davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
IS THIS THE HOUR.

By the Rev. James E. Coyle Lord, God of Hosts, the cannon's roar
 Is sounding through the battle plain, And tens of thousands in their gore
 Lie, by wars awful havoc slain. O! God of Night Lord God of power;
 Who holdest in Almighty hand The nations fate, is this the hour.
 The destined hour that frees my land? Long, long we've worn slavery's chain,
 Long centuries, but patient still We've hoped and prayed and hoped again
 That Thou in Thy Almighty will Would work a way, and bring at last
 The fighting of our ancient wrong When Freedoms sun, not overcast
 Should brightly shine We've waited
 long.
 Today, our hated overlord
 Is grappling with the Teuton foe, strengthen, Lord, the Kaiser's sword
 To smite the worker Of our woe: To England smite who ne'er did spare.
 No. never, through the long, long years The Irish serfs. What did she care For Irish grief, for Ire'ands tears? She laughed in scorn, did closer rive Our country's limbs in slavery's chain, Our fathers bound in bar and gyve. Her scaffolds saw our thousands slain, 1OOS liOW ouc AuOchtu. U LlV1Ig LOrdi Almighty God of awful power, Grant strength to Williams vengefu] sword
 | In this the nations fateful hour. 1 May German might strike home the blow l May Austria's legions win their way, May Turkey. strike that ancient foe, May Englands might and power decay | For England never spared or age Or VOuth child or i6ay fo;, | Her hellish crimes fill history's page Now may she taste defeat, despair Oh, as has fallen Earth's Empires all, As empires earthly ever must; May England see her empire fall | Her greatness crumblc to the dust, |, On every land. on every main l Where now her hated ensign flies, May England's prestige fade and wane, | To never, nevermore arise.
 God. how we kept through all the years Our faith, our hate, our purpose true. In all the years of blood and tears | We've trusted, Lord, Tn you. We knew that though our native sod
 Beneath a dastard tyrant lay,
 Yet, Vengeance still belonged to God"
 And some day, you, Lord God, woult pay.
 And now the cannons roar in France
 And now before the Teuton steel, Before the Uhlan's deadly lance,
 The flower of England's armies reel | The Belgian fields are all awaste, 1 And Russa's towns are all aflame, | And soon, ah, soon, will England taste
 On England's soil, defeat and shame o God, the fateful hour is now,
 And Ireland, Isle of Destiny 1 Will freedom taste Almighty Thou, l Guard Thou the Old Lands liberty. ] Stretch forth to guard Thy almighty hand To guard, protect, save, bless our land. And, as of yore. 'gainst powers of hell With England leagued she served Yol well.
 Guard 'gainst all foes for evermore l The dear old land from shore to shore. Forever keep the old land free. The land St. Patrick won for Thee
 Birmingham. March lS. 1915.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
Conservation of Negro Health

An important feature of the educa- tional work of Tuskegee institute is that seeking the conservation of health among the negroes. The Ma tional Negro Business league is ask ing the colored people of this country to unite in observing March 21-27 as national health week.
 A pamphlet comes from Tuskegee in which many facts concerning disease afflicting the negroes of the south and negro mortality are set forth and in which practical suggestions are made for improving health conditions.
 The United States census bureau has just published statistical report on negroes in which it is shown that the death rate in 1910 was 25.5 per 1000 population, as compared with a rate of 29.4 in 1900. The decline in the death rate was greater among the negroes than among the whites. Every city in the south, except Key West and Memphis, showed lower rate among the negroes in 1910 than in 1900. These facts should encourage the negroes all the more to organize thoroughly in their efforts for health conservation.
 According to the census bureau one of the factors which has caused the lowering of the negro death rate is home ownership-improved housing
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
Two Governmental Agencies

