davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
Crude Oil Prices.

The oil wells of Louisiana and Texas are producing handsomely. The pro duction in Texas last year was twenty eight million, and in Louisiana nine million, barrels. This was a handsome increase over the production of 1904, and it is believed the figures of 1906 will exceed those for 1905.
 But still there is an oil famine, simply because oil is more extensively used each year. A year ago crude oil was selling at 29 cents a barrel; at present it is worth 75 cents f. o. b. New Orleans. The reserve oil Is dis appearing. The Southern Pacific rail road uses oil freely as fuel in its loco motives, and it pays 75 cents barrel for 1t. The employees of that company call the coal engine muzzle-loaders, while the fueloil locomotives are called breech-loaders.
  popular fuel in Texas and widely throughout the extreme southwest. where coal is not cheap. But oil at present prices is not a cheaper fuel than coal. Coal is, however, scarce, and cars to carry it in are still scarcer. and all plants that are equipped to use oil as fuel cling to its use, and an oil famine is therefore probable unless the production is increased or the price goes so high that coal consumption will be resumed in locomotives, sugar mills cotton gins and wide range of other industries. The breaking point is near at hand for oil that commands more than 75 cents barrel is an ex- pensiye fuel.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
OVER THE HILLS.

By Eugene Field. Over the hills and far away A little boy steals from his morninga
 play, And under the blossoming apple tree He lies and he dreams of the things to be; Of battles fought and of victories won. Of wrongs oerthrown and of great deeds
 done Of the valor that he shall prove somc
 day Over the hills and far away
 Over the hills and far away. Over the hills and far away It's oh! for the toll the livelong day, But it mattered not to the soul. afiama With love for riches and power and
 fame. On oh man. while the sun is high On to the certain joys that lie Wonder where blazeth the noon of day. Over the hills and far away
 Over the hills and far away. An old man fingers at close of day: Now that his journey is almost done, His battles fought and his victories won-> The old-time honesty and truth The truthfulness and the friends Home and .motber-where are Il Over the hills and far away
 Ovir the hills and far awayl
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03

Finley is well advanced in years. In the next place he Is a rich man and a large salary would not tempt him.
 My idea is that the men in con- trol of the Southern will modernize the system of executive organization and elect chairman to look after the finan- cial end of the company in New York and a president to operate the road the president to be in the saddle and the chairman to be close to the syndicate that supplies the sinews of war.
 "The fact Is, system as large as the Southern should divorce the Wall street end from the operating end. Elect two chairman if necessary-one as the head of the executive committee and one as the head of the board-but place a prac- tical man like Ackert in charge of opera tions. Such plan would be well.
 'If, however, the Southern goes outside for a president, how about Stuyvesant Fish? MT Fish Is railroad man from the bottom up His election would in- spire confidence alike in financial cir cles and all along the line among the patrons of the road"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
IN HOTEL LOBBIEs
Tobacco Culture.

"The cultivation of fine tobacco is at- traeting some attention in the Black Belt said Dallas county man.
 Over on what is called the sotuhslde, in Dallas, MT. Reynolds has found soil suited to the growing of fancy cigar wrapper. This class of tobacco brings good prices. The American Tobacco Trust has seriously crippled the growers of common and medium grades of to- bacco in North Carolina and Virginia. As result much of the development of the cotton mill industry Is attributable to their driving the small white farmer with his children to the cotton mills
 "It occurs to me that 1t would be well for the plantation owners of those sections of Dallas. Wilcox and Perry to organize and secure some of the white farmers of North Carolina and Virginia, who are already conversant with the cultivation and handling of tobacco. This latter question is quite as important as the planting and cultiyating of 1t. There are many small farmers living on rented lands in North Carolina who. if aided for one year to move and to start to farming, would be desirable additions 
 properly placed would start a tide of desirable white men to the Black Belt
 'I am familiar with the North Caro- lima situation, as I have had some inter- ests there for several years. The fine tobacco lands cover narrow belt. All farmers outside of it are in the sams condition as the cotton planters with 5c cotton, for very many of them do not average over 8 to 10 cents per pound for their tobacco. In the Bright tobacco belt the prices range from 20 to 75 cents per pound, some crops averaging S5 cents; 700 to 1000 pounds of tobacco to the acre is the general yield. 5000 plants to the acre.
 Here in Alabama there is no future in tobacco except for high grade cigar wrappers for which there is an excel lent and always increasing demand"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
An Accomac Programme

