davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
A GREAT CHARITY

From the Tuscaloosa Gazette.
 Birmingham has a new form of charity work that is exceedingly interesting. It is a place called the Pisgah home, where homeless men can secure food and lodging without cost. Some time ago Birming- ham man by the name of Lazarus offered to provide beds and other furnishings for such an institution if the house could be provided. Finally two men who belonged to a society called Pisgah came along and the home has been running some weeks. A man with no place to eat or sleep can find shelter and food at ~his place and no price is charged. It is said they have a way of preventing the house from being imposed upon and unworthy people receiving the aid they should not have. This work ought to appeal to every class of people. Many man in city finds himself helpless and homeless, and ir is this desperate condition that lea,ls so often to crime. It is great chaiity that takes a man who is down and oIi and holds them up until he can get or his feet again. Suppose there is an nm
 position rracticed now and then. It is
 much letter that a few meals and beds should be given unworthily than tha; a number of worthy men should go uil. | helped
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28

strong man can accomplish when placed at the executive head of a state. Backward New Jersey is now become progressive New Jersey, and the state is very proud of her new governor. The state is no longer boss-ridden or corporation dominated. And the most remarkable fact is that this was accomplished despite a re- publican senate.
 The legislature has adjourned and Governor Wilson is about to make western tour, and there is no doubt whatever that he will receive warm welcome in that section of the coun- try. He was born in Virginia, reared in Georgia, and he began his active career here in Alabama. He was soon called to responsible positions in the north and there the greater part of his active years have been spent. He belongs to the entire country, and his southern birth fifty years after the civil war will not lessen his popu- larity in the north a particle. He is strong man who does things, and that is the kind of man that all sections are looking for.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
Popularity of Dixie

That Dixie will eventually become the national air Is the opinion of many musicians and from the increasing pop ularity of the grand old tune the opin- ion seems well founded" said local musician.
 "The tune is always enthusiastically received in the south and southwest, and is becoming both familiar and pop ular in the north and east. There is something in the dash and rythm of the strains of Dixie that is soul-stir- ring and the fact that 1t was the rec ognized battle song of the Confeder- acy hallows it in the affection of the southland and commands admiration in other sections.
 "It is played on every occasion of na- tional importance and it's acceptance by the people of the north and east is an evidence of the passing of sectional bitterness and of a united land.
 "Of course, should the tune of Dixie be adopted as national air the words would necessarily be changed and for one hope to live to see the tune ol Dixie set to words that are national in their import and wholly acceptable to every class, clan and creed"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
Gov. Wilson Makes Good"

Although Gov. Woodrow Wilson had republican senate and dem ocratic house behind him, yet he suc- ceeded in keeping his campaign prom ises. He caused to be passed new and improved primary and election bill, corrupt practices act, public utilities act to control public service corporations; a bill providing for commission form of government in cities, and an employers liability or workingmen's compensation act. Bills regulating cold storage, substituting indeterminate for determinate sen tences in criminal cases, rectifying abuses in weight and measures, to- gether with many school reforms, were also passed.
 The recent legislatures of New Jersey have been notably corrupt or devoted to special interests, and when Governor Wilson gave the state ad. vanced legislation on a straight and honest bases he simply showed what
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
The South's Love for Music

."The south is showing wonderful eag- erness in high-class music,' said B. t'. Owen, formerly of Boston, but now cit izen of Chicago, and representative of the Cable Piano company. 'The grand opera festival being held this week in At lanta is a phenomenal success financially. The advance sales amounted to upward of s60,000 This might sound like an exag- gerated statement but it is not. I hap pen to know. The Atlanta branch office of the concern which I represent handled half of the seat sales, and I am in close touch, therefore, with actual facts. While Atlanta furnished large proportion of the audiences, various cities of Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Alabama and Florida make up large total Bir- mingham sends quite an important con- tingent.
 Tn certain Georgia towns last week Damrosch and his fine orchestra drew im- mense crowds. Victor Herbert and his excellent orchestra, running almost paral- Tel with Damrosch, Is attracting capacity houses. A few weeks ago the superb Rus sian Symphony orchestra, in touring the south, played to big business. In addi- tion to the orchestras mentioned others have been in the south recently, and all have done well from a box office point of view. really believe the south has not only caught up with the north in its ap- preciation of artistic music, but that it Is getting ahead of it.
 q see that Victor Herbert is to be here in May. It goes without saying that he will appear before great audiences"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
Packing the Senate Committees