The Sixty-third Congress accom- plished great thing for the country when it created the federal reserve system. The measure, when it was enacted into law, looked promising. It was approved by republicans as well as democrats, and by all classes of business men. And its successful op- eration has more than justified the wisdom of those responsible for the passage of the act.
 But for the federal reserve system and the able work of the federal re- serve board the financial situation arising from the European war would have been far more difficult to handle than it was. Indeed it would have been staggering. But as soon as the new system got under way the condi- tions that were threatening gradually disappeared and confidence in the banking world was fully restored.
 Will the federal trade commission, another governmental agency created by Congress in President Wilson's ad- ministration, prove as satisfactory from a business point of view as the federal reserve board? All business has been benefited by the new banking system. Will all business be bene- fitted by the trade commission? Its effect on the industrial and com mercial life of the country will de- pend chiefly upon the attitude of the commissioners who are to conduct its business.
 Democratic leaders, including Presi- dent Wilson, protest in strong terms their desire to help business-big business as well as little business. The trade commission has large in quisitorial power. If the commission CTS are starting out to promote busi- ness recovery rather than harrass the big operators-those who are striv- ing with might and main to bring about prosperity-then they will ex- ercise their inquisitorial functions with moderation. By adopting a con- servative policy the federal trade com mission can be a real help to business. It can make good name for itself. But if radical tendency is mani Tested, there will be halting in the industrial field and general trade will be seriously affected.
 It is sincerely hoped that the con- mission will get in touch with busi- ness interests and show the country that it, like the federal reserve board, can handle wisely and successfully
 great and extremely difficult prob
 lems.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
Ireland's Patron Saint

Every country of the old world has its patron saint, but the name of St. Patrick, the apostle of Ireland, is more truly revered and more widely hon. bred than any of the others. The peo- pie of Erin may be divided on many questions, but they are as one in their veneration for St. Patrick. 1rishmen are scattered in distant lands, but every one of them is stirred with ten der memories when the 17th of March rolls round.
 For long time students of history have differed as to where St. Patrick was born, whether in Brittany, or in Scotland; but most students of Irish history now agree that his birth place was near Fitzpatrick, Scotland. The year of his birth was 373. He died at Saul, Ireland, in 494
 St. Patrick was a wonderful mis- sionary. He found Ireland all pagan and left it when he died all Christian. With piety and zeal he seems to have combined marked administrative eoility. He was born leader and hav- ing been invested as bishop he en- tered upon the field of his labors in the year 432. He founded something like 360 churches, and baptized with his own hands more than 12,000 per- sons.
 In many cities St. Patrick's Day is celebrated by parades of Irish so- cieties; in others by banquets and ap- propriate oratory. But no matter what form the observance may take every Irishman's heart beats with pride and love for the Emerald Isle when St. Patrick's noble achievements are re- counted
 Here in Birmingham feature of the day is the sale of little green flags to be worn in honor of the great saint. Not only do men of Irish birth or lineage wear the green, but men of every stock who appreciate the fine traits of Irish character will display a St. Patrick's Day token. The Ladies of Charity who maintain the free clinic at St. Vincent's hospital have charge of the flag sale. Birmingham has many worthy charities and the free clinic is one of them. It is hoped that the money received by the ladies will not only equal in amount the total of last year, but far exceed it.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
THOMAS HARDY