The Accomac (Va.) News also de- sires to see a southern man named by the democratic party for president, and it selects Hoke Smith, governor of Georgia, as the democratic Moses who is to lead the children of the south out of the wilderness of defeat and politi- cal isolation. Let us, however, give the News the benefit of it's own words when it prposes to make Hoke Smith the standard bearer of 1908. It says:
 We believe if all the Smiths in this country of ours would unite with the democratic party in putting over one of their name, of whom they should be more than proud, irrespective of party affiliations, that the present tide of suc- cess which is beginning to flood the democratic ranks would overflow and sweep this country from center to cir conference. Let's get to work on the Smith family. II is better proposition than government ownership of railroads" This is practical and to the point. It is mere matter of arithmetic. To the known democratic vote is to be added the votes of all the Smiths, and that does it. The solid south and the solid Smiths would be a mighty force, but before the party becomes fully commit. ted to the Accomac programme it might be prudent to get some guaranty from the Smith side of the house that the great army of Smiths will pull true in the harness without kicking over the traces. The Washington Herald is inclined, however, to ask for an additional safeguard It wants to annex the Jones family also by giving a Jones the second place on this ticket, which would render assurance doubly sure, or words to that effect.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
LUXURIOUS AMERICAN PRISONS.

From the New York World.
 The luxury of the Alimony club in I,ud- low Street jail has long excited the special wonder of New Workers. Now comes the Rev. Samuel Crawford Ar mour, honorary canon of Liverpool, who says of the Tombs: This is luxury. This is not prison as I have learned to know them In England" The canon's knowledge of English prisons is of course confined to observation-not experience-- but as he has written much on social and philosophical subjects he ought to be competent authority.
 "Blest far beyond the common run.s are the men imprisoned at Macon, Mo-. according to their own statement, They have addressed the chief executive of Missouri as Dear Governor and de- tailed to him some of the many things for which they are thankful. Unlike INT. Rockefeller, Senator Platt and Willie Hearst" they are not pitched into and called "hard names" by the newspapers; they have 'never-get- weary" appetites, three meals a day and don't have to take treatment for insomnia"
 But this view of the case failed to cor- mend itself to the ten prisoners who es- capped from the Queens County jail at Long Island City yesterday morning. Pos. sibly the sheriff had been found wanting in some of the little amenities of jail life. The cuisine might not have been all that 1t should be- Or it fs even possibls that the prisoners, surfeited with luxury. determined at any cost to return to plain living and high thinking rather than con- tinue demoralizing sybaritic existence.
 The men. nevertheless, acted impulsive- ly and seem to have been plainly in the wrong. No prisoner has a moral right 10 escape from New York jail until he has at least presented a petition de- manding a. redress of grievances
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
Inheritance Tax and the Tariff.