The Senate majority consists of 42 regulars and 12 progressives, and yet when the former make up the ma jority representation of the impor- tant finance committee they name eight reactionaries and only one pro- gressive. The one progressive is Mr. LaFollette, who is great force wherever he is placed. Five demo- crats will be added, one of whom is to be more reactionary than progress sive. It is plain that this committee which is to handle all tariff questions has been closely looked after by the special interests. It will be domi- mated by Penrose, Cullom, Lodge, Shoot and Hepburn.
 The equally important interstate commerce committee was made up by the appointment of seven standpat- ters and progressives, to whom will be added five democrats. This com mittee is pretty fairly constituted, for Messrs. Clapp and Cummins can, when aided by the democrats, create a tie in it.
 The control of the finance commit tee is in the hands of the protected and other interests, and nothing will come from it bearing a favorable re- port that the interests are not will ing to accept. It becomes plain at the outset therefore that the special interests have no intention of paying any attention whatever to public sen- timent. A clear majority of the finance committee is pledged to stand against any downward revision that will lessen the cost of living. The reciprocity bill may be favorably re- ported by it, but the free list bill will not be, nor will the revisions of the wool and cotton schedules that are to follow the free list bill in the House.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
Birmingham's Three Commissioners

oll CC D
 This city has not fully awakened to the fact that it has become for the first time in it's history city with out charges of graft. If it has im- bibed the fact it has not been at any rate imwardly digested. Perhaps it is more correct to say that the peo- pie of all sorts and conditions have not yet risen to a full appreciation of the change.
 Already. they appreciate the in creased energy and increased polite ness of city officials. The suburbs are visited oftener by the garbage wagons, and even wagons and street workers have been seen in the outer sections of the city. These outer sec tions now entertain the hope that a policeman will actually pay them a visit when on duty.
 Gradually the people of this city are discovering that no "pull,' no "influence," is needed to get sub ject. before the city government. No lawyer need draw up petition. No time need be wasted in attending council meetings and in waiting on city officials. Generalization of gov ernment in three men who detest red tape makes all the difference in the world. The commission is getting in touch with the people, and this city of 132,685 people is to be governed as simply and expeditiously as a town of one thousand people. It can be done, and the commissioners be- lieve in government that is as ac- cessible to the plain citizen as to the magnate.
 The commission is making good rapidly. It is simply demonstrating that an American city can be gov erned without red tape and with eff ficiency and economy. Other com- missions in other cities have made fine records, and Birmingham's com mission promises to keep fully up with the procession.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
Business Much Better

Business west of the Mississippi IS much better than 1t was in March, said William V. Grafton of Philadelphia. T was as far west as the Pacific. All through the far west business Is remark ably good. Seattle was never more pros porous, and Spokane is close competitor. Coming eastward Denver and Kansas City seemed to be enjoying the highest degree of prosperity. I spent few days in Oklahoma and two days in Texas. In those two states business is very satisfac- tory indeed.
 "The country at large will not be at Its best from a commercial point of view un- til after July l. I believe then, however, that conditions will be so buoyant as to make pessimists stop their croaking and turn optimists."
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
WHEN WILDE WAS ROUTED

From Oscar Wilde in Paris. By Arthur
 Ransome in the May Bookman.
 One of Wilde's friends was Jean Moreas, Greek, whose death on March 30 last year deprived French literature of one of her most interesting poets. They used frequently to dine together and to drink at the cafe by the Odeon, facing the gardens of the Luxembourg, a cafe that has since become bureau de tabac. Their youthful admirers used to stand in the streets to see the silhouettes of the two masters on the cafe window. Moreas was the founder of the Ecole Romano, a school of poetry that Anatole France, holding him for it's Ronsard, called a New Pleiade. When Wilde was at the height of his glory, Moreas gave a rather ceromonious dinnier at which were pres- ent beside himself and Wilde, Raynaud, La Tailhede and Du Plessys, three of his disciples, and Stuart Merrill, who tells the story. It is In perfect contrast with the dinner of four at which Wilde was the only speaker.
 rAt dessert, Wilde bent his tall body to- ward Moreas and asked him to recite some verse. q never recite," replied Moreas, "but if you would like it, our friend Raynaud will recte us something. Raynaud stood up, and resting his re- doubtable fists on the table, announced, "Sonnet to Jean Moreas." He received our applause, and then Wilde again pressed Moreas to recite. "No; but our friend La Tailhede--" In his turn La Tail hede rose, and, his eyeglass fixed, launched in clear voice: Ode to Jean Moreas" Wilde grew visibly unquiet at the worship paid to its chief by the Ecole Romano; none the less he continued by courtesy his insistence. "Du Plessys, let us hear your latest verses" commanded the master. Leaping up, Du Plessys trum- peted in vibrant tones "The Tomb of leon Moreas." Oscar Wilde, choked, con- uuered, routed, he who had silence about him in the salons of London, asked for his hat and coat and fled into the night. It was certainly the first time that all the incense round dinner table had not been reserved for himself"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28

