East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1914-10-15

autoists as class because most auto
lists endeavor to be careful drivers and
have no desire to kill children or any
one else.
The author Of todays communica-
ton intimates the police have been
lax. Then let this father and other
fathers make known these facts to
the mayor or to the members of the
police committee. 1t is the belief OF
this paper those men will be quickly
sympathetic on the subject and will
take prompt action 10 see that the
evil is checked They will recognize
no privileged class and will direct
that the laws be enforced without
fear or favor
Try them.
>~SSO$Ss@
Like an echo from the half-for-
gotten past comes the word from
Washington that a
Home, Sweet bill has been intro
Home" duced in the senate
providing for the pay
ment Of S205 to the legal heirs Of
John Howard Payne. More than sixty
Years have passed since the author
OF Home, Sweet Home died in
Tunis, and it has been ninety
years since his plaintive ballad was
first sung in public. Not many songs
have lived so long, and few, indeed
there have been with greater or
broader appeal in either melody or
words. Millions have sung Payne's
Home, Sweet Home" and millions
more, no doubt. will sing it in the fu-
ture, but the memory Of its author
has grown dim in the passing of the
years and Of those who know the
song the number is not great who re-
call the writer's name.
His was a strange and pathetic life
After his thirteenth year he had no
home, and he died in a foreign land.
He was then serving the United
States consul at Tunis, and it is TO
make final settlement for his services
that the senate bill has been intro
duced. Payne was penniless when he
died. His song. which brought for
tune to others, brought little pecuni-
AIRY reward to its author. Still. he
had made money. and much of it, but
he had no capacity for keeping it.
To him Edmund Kean owed not a
little Of his success, for it was in
Payne's play, "Brutus," that Kean
first established himself as a player
of genius. And to him Charles Kem-
bic was also indebted for Payne's
Charles H." supplied him with a'play
in which he appeared at his best. But
'Brutus" and Charles H." are now
forgotten. Great in their day, their
day was short-lived and nothing now
remains Of them save the memories
that cluster around them. No more
enduring. either, was the play in
which Home, Sweet Home" was first
sung. This was "Clari. or the Maid
OF Milan" and it was produced in
1923. The first to sing the song was
Miss VI. Tree.
So the record runs. Save the gem
itself, little remains. The song has
outlived author, play and singer.
Payne wrote better than he knew.
years after his death his body
was brought from Tunis and laid to
final rest in the soil of his native land,
and, on that occasion, a thousand
voices were blended in the singing of
his great melody. But, appropriate
and impressive as it was, this tribute
was small compared TO the fact that
his song, today. more than any other
song, is sung the whole world round,
and always and by singers every
where with feeling and sincerity and
sympathy no other song eyokes.-In-
News
~SO@sS~
If assemblyism is adopted by the
people Nov. an added expense Of
5000, 600 every two years will be fore
ed upon the state under the provisions
Of the proposed law. BY adopting
that law and electing Withycombe
with his well known anti veto views
as governor the people will make
the tax situation no better fast, as
the saying goes
$SSa~SS-S
The monumental butchery and pill
lage in Europe is after all but log
ical outcome Of government by force.
II they had tried "watchful waiting"