If the President urges Congress 10 pass a graduated inheritance tax bill he must expect 1t to yield at least s100,- 1000 a year, for otherwise it would not be efficient It would not accom- pish the limitation of overgrown for tunes. It would not stop the estab- lishment of rich families living upon vast inherited properties.
 But what are we to do with an ad- ditional $1OO,OOO,OOO of revenue. In the ten months of the calendar year that have elapsed receipts and expendi- lures of the government have been as follows:
 Receipts
 Customs ..... ,s261 ,O33 900
 Internal revenue ........ .... 2l0,67l0O
 Miscellaneous ..........,. $,3990o0
 Total receipts .,. ......'.'.'.S .Sol5' loS ooo Expenditures ..... ........... 4'3,liooG0
 Surplus ...... ..............$4 fl, ,sS, GOO
 Under such circumstances an inheri- tance tax cannot well be proposed un- less a proposition for the reduction of present taxation goes with it. This would necessarily involve our noble, not to say sacred, tariff. All things seem to be moving against the stand pat brigade, which is now reduced to the beneficiaries of the tariff and to the politicians who accept their cam paign contributions. They are begin ming to feel lonesome.
 Nearly everybody appreciates the wisdom and justice of a progressive inheritance tax, and a majority no doubt prefer an income tax. Either means reduction of tariff taxation. Possibly the President may reserve the subject for the next Congress, but the best opinion seems to be that an extra session will be called to consider it. This would bring in the Sixtieth Con gress, but it would dispose of veXed subject in 1907 which is not presiden- tial year. There will be activity no doubt all along the line during the re- mainder of the Roosevelt administra- ton
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
TOO MANY FATAL WRECKS

1 traffic system, so carelessly run trains under conditions that invite-for they re- suit in-disaster, that wrecks, with their list of wounded and dead, are terribly numerous
 It is useless for railway officials to offer as an excuse that the enormous increase of freight tonnage throughout the country has made congestion of trains inevitable and consequent disaster unpreventable. If human suffering and human life are the price of acceptance of more freight than can be safely carried Is not that accept ance morally, if not legally, criminal?
 If there is denial that American train service is run in a careless fashion, with out proper safeguards, is not the death of president of a railroad, in the Lynch burg tragedy, a significant and an elo- quent refutation of the denial? When is train guarded more carefully, when are engineers, conductors, train hands. brake tenders, towermen, so wide awake, so alert, so well warned by word telegraphed down the line, to be careful at their post of duty as when the highest railway of fcial of a road is passing over the tracks? Yet MT. Samuel Spencer, President of the Southern Railroad system; General Philip Schuyler and several others lay dead on the tracks after the Lynchburg accident.
 The whole system of railroad traffic in America is wrong. terribly wrong, with its network of congested single track roads where there should be two, and two where as much freight and as many human beings are transported as demand four track route. Grade crossings are deathtraps, the invention of the devil they are. called, and should be abolished throughout the country.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
INDIANA's MINT CROP.
Worlds Supply of Hgh-Grade OH
 Comes From MishaWaka.

From the Indianapolis News.
 The reports that the peppermint grow CTS and oil distillers of Northern Indiana, Southern Michigan and Wayne county, New York, under the leadership of James A. Everitt of Indianapolis, and his Amer ican Society of Equity, are entering into a combine to inject some "equity" into the mint markets, and also the reports from Washington that the eyes of the attorney general have been directed to- ward the infant combination, call to the attention of Indiana a supremacy enjoyed by her in the worlds commercial mar kets.
 If the ordinary Indiana eater of pep- permint drops, chewer of peppermint gum, or user of peppermint oils for medi- clnal or commercial purposes were put on the witness stand and questioned con- corning where. according to his opinion, the peppermint for the world is made, he would probably credit it to distant trop- ical lands.
 As a matter of fact, the worlds sup ply of high-grade peppermint oils and 1avors comes from the Northern Indiana counties, from those in Southern Mich igan and from Wayne county, New York, and the low-grade supply comes from Japan The Indiana 1906 crop has just been harvested and distilled on the North- ern Indiana farms, and 1t represents q little more than 10000 pounds of the 25O,- 900 pounds of national production. Prob ably a half of 1t will be exported to nd of l1at may even come back on the Indiana mar kets as the supreme grades of Mitcham (England) peppermint oils and essences.
 The Indiana mint crop which has just been put into oil, represents consider ably more than sl00000 of value in ordin- ary markets It is understood that the Everitt combine of mint growers proposes to hold the oil for market quotations of approximately s2.75 a pound.
 "Mishawaka" is the peppermint capital of the Indiana industry and when the almost 1000 acres of peppermint fields that lie in what might be called the Mish- awaka district are in harvest, and when the distilling plants are running, the air is filled with the aroma of the mint.
 Jerry Woodward, who lives in Mishawa- ka, is known over Northern Indiana as the "Indiana peppermint king" With his brothers, Walter and William, he has about 32O acres in mint, and this year the Woodward crop ran more than 4o0O pounds. The Woodwards are the largest growers in Indiana and the second largest in this country, and possibly In the world, | as the Japanese, who supply the inferior l oil, are said Individually, to be small growers. The greatest grower is A. al Todd who lives in Kalamazoo, and gener- ally has 500 10 800 acres in mint. There are a number of Indiana growers who raise from 100 to 150 acres of mint a year. Each of these has his own distiliing plant and distlls the crops of the small | CT growers.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
CROOKED LAMP POSTS.
Mrs. Dolby Forced to Retract Certain
 Suspicious of Mir. Dolby.

