The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-03-20
PRESIDENT IS
RECORD BREAKER
Claims Distinction in Several
Respects
THE SALOON STATISTICS
Number--Employes In Senate Wing
Have Baseball Bug Panama
Food Prices
BY RALPH MHITEsmE

BY RALPH WHITEsDE
washington, March 1s.-(Special Pres
ident Taft Is a record-breaker In more
ways than one. Not only is he the heav-
lest man who ever sat in the presidential
chair. but in the matter of speech-making
and travelling, he has his predecessors in
tho discard.
He has been President a little more
than a year. In that time he has visited
80 states and territories, travelled 25,62S
miles to do 1t and incidentally made $50
speeches, an average of more than one
for each working day in his term. This
would pretty clearly indicate that Mr..
Taft's adiposity does not make him ply
sically inert" which believe is the
latest and most approved method of say
ing the good old American word lazy.
This is not all Mr. Taft has done. mot
by no MEANS He is the only American
President who has shaken the hand of
foreign ruler on foreign soil. He has
sent IS messages to Congress, appointed
some 1000 federal officeholders and has
fired Clifford Pinchot. This constitutes
a pretty fair record for ability and orig
inality. And his smile is just as genial
as it was when he was Mr.. Secretary in
stead of Mr. President.
According to present plans the Pres-
dent will go to his summer home in Bev-
erly, Mass, in June. This, perhaps. ac-
counts for the entry in the New Eng
land Farmers Almanac for that month.
..about this time look for unusually high
tides
After taking a stroll up Pennsylvania
avenue from the capitol to the treasury
building the announcement that Washing
ton has smaller proportion of saloons
than any city of 100000 population or
more in the country causes a feeling OF
surprise. 1t is, nevertheless, fact, ana
the census office can prove 1t.
There was. in 1901 a decrease of per
cent In the number of saloons through
out the country, according to the census
bureaus forthcoming report on the sta
tistics of the largest 1853 cities which had
a. population of over $4,000 each that year
The report contains complete stalls
tics of the number of liquor licenses In
force at the close of the license year IN
each of the cities and the number of in
naDltanIS To edCi ucoASi o
by the drink.
More than e-fourth of such dealers
In the largest 1853 cities were reported
from New York and Chicago; the cities
over 900 population with the small
est number of saloons were Washing
ton, 521, and Pittsburg, S1S. In cities
of this class, the largest number of sa-
looms in proportion to the population
were in Milwaukee and New Orleans,
where, in the former, there was one
dealer selling liquor by the drink to
every 142 inhabitants and, in the latter,
to every 200 Inhabitants. The number
of inhabitants to every dealer in Phila-
delphia was 761. and in Boston T3S.
The other cities having less than zoe
Inhabitants to each dealer were Calves
ton, 1874; East st. Louis, 143; Mobile,
1853; Houston, 1853; Hoboken, 16S; Sacra-
mento Cal, 1888; San Antonio, 49, La
Crosse, Wis, 1873, and Springfield, ILL.,,
1873.
The smallest number of saloons in
proportion to population is shown for
the cities of Pennsylvania andA Massa-
chusetts. and the largest for those OF
Texas, Ohio and Wisconsin.
The baseball bug is running wild
among the employees of the Senate side
of the Capitol Billy Burns of the Sem
ate document room, has organized a
team and is soliciting contributions for
its maintenance and support
Every employee from Secretary Ben
nett down has contributed and the pros
poets are bright for a good team and
one that will be nattily uniformed.
Many ex-college stars are recognized
on the list of eligibles, and the man
ager Is in earnest when he says he will
To oh Han q
amateur teams in Washington. George
town, Alexandria, ande Anascostia at
the opening of the baseball season.
just what can be done by the elm
ination of the middleman in supplying
the public with food is strikingly shown
by the commissary price list just pub
lished in the Panama Canal Record.
While the work on the Panama canal Is
progressing, the United States govern
ment Is supplying the laborers and the
clerical force on the isthmus with food
purchased in the United States and dis
tributed through the agency of the canal
commission.
The goods are bought in the open mar
ket In this country and are sold to the
canal employees at cost price, plus the
transportation charges and the expenses
of distribution. Yet in the face of ris-
ing markets in this country, the records
show a reduction In the price of 80 out
of 70 kinds of grades of meat, poultry
and game.
The reduction in the price of meat has
been gradual but consistent in the past
year. Porterhouse steak, which cost 20
cents a year ago, was reduced to p
cents February of this year. The Amer
leans on the isthmus, outsida of the
foreigners who are doing the laborer's
work, consume eggs in twice the value
of their meat, and the price of these
eggs, brought to the isthmus in cold
storage and kept so, has declined from
so cents in December, 1908. to s6 cents in
the middle of February of this year.
prohibition will be the deciding fea-
ture in the political campaign in Texas
next fall, but from present indications
the anti-prohibitionists will win." said
Roy Miller, secretary of the Commercial
club of Corpus Christi, Tex, who is in
Washington Mr. Miller is here to urge
harbor improvements on the gulf coast
near Corpus Christi and discussing the
Texas political situation today, said
further:
THE prohibitionists are wrangling
among themselves with three candidates,
and have split their strength, while the
ants are united on one man. Politics,
however. are at the boiling point now.
One seldom hears any criticism of Sem
ator Bailey now Texans seem very we'll
satisfied with their representation in the
Upper House of Congress-
Not a person with whom l have talked
has expressed regret that the Virginia
legislature voted against the statewide
prohibition law" said S. HI. Ford, bus
mess man of Richmond.