j program, planned by the seven hun dred Colorado members, will in clude an automobile drive to the top Of Pike's Peak. The sections of Colorado to he visit ed are rich in many war minerals of importance, including ferro alloys, radium, molybdenite ores and pyrites. j Developing the Use of Seafoods. Washington, July 2:*.?New mar kets for seafood are being developed j by the Bureau of Fisheries of the j Department of Commerce, as a meal conservation measure. Whale meat from the Pacific coast ? 20,000 pounds of it ? recently has ; been put on the Boston market. The ? shipment was disposed of in ten days at a retail price of 15 cents a pound and was received with such satisfac tion by householders who like to live both well and economically that prep arations are being made to assure a regular supply. Some of the meat was sold as far north as Portland, Me. < >n tin- Texas coast, a. representa tive of :1m Bureau is seeking to intro duce porpoise meat, which bus been pronounced excellent 'by those who nave tried it. The main difficulty has been to make arahgements at the fishing centers for systematic ship ments. Fishes from tin- Gulf are being sold in many cities through tin- middle west, as the result of shipments ar ranged by the Bureau. Carload !'>?.-? are being ordered by dealers in In dianapolis. Louisville and Nashville. Efforts are being made by iL' Bu reau to increase the pack of sah whiting, for which was large d aand last winter. New Englan " . .ermen are being instructed in salting meth ods. r>r. Russell .T. Colos. an nssiston* n1 lie- Bureau, is endeavoring to estab lish a fishery for sharks, rays and porpoises at Cape fjoohout. \. ?'. Ex periments have shown that smoked porpoise is nutritious food; NO MORE HOBOES. Work or Fight Order Has Weeded Them Out. i I St. Paul. July. 2b.?War has vir ? lually blotted out the grimy trail of j the professional tramp in the Xorth | '.vest, according to railroad officers j and officials of states from Minnesota 10 the Western coast. The Northwestern tier of states, long the summer playground of the box car transient, have so rigorously enforced the "work or light" order and other war measures that the tramps, who formerly appeared in droves after having wintex-ed in the cities, have been reduced ic a few lonely stragglers. "And the demand for labor is so keen that town policemen and village constables are .quick to draft these stragglers and put them to work." de clared an official of a railroad with headquarters here. "The armed guards about railroads yards, bridges and tunnels have also been a thorn in the side of the care j free wandere!-. He is in constant j danger of becoming a target while loa ling around his old haunts." In past years tonws which were the headquarters of farm laborers were packed with professional gamblers, j gunmen and thugs who devised vari ous schemes of fleecing the worker of j his money. They mingled with the j men. wore the clothes of the worker } and could be weeded out by officers j only with difficulty. 1 The war has. in the opinion of the ? ! authorities', sounded the death knell j of this small army which annually ! reaped a golden harvest. An Individual Matter. i (Xewberry Observer.; Mr. Richards boasted at Walhalla I on Tuesday, when the question of ? loyalty?not his loyalty, however? j was being discussed on the stand j that he has "one son and three neph ews'* in the war. That is something tv e proud of: but the question of loyalty is a very personal out. There is no vicarious service in this war. Whatever credit and boner belongs to a soldier is his. and his alone, it proves he is loyal and patriotic, but not that anyone else IS. Just I.iUo Bleasc l'p in New York a man named Hearst is going to run for governor. Yes. he is the fellow who owns sever al yellow newspapers which have an unsavory reputation. Hearst is anoth er fellow who was pro-German be fore this country wem into the war and even after tie- L*hited Suites de clared war. but is now howling him self black in the face in the t to convince the country of his i y.? Married. Mrs. Shepard Nash announces the marriage of her daughter. Mary Ele nor to Mi". Douglas ?:. Plowdeh. July HtX SHELLS ?APTUJREI>r Immense Stores Taken by Americans in Forest. With the American army on the Aisne-Marne front, July 29, by Ameri can Press.?The tremendous stores of German ammunition found by the Franco-American troops -in the for ests of Fere and Iiis leads officers to believe that the allied offensive nip ped in the bud German plans'for a momentous drive upon Epernay. ?The forests and the surrounding country north of the Marne were vir tuaily one great arsenal for German ammunition of all kinds, big ;gun shells being particularly numerous. At places on the edges of the woods there were large shells stacked like cordwood over large areas. Thousands of these shells were in tended for the German 2I0-millim?tre guns, only a few of which have been captured. The Americans assume the Germans withdrew many of these guns and others intended for the great drive, had not yet arrived when the allied offensive began. All through the forests the Americans came upon ammunition depots, iat some places more than an acre J&ft ground being covered with shells of all calibres. Some of the smaller shells were labelled "For immediate use." Along the roads everywhere, and even in the open places, the shells were camou?aged with limbs of. trees. From the roadway skirting the for-* est in every patch of wood shells were visible. Every clump of trees or shrubbery sheltered shells of va rious calibres. Some depots were dag voted entirely to big shells and othefl exclusively to projectiles of smaller: sizes, including gas shells, high ex plosive projectiles and cartridges for machine guns and rifles. From the roadways near.the forests edges miles after miles of cases of rifle cartridges were seen winding in and out ? and following the tree lines like fences. The allies are planning a systema tized assembly of the shells for use later against the Germans. A Ca!! to Duly. From the battlefields in France there comes an unspoken call that should find an answer in every American's heart. The recent great events in Europe the successes of American am s on the fields of France should spur every American to great er effort Our people at home should not rest on The lau reis of our soldiers in France. Every death on the field of honor in the line of duty arid for our country's cause should be a call to us for every sacrifice and every exertion {<> aid the cause for which our sol diers are fighting, for which our sol liiers have died. Increase production, decrea.se con sumption, save, and lend to the gov ernment. Every cent lent to the Cnited States is used to support, strenjrthen and :ii? oar soldiers >n Fra nee. The candidates for governor and other Stale offices will speak in Sna next Tuesday. August ?*dh.