Postville Herald from Postville, Iowa • Page 7

THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 193S. CAST ALIA J. Perry wns a business visitor at Wednesday, Will Bloxham wns a business visitor Osslan Thursday. Mrs. Hclmuth.Meyer, has been: seri- usly HI the past week.

FJoyd Harvey of Postville was a Her in town Monday. The Misses Mae iPinnegan and Alma- ley were Decorah shoppers Monday. Hamilton Campbell, who has been rlously ill the past week, Is slightly proved at this comrades Sunday School class njoyed a meeting at" the'home of Ma- 1 'Learn on Saturday afternoon. Earl Monroe returned to Mason Wednesday after a several days it with his parents, Mr, and Mrs. Mr.

and Mrs. Chester Perry and hildrcn of the Bethel community vis- at Mrs. Ella Harvey home on -turday afternoon. Keith Gregg of 'Postville, C. R.

Winn son Johnny visited with Mrs. dna Winn at the Oliver Alitz home Oclweln Wednesday evening. Mr. and Mrs. C.

B. Winn and ohnny were dinner guests at the Mrs. hoebe Gardner home ait McGregor nday in honor of Mrs. Gardner's Irthday anniversary. The Lutheran Ladles' Aid Society as entertained at the church parlors ednesday afternoon.

The hostesses -e Mrs. H. L. Meyer, Mrs. W.

Mrs. Carious Meyer and rs. Harvey Dahms, P. Rothlisbcrger Son, Shorthorn reeders south of Elgin, received a -rrectlon their at the International Live- tock Show held in Chicago, says the "gin Echo. They were advised toy American Shorthorn Breeders' as- dation that in reporting the awards the carcass classes the Internation Livestock Exposition had made an rror.

They now inform 'them that Rotblisberger steer was the Winer of first In Shorthorn carcasses ram 800 to 1000 lbs. and also winner champion Shorthorn carcass. Miss Bernlta Rose of Volncy is visiting in the Prank Miller home. Viola (Mlene "visited in the Clarence Snitker homo the 'first of the week. Mr.

and Mrs. John Hansmeler spent New Year's day In the Wm. Adam home. Dr. C.

C. Harrison was in this community the first of the week treating horses for toots. Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Snitker and Viola Mlene called at the Ed Nagel home Wednesday.

Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Ludeking spent New Year's day In the -parental Wm. Adam home. (Mi and Mrs.

Reuben Klocke were pleasantly entertained in the Henry Mlene home in Bethel Friday evening. Mr. and Mrs. Clarence Ludeking spent Wednesday evening in the Geo. Ludeking home on Washington Prairie.

Mr. and Mrs. Henry Mlene and family, Mr. and Mrs. 'Herbert Mlene were Sunday dinner guests in the Reuben Klocke home.

Wayne Koehrlng, who is with the Third TJ. S. Infantry at Port Snelling, Minnesota, spent the Christmas holidays with home folks, the Charles. Koehrlng family. The word "capitalist" has become so oosely used that It Is doubtful if many understand just what It means.

The day before the Northwood Anchor, a farmer friend of the writer, discussing the: Iowa income tax law, stated that the capitalists ought to be made to absorb such expenses When it was called to his attention that he. owner of a debt free farm with liquid resources at his command was one of the capitalists, he bitterly disputed the assertion. His idea Is 'that a capitalist Is a fellow with millions of money away off at some vague place, maybe in the east. How natural it is for all of us 1 to think the other fellow Is not as we are and that someone else should assume the 1 burdens and responsibilities. The official bonds of.

newly elected county officers were read and approved by the board of supervisors Wednesday morning, says the Waukon Democrat. The only changes for the immediate present find ObtoH. Possum and his Harold H. Schroeder, succeeding T. E.

Kemdt and his dep uty, Leo. L. Samek, in the office of the clerk of court; and W. P. Shafer succeeding James Drew as county attorney.

The board ruled that the bond of Sheriff James P. Baxter and 'his deputy be approved subject to the result of the election contest now pending, M. E. Mooney, chairman of the board oi supervisors, filed his bond with the clerk of will like wise remain in office until the settlement of the election contests. The new supervisor for the 1935 term will take office immediately upon settle ment of the election contest filed toy James White against Mrs.