Louise Collier wilcox in the North Amer
 ican Review
 Not only has Thomas Hardy made a locality live, but in the portrayal of wom- en he has but two rivals in English liter ature-Shakespeare and Georc, Meredith His women stand out more real than the people of our everyday intercourse; Aelfride the timid, Bathsheba the vacil- lating, Viviette the fond and impassioned. and yet self abnegating; there is Anne Garland, all sweetness and dignity; Thomasn the submissive, Tess the pup pet of fate, and Ethelberta, fate's manip- ulator. There is Sue, study in tempera- ment unmatched by anything similar in English literature. It is hard to classify these heroines. MT. Hardy has a special touch, particular tenderness, for the timid and the impulsive profound un- derstanding of the passionate and ego istical-the Eustacia, Llcetta, and Feiice type. But no less than his preaecessors Dickens and Thackeray he knows how to value what is still. and will perhaps remain, the highest type of womanhood. the long suffering, patient, restrained and faithful type, like Marty South and Anne.
 If one singles out portraits of women it is that this is rarer achievement .n English literature than portraits of men. But when one remembers the subtlety, fneress, and wealth of detail which Hardy has expended upon such portraits as Swithin St. Cleeve, Smith, Gabriel Oak Farmer Boldwood, Clym Yeobiight, the faithful reddleman. and charming Dick Dewy one sees that he does not fall be- hind in portraits of men. But a~ove al other English novelists and, if one except Shakespeare, without rival in our litcra- ture. Hardy stands in delineation of the English peasant. / Originals or por- traits such as these will hardly be found half century from now, and the very swiftness of their passing lends value like that of Greek sculpture to the pass ing type.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
WAR ECHOES

Baltimore Sun: It is almost impossible to exaggerate the moral and material ef- fects of the European war, but in con- templating its tragedy. it's horror and loss we are in danger of losing sight of some of it's possible and probable compensa- tions. Everything cannot be the same after the war as before it. But the im- portant point is not it's effect on the map of Europe, but its effect on the minds and hearts of the rank and file of the people; the great desideratum is not that it should make changes in international boundaries, but that it should make changes in internal national life and out
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
THE NAVAL TORPEDO

position to strike the detonating primer and explode the charge the instant the torpedo finds it's mark.
 The central section, or air-fiasll occu- pies more than one-half the total length of the torpedo. In this is stored the com pressed air which, escaping through a valve leading to the tiny turbine engine, propels the weapon through the water The air chamber is to the engine of the torpedo what the boiler is to the recipro- eating engine of a steamship. Near the tail end of the projectile is located the wonderful turbine engine that operates the propeller blades. The turbine de- velops about 16O horsepower, with cor responding speed of 40 miles an hour. Its initial speed is nearly mile a minute with an extreme range of from eight to ten thousand yards.
 The tbrain'' of the weapon is in the tail end. It is little gyroscope that one could hold in the hand and it is delicately adjusted as a chronometer. This marvel ous piece of mechanism, when properly set, automatically controls, steers, and keeps thme torpedo in position during it's line of flight If the torpedo runs afoul of it's course and is defiected either to the right or left, the gyroscope-an almost human t-automatically operates aL lever, throws the rudders up or down, and to the right or left bringing the torpedo back to it's proper path.
 It takes almost a thousand pieces of steel, brass and bronze to make up all the delicate ingenious, and automatic ad- justments of the interior mechanism of a modern torpedo.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17

From the Reviews of Reviews.
 |nNHE sensational success of the sub
 marine lends interest to the re-
 A markable weapon with which it does it's work of destruction-the torpedo. The tackles dub it the "tin fish" and the Percy Scott after it's ardent supporter. The modern automobile torpedo is a cigar shaped steel object. p feet long. 21 inches in diameter. and weighs 200o pounds With it's wonderful mechanism of almost human intelligence. the projectile in act ion seems almost to throb with life. It dives like a porpoise, steers itself, and speed of 40 miles an hour. The torpedo can travel distance of six miles, and at the end of it's run be capable of de- stroying or severely cripping a great battleship
 The torpedo is divided into three main parts: 1, the warhead, or front section, which holds the explosive charge, weigh ing from two to three hundred pounds; 2, the air flask, or central chamber, and 8, the after body or tail containing the turbine engine, gyroscope, steering-gear, rudders, and propellers.
 One of the most ingenious and vital parts of the whole mechanism is a small propeller for preventing the premature ex- posion of the torpedo. It is located at the extreme point, or nose of the war head. It accomplishes this by locking the firing pin. When the torpedo enters the water on being fired from the sub marine or destroyer the revolutions Of the propellers release Sleeve which uncovers the firing pin. This puts it in
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
BUT WHY "KNOCK, MOBILE.