From the New York Sun.
 When Mrs. Dolby gave Dolby his ante prandial kiss she snified audibly.
 "oh, dear" she said. again? How many this time?"
 "only one" said Dolby, "and that was a little teenty fellow. I stopped in to see man around tho corner, and took just one thimbleful for appearance sake"
 Mrs. Dolby sighed.
 And you promised so faithfully" she said. Tt seems as if you never can keep your word.'
 Dolby stalked toward the dining room indignantly.
 whats the sense in raising a row about a little thing like this?' he said. That one swallow wouldn't hurt fly
 But it has hurt you,' retorted Mrs. Dolby Tt has gone to your head. I don't believe you know now what you are saying"
 Dolby groaned. Presently, under the n- fiuence of a good dinner, he began to talk socially.
 "Did you ever notice." he said, ''how confoundedly crooked the street lamps are in this town?'
 Mrs. Dolby gasped. "Crooked?' she said. Yes" said Dolby. Crooked I never noticed it till tonight. At the first corner we struck after I got in the car I saw that the lamp was doing it's level best to turn itself upside down.
 After that I kept watch on all the Broadway lamps, and I found that nine teen out of the twenty-two that we passed were tip tilted over in the craziest posi- tions imaginable They looked disreputa- ble.
 'It would be a good thing. I think, now that the city seems to be agitating the street lamp question in dead earnest not only to get new ones. but to straighten up the ones we have"
 Mrs. Dolby looked across the table In re- proach.
 Well" she said. If the subject you chose for conversation isn't giveaway. And before the children. too You are even worse than thought you were. if you see street lamps standing on their heads"
 Again Dolby groaned. Mrs Dolby worried over the unconven- tional attitudes of the citys lamps all the evening. Even the next morning. when Dolby had gone down town. she was still fin a spirit of depressent. Later. as she started out on a shopping tour the lamp question still clung to her. Almost unconsciously she glanced at street camp and found 1t crooked. Then she began to get interested. She was going over the same route her husband had travelled the night before, and she studied the street lamps as he had done. He was right. Nineteen out of the twenty-two lamps were crooked Mrs Doby's conjugal soul was moved to repentance. ..T was unjust" she said. .'The city is | to blame I will never find fault with MT. Dolby again if he swears that every lamp l in town Is turning somersaults."
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03

divided. not into states, but into eighty seven departments, and over each de- partment is a prefect appointed by NJ. Clemenceau, minister of the interior. That prefeet holds office during the will and pleasure of the appointing power, and no senate or other author ity comes in to curb the power of ap- pointment. Under the prefect are 36,- 192 communes, each governed by q municipal council, and every act of a municipal council must be ratified by a prefect. These councils elect may ors, and they are subject to the orders of the prefects. Every French mayor knows his official life depends upon his giving satisfaction to his prefect and to the all-powerful minister of the interior.
 All told, there are in France 100000 office-holders firmly bound together In support of the central government. It is estimated that each official controls three votes, and that they in that way control an election. But whether this be a correct or an incorrect estimate, all votes are handled and counted by the officials who look to the minister of the interior steadfastly for support.
 Powerful as some of our machines have been yet we have no national machine, and in no state have we a machine that approaches in compact vigor and strength the French govern mental machine. That machine goes far to account for the steadfast ma jorities that the government is able to command. It is in fact difficult to see how the government ever can be busted except by it's own deputies or by revolution. It is scarcely credible that an election held by and through such an official machine can be an ab- solutely corerct indication of public sentiment.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
Money Market.