Frances Jacobson. M. E. KALLMAN, M.D. Physician and Surgeon Office Over Luhman Sanders I J.

W. MYERS, M. D. Offices over Kohlmann Bros. Telephones: Office 188W Residence 188X LOUIS SCHUTTE Undertaker and Embalmer Orders Taken For Cut Flowers W.

H. BURLING Attorney At Law Over the Postville State Bank DR. H. D. COLE Dentist Office over Citizens state Bank Stockman Garage I REPAIRING A SPECIALTY VSh Batteries Brunswick Tires I Welding Wrecker Service Tires, Tubes, Car Heaters, Etc, LUDLOW MORE ELECTRICITY FOR FARM IS THE PLAN OF ROOSEVELT THE POSTVILLE HERALD: POSTVILLE, IOWA.

PAGE SEVEN. ECONOMIC RECOVERY NOW POSITIVELY ON WAY HERE Four out of five -Iowa farm homes are potential buyers of electricity from the billion-dollar federally-controlled power empire proposed last week by Secretary of Interior Ickes' national resources committee. The progress report of the Iowa State Planning whose work centers at Iowa State College, shows that on the state average only one of five 'families has electricity, that it is less widely distributed than the automobile, radio, telephone or running water. The most general use of electricity centers In a belt of counties sweeping from O'Brien and Sac in the northwest, across central Iowa to Benton and Scott in the east. In no county are half of the farms lighted with electricity.

A 20-year program of developing a corrollary of the TV A to furnish cheap power for the Mississippi Valley was recommended by the resources committee a week ago Wednesday. It also recommended that back from rivers where hydro electric development is not feasible, 100 million dollars be spent to develop rural electrification with steam and oil power generators. A study of 10 representative Iowa counties last year by the state college shows that kerosene lamps supply light in almost three-quarters of the farm homes. These families were not, In general, interested in having home plants; they wanted a power line source. But the average distance of the house from the power line varied from 1.1 miles in Story county to 4.0 miles in Madison.

The difference in types of lighting used between owners and non-owners was reported as "very striking." Thirty-nine per cent of the owners had electricity and only 17 per cent of the non-owners. Nearly all of the latter group used kerosene lamps. Iowa farm service rates, it was reported from Washington, are the sec ond highest in the country, tout that rates cannot come down until consumption is materially increased. Iowa farms, however, use a great deal more electricity than those of the na tlon, on the average. Only some 13 per cent of the latter have electricity, more than half of which comes from home plants.

In many parts of the Tennessee for have been almost cub in two, consumption more than doubled, it is reported. The following from the Fennimore Times in Grant county, gives some Interesting facts, says Decorah Journal. It was written toy County Agent Ben H. Walker and brought to the Journal by Rev. O.

Sandbach: "A very good friend of mine, who is also ft very good fanner, gave me some figures last week which should be of important significance to every swine in Grant county. On Nov. 16, 1932, he sold 75 hogs for $2.90 a hundred, a total of $495.04. On Nov. 15, 1933, he sold 76 hogs for $3.91 a hundred, a total of $673.62.

On Dec. 1934, he sold 70 hogs for $5,77 a hundred, a total of $1,057.29. This ought to convince any producer of corn and hogs that there Is really something to production control adjustment toy voluntary contract." The well-known LaFollette brothers have set up a party" In Wisconsin as a substitute for the G. O. P.

Senator Nye of North Dakota wants to reform the republican party or join the LaFollette movement. The "Hon from Idaho," Senator Borah, demands reorganization of the old party through the selection of a new chairman and replacement of the national committeemen, says the West Union Union. Opposed to all of these suggestions comes the refusal of Chairman Fletcher and others to resign or be castout. These gentlemen are regarded as conservative republicans, 'because they stick to the traditions of the party, and refuse to lower its historic flag, It may all seem to be rather exciting but it is the same series of conditions that existed in the democratic party for many years, until Franklin D. iRoosevclt came into power and made the party over.

He did such a complete job that the old-time dam ocrats were unable to recognize their child. Maybe a similar future Is In store for the republican party. Who knows I The surest sign I see of economic recovery is the difference in the spirit with which we are all tackling what is ahead of us. Despair has given way courage and ambition. Initiative is not dead.