From the Mobile Register.
 The Associated Charities of Birming- ham has temporarily suspended business because the treasury is empty. In a frantic appeal to the public for funds. published in Tuesdays Age-Herald, one of the men connected with the organiza- ticn asks what shall be done with the men out of work who have been housed at the mems lodging house. Where are they going to eat and sleep tomorrow? Shall we round them up in the city jail and work them on the streets as they do in New Orleans and Mobile, and turn them out potential crirninals?" asks this disturbed charity worker.
 Report says that the Associated Char ities has done a good work in Birming- ham, and is capable of doing still bet ter work, but why should it be thought necessary in this effort at keeping the work going, to tell what is not true about Mobile? At very little trouble, the Bir- n.ingham charity worker could have in- are not put in jail here and are not worked on the streets or so treated as to be made potential criminals" If ho- boes are picked up in empty boxcars or on the wharves or in the parks, and can give no reasonable account of why they are here, they are given a place to sleep at the station and meal and sent along the road the next morning. These are thc professional buns or tramps. If they should by chance get before the re- co. der. Judge Ellington has made it an invariable rule to set them free and tell them to let the low descending sun find tien some miles further on.
 Self-respecting men out of work are neither buns nor tramps, and they are not molested by the police, but they arc given food and shelter and raiment and jcbs have been found for them. Mobila has done a good part by them, and for that reason the charities of Mobile have not had to close their doors, nor. as yet Co make more than their customary ap- peals for public assistance.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
The Richmond Reunion

q hope to be one of the veterans attending the annual reunion at Rich mond June 1-3,'' said Maj. F. T. Talia- ferro, a member of Camp Hardee, and member of Birmingham's Virginia col ony.
 Ut will probably be the last great re- union It has been 50 years since Lees surrender at Appomattox, and the vets are dropping off fast. But notwithstand- ing the thinning out of the ranks, sev- eral thousand will not only get to Rich mond, but most of them will be able to march on foot in the big parade I am looking forward to the reunion with keen interest"
 Major Taliaferro was not quite 1e when the war begun, but he participated in the first battle and served through out the war without being able in that time to visit his home in Orange county,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17
The Fee System

"In all the investigations that have been made in the past in regard to ju- dicial reform, the ambulance chaser and the fee system have been the special sub ject of attack said man in close touch with the courts of the county.
 Much oratory has been expended and much campaign matter manufactured out of these two alleged evils. In fact, the abolition of the fee system was the slogan of every officeholder of the county on fees or on salary and the people by over- whelming vote decided that the fees must go Yet several years after this expres- sion at the polls the fee system is as much in effect as ever and we are told that this system, which has enriched some men who could not earn $75 a month on a salary basis, will have to be con- tinued for four years or more.
 "The same hue and cry is being made at the Investigations now being held in this city by the joint legislative commit tee and the ambulance chaser and the fee system came in for the usual roast.
 ''The committee is giving patient hear ing to the suggestions for reforms and it is to be hoped that some definite relief will be had as result of the committee's 8 labors,"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17