Henry Clews' Wall street letter of Sat- urday says;
 towing to Thanksgiving holidays and the approaching opening of Congress, the stock market has been more or less inac- tive President Roosevelts coming mes sage will be awaited with unusual inter est in order to see how far 1t supports some of the so-called radical tendencies of the day; and the disposition of Con- gress also upon such issues will be inn portant to ascertain Fortunately, the ccmlng session will be a short one, and probably unproductive of important new Legislation; but discussion may be ac- tive and significant owing to develop ments in public opinion shown in the re- cent election.
 Money market conditions improved somewhat Funds have been returning more freely from the interior and bank officials continue to follow conserva- i've policy in the making of loans. A dis tinet improvement has also taken place in the foreign money markets both the Bank of England and the Bank of Ger many have been able to strengthen their position, and the situation has been fur
 
 Bank of France to release a portion of it's gold. December dividend disbursements were large amounting to over s7500o 900, and caused slightly increased tension; but until preparations for January disburse- ments are n order. the local money mar ilet ought to be free from any serious stringency although firm rates are to be anticipated during the interval Around the first of January considerable stringency may be anticipate ted. In the riddle of that month, however, funds withdrawn for dividend and interest pur- poses will have returned to the banks and the influx of crop money from the interior should also serve to improve the local monetary situation. Unless, however, we are much mistaken. there will be a very active demand for money during the win ter and spring months. Business continues to be very active. and owing to high prices much larger amounts of currency are needed to perform a. given service than in times of lower prices. The spirit of extravaganza is abroad. and the masses are saving less and spending more than in ordinary times. In consequence of our prosperity most people are carry iStE uudHtilltS Ol GdSA Ou li6iT persons than usual, and this alone is quite an element in the monetary scar city.
 'Stock market conditions favor moder- ate fluctuations Large earnings, favor able annual reports and all good news appear to have been fully discounted. There is little public buying of stocks at the present high level and higher prices are only obtained by means of forced manipulation. It is pretty gen. el ally understood that the great leaders in the street hold heavy accumulations or stock which they desire to sell, but which the market will not take in large quantities. What the outcome of this deadlock will be remains to be seen. While prosperity continues it is easy to hold the market at about its present level"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
Street Car System.

'"The street car system of Birmingham is great when one comes to look over the map" said the suburbanite.
 Every which way you travel over 1t seems there is double tracking work going on. The company must be expend- ing immense sums of money looking to the future for returns, no doubt. No one faction has contributed more to the growth of Birmingham than its street car system. Take the development of suburbs the street car service has brought many piece of property into market at enormous increase in value Also look at the cheapening of homes and rents for persons of moderate means.
 Say, did you ever ride on the Pow derly line when the motorman was mak- ing time? Well it seems to me that he must go forty miles per hour over the best portions, where 1t is a long distance between stops.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1906-12-03
TAKING TILLMAN TOO SERIOUSLY

From the Charleston News and Courier.
 Our Washington friend takes MT. Till man too seriously, perhaps, in what he says about resorting to the shotgun. As a. matter of fact MT. Tillman has not killed a negro for a great many years. if he ever killed one. He is awfully fierce and bloodthirsty in speech and he has done the state which he represents and the south incalculable injury by his intemperate talk, but he has been encouraged in all his efforts to discuss the race question in his own peculiar way by the crowded audiences north and west who have Hooked to hear him.