Big Business, which Is just a name with which we have tagged our industries is quick to sense the turn of the tide and planning to get in on the come-back, at Is only natural that wealth should be jockeying for the most favored place in the sun but one of the things we have learned from the tortures of the depression is that wealth, necessary as it Is In the economic setup, is something to be controlled. Money was made for a tool and not to rule. We have just learned -that we were money-mad. It controlled every avenue of life. The dollar was back of everything we did.

It controlled not only business, where it 'belonged, but It ruled in public affairs, in our social relations, in church and schools and the home. Our ship of state was headed straight for the rock on which every other great nation has been wrecked, concentration of wealth in the hands of a few who abused its power. In the cities the masses work by day or month for the huge corporations. Out here in the midwest, God's freest gift to our people, farms, have passed out of the hands of the owner-operators and more than 60 per cent of Iowa farmers are living on rented farms. Suoh conditions are not economically healthy and cannot endure.

It was because of the economic dependence of the many upon the few that when President Roosevelt coined the phrase about "the average man" It struck a popular chord. We have learned a lot from the depression that has led us to stop and think. Money must head the procession back to normal condi tions tout wealth Is going to be shorn of a lot of its privileges. True, unemployment still exists and is the major problem of this winter, but every line of business is looking forward to employing more labor another year and employed labor consumers that put more people at work. Better farm prices are sending the farmer and his family to town to buy the things they have 'been depriving themselves of for several years.

More work. Once set in motion with buying power behind them the wheels of business soon gather momentum. But whenever and how ever we get back to normal channels again, no man or woman of this gen eratlon, possessed of normal sense, is going to forget some of the lessons we learned from the depression. In that sense it has served some good pur poses. Optimism over the better outlook for the coming year by no means minimizes the immediate problems, chief among which are re-employment and poor relief.

Thirty million dollars of federal money was poured Into Iowa last year through the various relief agencies, but we are notified that federal funds are depleted and that the various states will have hereafter bear a large part of relief expenditures. Just how much federal money for re lief purposes can be looked for no one seems to know, but it Is safe to say that it will be far less than we got last year. Recognizing the condition of affairs, Gov. Herring says that he will ask the legislature when It meets to approprl ate five or six millions for poor relief, to be paid out of the proceeds of the retail sales tax. This is an honest ef fort of the governor to meet the situation without increasing property taxes.

Property owners will be benefitted accordingly, although its political expediency may be questioned. When the three-point tax law, which Includes the salestax, was passed its opponents prophesied that instead of reducing property taxes it would toe found to be just another tax. The average taxpayer, looking for the promised reduc tion in his taxes and not getting it is going to have a sympathetic ear for the ravings of George Patterson and his crowd when they take the stump again. Furthermore, poor relief is more of a local than a state or federal function and when distributed on a state basis rural communities pay more than their share. It was 'because local poor funds were exhausted that state and federal governments were compelled to step in and assume the major portion of the -burden, as they will ibe compelled to do again.

Perhaps if cities and counties were compelled to ipay a larger portion of their own poor relief expenses the taxpayers of such communities would have a larger appreciation of what state and federal departments have been doing in taking over the re lief the Air" in the to dependence Conservative. For more than a year, the dance committee of the American Legion has maintained a check room in connection with the weekly and holiday dances, says the Sumner Gazette. During that time Mrs. E. E.

Ladwig and Mrs. A. A. Benzine have been called upon to oheck all sorts of things, but the climax occurred New Year's eve when two Waverly men entered the hall, carrying an opossum land approached the check room with it. However, the women declined to be responsible for such a lively object as an opossum.

So the Legionnaires took the fellow In charge, attached, a tag to his tail and parked him in the ticket office for the evening. The Waverlians failed to account for having an opossum in their possession, tout It Is presumed they captured him on the way to Sumner. No doubt, he become a part of their New Year's day menu. IH1IH AS THE 'MOST FAMOUS COMMENTATORS RADIO, RECALL i7 TELLS ABOUT, 'Re-Joice Hedth" Released and 1935 (by UN I A I CORPORATION WOULD be just as easy to portray P. T.