From the Philadelphia Inquirer.
 Those astronomers are amusing. They are all so sure that they have solved in their various ways the secret of the uni verse, and yet hardly any two of their guesses are in accord This peculiarity of theirs was informatively illustrated in the course of some recent proceedings before the American Philosophical society in this city. One of the speakers was Professor Svante Auguste Arrhenius of Sweden, who ranks among the leading scientists of Europe. He read a paper on "The Physical Condition of the Planet Mars" and many of those who listened to his remarks must have been surprised and grieved to learn that if they accepted this erudite gentlemans, all the previous ideas they had gathered on this subject would have to be thrown into the discard.
 For years the astronomical sharps have been telling us that whatever else might be doubtful in connection with the origin and constitution of the planetary system, we might take it from them that the in habitability of Mars was sure thing. Those streaks upon the surface of the ruddy planet might or might not be ar tificial canals constructed for irrigation purposes by race of giants; very prob- ably they were: but however that might be, Mars, they said, was certainly place where such creatures as ourselves might live and move and have their being They know all about It. Perhaps it had an ex- cess of moisture in the form of cloud and deficiency in the shape of sea, but the conditions there more closely approxi- mated our own than those on any other member of the solar outfit and we might gamble, these astronomers said, that there was animal life on Mars all right
 But now comes along Professor Arr- henius, who declares that we musn't gam ble on any such thing because if we do we | shall lose our money. Human beings | couldn't live on Mars. It is too cold, colder even than this beautiful spring | And, besides, it is played-out old thing | of a planet which passed it's prime ages ago, which is probably nine times as old | as our little world is-no one knows how l old our world is, but that's the way as | tronomers talk-and which has crust three times as thick As for those funny streaks, they are not canals at all they are Assures caused by quakes. and this terrestrial sphere of ours contains their | counterpart. Mars has some atmosphere and solid surface and it revolves upon it's axis in about the same period as the 1 earth; but those were about the only
 points of resemblance Professor Arrhenus
 had been able to discover.
 To those who had cherished the thought
 that we had a companion world near by-
 with which we might some day hope to
 communicate this must be disconcerting,
 but they need not get too much discour-
 aged. After Professor Arrhenius came 1 Professor See, who brought the glad tld-
 ings that the whole universe is crowded
 with sentient creatures and that 'lvins
 beings exist wherever a star wrinkles in
 the sky" and there you are. It may be lese majeste to mention it. but the plain
 man can hardly be censured for suspect
 ing that the astronomers don't know a
 blamed thing about it.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
Cutting Out the Lords Veto Power

MT. Asquith is inflexibly present. ing his anti-veto bill, and he hopes to send it to the house of lords be- fore the coronation of King George in June. The issue is deeply historic. It relates to a great constitutional change. The debates in the house of commons are bitter and yet the people are indifferent. The truth is, the battle has been fought and won. In two elections the liberals have ap- pealed to the country and each time the country has said the house of lords must be deprived of veto power. That house has been in the habit of vetoeing liberal bills, while tory bills went through unopposed. In this way England had but one effective party and it grew tired of the action of the lords.
 In July the peers will have the anti veto bill before them and the best opinion is that they will take their medicine. The upper house would then be shorn of all power over money bills-home rule, for exam ple-two years when they, too, would become laws. It would have, in other words, no absolute veto power.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
THE HAIR THAT WAS RED

From the New York Globe
 Some one in the west has raised the question: What's become of the red-haired girl? She has, as the late Mir. Ward put it, ''gonested away"-entirely depart ed from the haunts of men. When one sees a white hay motor, relic of rapidly waning era, go ambling by And glances hurriedly about for red-headed girl (for the benefit of his luclO there is none to be seen.
 He may look for one for weeks upon the streets, and look in vain. He wants to know what in thunder is the meaning of this mysterious and sudden disap- pearance. Two somewhat obvious .ex- plantations come immediately to mind and are set forth as follows by correspond ent, who calls our attention to the above query from Chicago:
 Where's the mystery? In the twen- tieth century a woman's hair is the color she wants 1t to be. Most women oon | like red hair. Most of the natural req heads are now full blondes. But there's another reason. There are a few red headed girls at large. In the house you l can recognize them, but not on the street. The current mode in hats hides hair, as well as ears and face. You might pass A. dozen red-headed girls and never know it. Lately men have been known to pass their own wives on the streets, unrecog- nized, because of the effective disguise furnished by the prevalent feminine head | gear.
 This seems effectually to dispose of the Chicago mans mystery. The twentieth century hair dresser has solved the prop-
 lem of extracting the fiery pigment rom
 red hair, and popular prejudice is making wide use of his discovery. Hence there
 is an actual dearth of red-haired maidens. | Secondly. those that remain of an un-
 sophisticated and natural hue are so thor
 oughly disguised by the 1911 hats as to be unrecognzable.
 Before the fashions change the wnite
 horse may be replaced by the automopiis'
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
QUICK DETECTIVE WORK

