Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-04-14
Looker-On In Iona

Williams, April 14.-Last week APP
| peared the first issue of the Hamilton
| County Hornet, published at this
| place by Walt HELEN. Some years ago
! Mr.. HELEN also established In this
| town the Williams Wasp, a creditable
weekly, still published here. The
| names of these two papers is sure to
| furnish much copy for the paragraph
| er. The first break suggests that Mr.
| HELEN in selecting these suggestives Is
| in the singing business, in fact in this
| first issue he REACHES" for Congress
| man Conner on the Jewell postotfice
| deal in a Hellenic way. While, as
yet. the hostilities have not begun. il
| is safe to assume that the Wasp may
| stir up a fight that the Hornet will
| take hand in, and the singing that
! will occur will be something fearful.
| Not all, even those in the newspaper
know or realize that this singing ed
itor has a right to be waspsh, for If
any man ever was punished physically
| 1t is this self same HELEN. For five
years he has been confined to his bed
or in a wheeling chair. with arterial
rheumatism SO severe has this disease
taken hold of him that one of his legs
has been amputated at the hip joint,
and the other is drawn up double. so
that he actually uses 1t as a desk, when
lying in bed writing these Hornet edi-
torials He has to hold his pencil in
his fist, which also explains the force
of some of his words. But with all
OF these disadvantages he writes all
of the editorial page, sticking closely
to his motto: ISSUED in the fear OF
the Lord and Him only"
Here in Williams is one of the few
bankers of Iowa who favor the Okla
homa- Revell plan of securing deposit
ors against loss in state and national
banks Mr.. e. l. Johnson is up to date
sufficiently to see and admit that the
time is here when depositors must be
secured against loss and stockholders
lookout for themselves" He suggests
that this plan will also have a good
effect In another way That is. when
state banks are compelled by law to
establish this insurance fund, at once
they will take active steps to have
other laws passed making some of the
present possibilities in the banking
business impossibiities. 1t is his idea
that If the reputable bankers are
obliged to tax themselves to protect
the public against dishonest and
incapable bank officials, they
will see to it that laws are made and
enforced, which practically make it inn
possible to loot bank, as was Sue
cessfully done at Corwith. Mr.. john
son also agrees with other financiers
that with depositors secured by the
state or government, panics in the way
of ga run on the bank will end. and
that the additional deposits that will
stove pipe, and the old stocking, will
much more than make up the slight
tax to make good losses to depositors
in broken bank.
A long list of towns in Iowa and
elsewhere was published little while
ago, naming the points at which rail-
road companies We're to remove tele-
graph operators and in some cases
agents, closed up the depots and let the
section boss receive and ship what lit
tie freight came in and was sent out.
1t was all nominally done in the name
of economy, to meet the increased ex-
pense of the ninehour law of the gov
eminent, enforced by the railroad COM
mission. But 1T is amusing to notice
how soon some of these railroad COM
panies found out such economy did not
pay. For many years the practice OF
the railroad companies has been to en-
courage the establishment of the little
town, this especially where the new
little town, with an elevator. stock
yards. coal office and lumber yard.
would draw trade away from a COM
peting railroad, say five or ten miles
away. They know the passenger bus
mess at such places would not pay for
stopping trains there but the freight
and stock business was what they were
after 1t was in these towns they pro-
posed to economic by discharging
their agent, and let the section boss
run things. Scarcely a month has
passed of the economy spasm. and now
"they are humping themselves" to put