Barnum as saint or sinner, exemplar of scoundrelism or success. He was as proud to be called "Prince of Humbugs" as "Prince of Showmen" and his delight in catching those suckers of whom one is born every minute was never clouded by a meticulous conscience. Yet his fervent devotion to the Uni- versalist Church and to the cause of temperance, were just as sincere as his conviction people love to be humbugged. He prefaced his revealing autobiography with two quotations, one from Shakespeare, the other from P. T.

Barnum who says "The noblest art is that of making others happy." One wonders which phase of this Janus-faced American's life and personality will be emphasized in the Twentieth Century production, "The Mighty Perhaps author, actor and director of this forthcoming picture will be unable or unwilling to agree. Then wo will see two or three Bnrnums instead of a single, unified, consistent personality. If the screen should give us this impression it might be nearer the truth than In trying to make this "most typical American" better or worse than he was in real life. His contemporaries certainly disagreed about him from the time he began playing boyish pranks on his Connecticut neighbors until his death in 1891, as the -world's greatest showman. Throughout the 81 years of his life people argued about him and his doings.

While it may be true that his enemies were more respectable than hia friends, both were fervent in debating the eternal question, "Is Barmun a fraud?" This led a poetic admirer of Bridgeport's most notorious citizen to write: "Of all deranition wonderments that swell his fame and peif, There never was a demder one than Barnum is himself." The debate on Barnum's character began long before he became a showman. It followed him through his early career as boy trader, country store clerk, lottery ticket salesman, book auctioneer, country editor and boarding house keeper. It wns in 1835 while Bamum was running his New York boarding house at 52 Frankfort Street that Lady Luck guided his entry into the business that was to become his life work. New England Tip A Connecticut guest, oue Coley Bartram, told his twenty-five year old host quite casually about selling his interest in an old negro woman was still an honored American Joice Heth. He showed Barnum the clipping of an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Inquirer of July 15, 1935.

The curious tiling about this advertisement, the text of which is preserved for us only by Barnum himself in his autobiography, is that the style and manner of the text resembles no one's if not Showman Bnrnum's. One may be permitted to wonder whether it was not ere- nted by the fertile imagination of the master showman. Here it is: "CURIOSITY. The citizens of Philadelphia and its vicinity have an opportunity of witnessing at the Masonic Hall, one of the greatest natural curiosities ever witnessed, JOICE HETH, a negress, aged 101 years, who formerly belonged to the father of General Washington. She has been a member of the Baptist Church, one hundred and sixteen years, and can rehearse many hymns, and sing them according to former custom.

She was bom near the old Potomac River in Virginia, and has for ninety or one hundred years lived in Paris, Kentucky, with the Bowling family." Bartram told Barnum that he had sold out his interest' in this curiosity to his partner who was also anxious to sell out and, return to his Kentucky home. Now let us hear Barnum tell what he found when, his showman's blood and Yankee thirst for profit stirred by opportunity, tie went to Philadelphia to see the 161 year old negress. A Real Curiosity "Jotee Heth was. certainly a remarkable curiosity, and she looked as if she might have been far older than her age as advertised. She apparently in good health and Bpirits, but from age or disease, or both, was.

unable to change her position'; she could novo one arm at will, but her lower limbs could not be her loft arm lay across her breast and she could not remove it; tho fingers of her left hand were drawn: down so nearly to close it, and were fixed; the nails on that hand were almost four inch- eg long and extended above her tho nails: oh her large toes bad grown to the thickness of a quarter of, an inch; her head covered with a thick bush of grey hair; but she was toothless and totally blind, and her eyes had sunk so deeply in the sockets as to have disappeared altogether." It all sounds as convincing as the great P. T. Barnum knew how to make things sound. "The evidence seemed autnentic," he tells us, and in answer to the inquiry (presumably made by the sceptical Yankee from Connecticut), why so remarkable a discovery had not been made before, explanation was given that she had been carried from Virginia to Kentucky, had been on the plantation of John S. Bowling so long that no one knew or eared how old she was, and only recently the accidental discovery by Mr.

Bowling's son of the old bill of sale in- the Record Office in Virginia had led to the identification of this negro woman as 'the nurse of Washington. "Everything seemed so straightforward," says Barnum, that he determined to buy Joice Heth and become a showman. Ho had already learned how to buy and quickly beat down the price from $3,000 to $1,000. Even this was high for a young married man who only had $500, but Barnum never lacked courage when it came to backing his judgment on a money-making He was by nature a gambler in any game Where he could both deal the cards and play tho hand. He borrowed $500 and launched upon the enreer that made him famous.