London Special to the New York Sun TvHE military correspondent of the Times glves an interesting parallel | between the German campaign in Poland today and Nhpoleons campaign in 1912:
 .Though the isolated and disconnected attacks of the Germans in the Warsaw region and elsewhere have given the im- pression that the enemy is fighting like a wildcat in a cage and striving to break out where he can, we must accept the evi- dence of recent events, and the adihls- sions of German publicists, which point to an intention, at alr events to prosecute a more general and more orderly offensive than the initial movemtHts and comoats appeared to indicate.
 "The general situation of the opposing forces in the eastern theatre bears certain resemblance to that of June lsl2 and we might do worse than study that campaign, whether in the ever fresh ana ia scinating pages of Fezensac or De Segur or elsewhere
 "Then, as now, the front of the op- nosing armies was immense and extended from Galicia to the Niemen. Schwarzen-
 herg and his Austrians. issuing from Ga licia, represent the armies under the Archduke Eugene; the King Of West phalia marching on Warsaw and Bialy- stok is paralleled by Won Mackensen command; the viceroy of Italy 1urtner to the left, is reproduced by the German force on the right bank of the Vistula' the Emperor Napoleon, Murat and the dukes and princes who came from Thorn and Marienwerder into East Prussia stand for the new German forces whicn von Hindenberg is crowdng into Masur-
 enland; while lastly, Macdonald, with ms
 Prussians in front of Tilsit has his couh- 1 terpart in the German force which IS al
 ready across the Memel and will act, no doubt, as Macdonald acted before.
 'sThere is evidently nothing new under | the sun, and the Germans, in default or
 a great strategist of their own, have be- come plagiarists and have stolen a page out of the great epopee.
 "Napoleon's opinion, says Segur' was that the Russian position behind the Me
 men was neither offensive nor defensiVe'
 that the Russian army, being much scat- tered, might be surprised and disperseo' as afterward happened, and that an ap- 1 rupt and direct attack on Kovno ana
 Wilma might cut off the southern Russian
 armies from their line of retreat. We need
 not continue the parallel for the excel
 lent reason that future events are not yet
 revealed to us, but in general the German design appears to follow, without benefit | of Napoleon, Napoleons plan.
 ..erhe Germans have even been more for t,Inate than the great Emperor in one re-
 spect, for if they have no Polish lancers 1 t., swim The Niemen to their death and no
 Idthuanians to receive them with open arms, they have at least bought Turkey and have sporting chance that their right may be secure. We allies have not been busy enough with this right rear and have made mistakes there. Policy and strategy on this side have not marched hand in hand. There will be more to. be said upon this subject later on.
 Much evidently now depends upon the German endorsements, and also much upon the Russian dispositions. As to the
 first. we have as yet no news that the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-03-17

Col. W. H. Crook, disbursing officer at ago after a service of 90 years as an att tache of the executive mansion, was one of the most familiar figures in Washing ton. He had served through 12 admin istrations. A special to the New York Press gives many interesting facts in his career. among them these: The assassi- nations of Lincoln and Garfield, various weddings at the White House and the i'm peachment of President Johnson were among numerous events which Crook re- called. He was taken from the Washing ton police force in 1865 and appointed Pres ident Lincolns bodyguard. Before this he had served in the Union army. He ac- companied Lincoln on many of his walks and drives, and it. was his duty to watch over the President in public receptions. Crook often told of how. on the afternoon before Lincolns assassination, the Presi- dent had come to him in confidence and said that on three successive nights he had had dreams which foretold his mur- der. Crook in the next administration carried to President Johnson the first news of his acquittal on impeachment charges. He served as Johnson's body expected he was on hand. When he was told the news he ran all the way from the capitol to the White House. The Presidents eyes filled with tears, and he gulped when Crook burst in with the tid ings, later thanking him warmly for his trouble. Crook was unusually close to President Grant and the members of his family, and in 1870 he was appointed "ex- ectuive clerk to the President of the made him disbursing officer of the White House, the position he held in the suc- ceeding administrations. Crook told how he drove Guiteau, President Garheld's assassin, away from the White House on occasions before he finally succeeded in
 
 killing the President. Guiteau had been accustomed to go into the reception room, ask after the health of the President, stay short time and leave. He became obnoxious one day, and orders were given to keep him away. On the morning of the assassination the man returned to ask about the Presidents health, and Crook was worried when he heard of the affair. The President was not told of his fear, however and in one of his books of White House memories Crook tells how he found Garfield turning handsprings with his sons that morning. Crook was in one of the White House windows when Garfield was brought back after being shot.