From the Washington Post.
 "When I read of clever detective work done by actual detectives" remarked M. J. Devanney, once a newspaper man, now capitalist, at the Dewey, T think no" much really clever detective work has been done by newspaper reporters. who do not banker for fame as detectives yet who do much more clever work without getting credit for 1t.
 "I recall when I was a city editor out in Detroit some years ago that we had perplexing missing girl case. The girl was of the usual poor but honest type, and was employed as 8 domestic. She failed to return either to her home or to her place of employment, and the police finally had been notified.
 ,"The papers had flaring headlines about the missing Anna Kranke,' that being the name given to the police and news papers. As a last resource the police dragged the river, but without success. The mystery of her disappearance con- tinued and finally called in a reporter who had dropped in a few weeks before lOOklHB lOl d JOb. llC Weio 6AfSti eh SSAN@ porary place, as he requested, and just filled in for odd assignments.
 ''Somehow, 1t struck me he might as we'll be spending his time looking for this missing girl, and I called him in, gave him the clippings. and told him to go ahead. He read over the clippings, and re- marked in a dry way:
 xtyitl haUa the wrong You say the girl is German, but there is no German name of Kranke. That means sick, and would hardly be a fam fly name.
 ''Then he looked through the city direc- tory until he found name that sounded like Kranke. He found the name Gruenke and also found man of that name working at the Barbour Stone works. My new reporter got George Barbour on the phone, asked that Gruenke be called from the shops, found that it was his daughter who was miss ing, asked the name of her girl friends, said good-by. promising to find the miss ing daughter, and went out of the office on the jump.
 "In half hour the reporter was back, and he had found the missing girl She had gone to stay with a woman friend, and had no idea that her absence would make so much fuss. Also the reporter had a picture of the girl, and once we had published the picture with the story of the reporters quick work we phoned to the police that they could quit the search.
 "A few years later I met that reporter in journalism. But he remarked that, after all, the good old days of reporting were fascinating and he yearned for some of the youthful enthusiasm that we all enjoyed in the days of actual news get ting"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
ATE EDUCATED PIG

Cincinnati Correspondence New York
 Tribune.
 Reuben, a much advertised educated pig belonging to the John Robinson circus, which is showing in this city this week, is no more His fate was kept secret for a week, for more or less obvious reasons. Hal Newport, the clown of the circus, who appeared nightly in the sawdust arena with the pig, said
 That pig could do everything but talk and could nearly do that, as he spelled his name with letter blocks All was con- fusion the night we broke camp at Ter race park. We had pork chops for SUD- per- and they were particularly delicious. We were all eating our heads off, when the property man rushed in and cried that Reuben had vanquished.
 {" He got mixed up with those pigs that were sent from the stockyards, he gasped.
 "'Was one of those pigs white one with black polka dots?' I asked the cook
 It was.' he replied. |" Then we have eaten Reuben, 1 cried The property man is no longer attached to the circus.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-28
ANIMAL DEFECTIVE STORIES

George Jean Nathan in Harpers Weekly.
 IT AST fall number of petty thefts
 occurred in a boarding house at A Lynn, Mass The stolen articles consisted of bottles of perfumery, lock- cts. combs, brushes, silver button-hooks, nail files, jars of cold cream, handker- chiefs, hatpins and watch fobs Sus- picion was finally centered on woman servant employed in the house, but each and every trap that was laid for her failed It was concluded that the thief was working from the outside, and not the inside, as had been at first suspected. The police, upon being notified of the suc- cession of mysterious robberes, instituted close watch, and after two days the solution of the mystery was reached. It was discovered that, under cover of dark ness two monkeys, the property of a next-door neighbor, unnoticed by their owner, escaped from the house, climbed up to an open window on the first floor of the house, ascended the stairs and be-
 gan their work of pilfering. Most of the missing articles were found subsequent ly, in a corner of yard near by, where the simian robbers had been in the habit of depositing them.
 An examination of police station rec ords and other sources brings to light numerous similar instances of real animal
 detective stories, most of which are quite as queer and curious in their way as the
 more labored chronicles of the detec- tive fictionists. One of the most inter
 esting of these actual stories is what
 might be entitled "The Adventures of the Missing Films" About a year and
 half ago the officials of the New York Museum of Natural History missed set priceless films the records of an Af-
 rican expedition. There was no clue to
 the thief, and investigation as to the
 whereabouts of the missing articles came
 to naught. Two days after the disap-
 pearance of the films an attendant, upon | making his first early morning round of the museum halls, was shocked to dis
 cover that two expensive cameras stand