Keen Nose for News What distinguished Barnum from his predecessors in the show business was his keen sense of publicity. He knew as no one before him that "it pays to advertise." Instinctively he sensed it was not so important that Joice 'Heth should be all that was claimed if only those claims aroused the curiosity of a sufficient number of prospective customers. "At the outset of my career," says Barnum, "I saw that everything depended upon getting the people to think and talk and tune, and taught him that he had found his true vocation. Not Proven Fake Was she really 161 years old? Medical evidence says no. She died in 1836 and the autopsy indicated that she might have been little over eighty.

But the doctors disagreed so Barnum felt he was justified in accepting the claims that had led him to invest his entire fortune in this living mummy. In his autobiography Barnum frankly says he does not know whether the old woman was a conscious or unconscious impostor. "I taught her none of these things," he adds. Alexander Hertzcn, a Russian novelist and journalist living in London, published in 1856 analysis of Barnum's character and methods. Basing his conclusions entirely on what he read in the uncensored first edition of Barnum's autobiography, ho summarizes the Joice Heth episode as follows: "Barnum, incidentally, found an old, broken-down, haUVdemented woman who was continually mumbling some incomprehensible nonsense.

He conceived on the spot that it would be a good idea to exhibit the old woman as the nurse of George Washington. What is there to require lengthy reflection? the thing was settled. He carried her from town to town, and wherever he went with her, everybody said it was a humbug, an imposition, and an absurdity; that Washington's nurse would be, if living, at least one hundred and fifty years old. Everybody was in a hurry to satisfy his or her curiosity, and ran to see the old woman. One crowd left with Zoud laughter, and another entered the booth.

Both are sure that it is all a humbug and nonsense, and meanwhile Barnum pockets thousands upon thousands. "After he had everywhere exhibited his siren, Tom Thumb, the false nurse of George Washington, and the true Jenny Lind, Barnum shuffled into high honesty. He was the chairman of many charitable societies and gave fatherly advice to those who were just beginning to make a place for themselves in the world. Prom the middle-class viewpoint, the past does not affect a million in the safe. A million covers a multitude of sins." Barnum Criticised This kind of criticism followed Barnum throughout his life.

In tho Joiea Heath brought Barnum $1500 in a week. become curious and excited over and about 'the rare spectacle'." It was in behalf of Joice Heth that he first produced those astounding handbills, posters, transparencies, banners, advertisements and newspaper puff paragraphs that created a new era in amusement advertising. It was as though Barnum had said: "It's not what you what people think you have that counts." Heth herself worked valiantly for her employer by singing old hymns and talking about plnying with "baby George." Barnum sensed instinctively the publicity value of controversy. When the first interest in Joice Heth died dowu he wrote an nnouy- mous letter to tho newspapers chnrgiug that the old woman was only an ingeniously constructed automaton made of whalebone, rubber which only talked through a ventriloquist. That brought people back for a second visit.

Joico Heth brought her owner as ranch as $1,500 in a singlo week, laid the foundation for his first for- eyes of his contemporaries, he was Jnnus-faced, looking out on the world with both the benignant smile of religious peace and the crafty, sneer of commercial war. One thinks of the self-advertising antics of Huey Long as presenting a modern version of one side of the great showman's personality. Perhaps, when the Louisiana Senator is twenty years older, he, too, win become the benignant patriarch who gives an eager world moral counsel on how to live wisely and achieve success. Perhaps, too, since we all prefer to be charitable, it would be well to remember a few homely lines addressed to Barnum which appeared in the Boston "Saturday Evening "You humbugged we have seen. Wo got our money's worth, old fellow.

And though you thought our mlnde were green, We never thought your heart wes yellow!" Enough beer was sold In Iowa in A good town Is known -by its news- 1934 to supply every man, woman and papers. Its reputation is spread to the child In the state with nine gallons The state will -derive an income of close to a million dollars from' the tax on the beer sold wide world: through them. Its trading territory is maintained or increased hy them, They are the brand of the community as a', Quite a few children wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the parents they have to live with. Other children wouldn't be so bad if their parents would stay at home long enough to live with them..