The Washington herald., 1907-10-20
MEN AND THINGS.
John HarYard's Anniversary.


In November comes the 3ooth anniver-
sary OF the birth of John Harvard, and
plans are we'll under way. for a fitting
celebration of the occasion. although at
Harvard University il has been decided
that the demonstration shall be simple
A committee made up OF the officers Of
the Harvard Memorial Society, the Off
GERS Of the four undergraduate classes.
and few other undergraduates. was
made up last spring to formulate plans
for the celebration. 1t has been decided
that the feature Of the celebration shall
be torchlight procession Of all the
students in the university. from the col
lege yard to Soldiers Field. with bon
fire and informal speaking In the stadium
II is hoped that some speaker of ma
tional reputation may be secured to make
an address, either at the stadium or San
der's Theater, as 1t is felt that some Sc
rious notice should be taken Of the ami
versary. Plans for pageant on Il large
scale. which was the first intention Of
the committee, were given up.
Celebration at Humboldt.
Humboldt, Kans., one of the historic
towns In the Allen gas belt. has just eel
ebrated its fftieth birthday Il Is one
Kansas town with history. Il was
sacked and burned at two different times
during the civil war. was rebuilt, and
was on the high road to prosperity when
the drought a plague OF grasshoppers,
, and the financial panic Of the early '70's
gave it a jolt from which It found IL hard
to recover. About the same time IL lost
the United States land Offices, which had
helped business a great deal Humboldt
had however. the right spirit. II hustled
around and saved itself from complete
ruin by issuing railroad bonds. Then II
voted itself another railroad; the tracks
were laid. and a train ran over them.
The bonds were then valid. but soon
after. the railroad pulled up its tracks,
and left Humboldt 10 itself. and Il had 70
redeem the bonds. The case was fought
IN the courts. but Humboldt lost and paid
the hddler Since that time II has dis
/ pensed with the wildcat methods Of the
early days. and its growth and enterprise
to-day are based or substantial things.
MarcOnps First wireless.
Together with the news that Marconi
/ has successfully established wireless COM
munication between this continent and
Great Britain one thinks Of the early
! experiments Of this inventor His first
! wireless message was sent from a kite
/ Of the Eddy pattern. Marconi IS a re-
markable man. ffty-seven years old, who
/ neither smokes nor drinks He has sent
kites into the air distance Of five miles.
| One Of these showed a pulling, or lifting.
/ power Of nearly 800 pounds. Such kite,
nine feet high, would lift a man into the
air. Eddy, on the evening Of the recep-
ton TO Admiral Dewey when he returned
from Manila. sent kite across the East
River from New York City and attached
to the string We're seventeen glass Ian
terms, each containing a candle. All New
York wondered at the strange spectacle
| Of vari-colored lights sailing high above
the Brooklyn Bridge the kite, Of course
being invisible II was from such a kite
that Marconi made his first experiments
and demonstrated the feasibility OF trans
mitting telegraphic messages through the
air.