davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
Emphatic Protest Had Good Effect


 No matter what may have been said by opponents of the democratic party in the way of criticism of the Wilson administration foreign policy only words of commendation from thoughtful people are heard now on the state departments notes to Ger many and Great Britain, respectively, warning those countries in very em- phatic terms against menaclng the vessels or the lives of American citl- zens traversing the sea zones of war
 No more thoroughly American rep resentations have been made to for- eign powers than those contained Ill the documents which have stlrreo dinlomatic circles this week. The Washington government warned ter many that the United States would be constrained to hold the lmperial | government to strict account for any acts of it's naval authorities which might result in the destruction or American vessels or the loss of Amerl- con Ivesn and that if such "a de- nlorable situation should arise the American government would take any steps it might deem necessary to safeguard American lives and prop erty."
 l The note to Great Britain protest | ing the measure of responsibility which would be imposed on the Brit ish government for the loss of Amerl- can vessels and lives in case of attact bv a German naval force eff England sanctioned a general misuse of the American flag" was equally emphatic.
 There was no i'll temper displayed in either of these notes and no blutt. The language of the communications was as dignified as it was clear. A | few timorous Americans there were perhaps, who were afraid that the diplomatic protests might tend to draw this country into the European war. But the President acted just as a fearless and patriotic chief mag listrate would be expected to act, ano no complications of an unfriendly na- ture will result.
 Germany and England have botf notified this country that the diplo matic representations will be replied to in friendly manner. The warn ing from the Washington government will not only have the desired effect but the notes will pass into history as incidents of large moment and a' distinct achievements on the part o1 this administration.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
Stories of the Bread Line

A striking cartoon recently pub iished in weekly periodical was en- titled "The III Bred Line," and showed a group of well-to-do people curiously watching unfortunates who were waiting to receive free bread. The newspaper men of New York have watched the bread line to better pur- poses and some striking stories have been gleaned from derelict humanity forced to seek this form of charity. The character of the bread line has undergone a radical change since war times have oppressed many persons who have never before known what 1t meant to be hungry. In fact, the bread line has taken on a semblance of re- spectability. Clean faces and clean linen are not unsual, it is said, and decent folk rub elbows with the typi- cal tramps, to whom such experiences are familiar.
 A woman who gave her age as S3 was the first to arrive in the Knick- erbocl1er bread line one day recently. She was neatly dressed in deep mourn ing and a policeman who thought she was spectator invited her to near by vestibue, where she would be shel- tered from the wind. She asked him if she could get cup of coffee. She said she read in one of the newspapers that Mrs. Belmont was giving away soup in Forty-first street and walked there, but did not reach the address until after 12 o'clock and the soup was all gone. She had come from Nyack to find work as seamstress and had slept one night in ferry house.
 It was announced that $15 would be given for a quart of blood to be used in a surgical operation, and men in the bread line almost fought for an op- portunity of selling their blood. Thou sands of cases of suffering are at tended to every day and many stories get into the newspapers that rival fiction. All the charitable organiza- tions, the churches and even the Boy Scouts are working heroically to re lieve want wherever found, while numerous private agencies are alst helping on an extensive scale.
 People who have an idea that New York is wicked place, should no overlook the way in which this grea city cares for her needy ones.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

Cross," which have been sung Tn most of the Sunday schools of the land during the last forty or fifty years.
 Many of her hymns were written for George F. Root, the composer, and these gained great popularity in the Moody and Sankey collections. Those who had the pleasure of a personal acouaintance with Mrs. Van Alstyne recall her as woman of intellectual charm and singular grace of manner. Despite her affliction she was noted for her suitability as well as her Christian fortitude.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
A woNDER-TIME COMING

From the Mobile Register.
 There are 67O,0o00O0 tons of coal within an economical transportation area of the Warrior river and available for barging to the gulf, according to a report that has just been filed with the big coal operators of the Birmingham district by W. E. Leake This citizen is one of the most reputable mining engineers in Bir- mingham and was employed for this in- vestigation with instructions to make it exhaustive.
 published in The Age-Herald, the people of Birmingham do not have the remotest idea of the immensity of the Warrior field.' He gave it as his opinion that within a few years there will be such an awakening to the opportunity offered by river transportation as almost to stam- pede the Birmingham district, Contin- uing, he said;
 we cannot realize here how close we are to water transportation, and we vii not awaken to our vast opportunities un- | til we see the actual wonders the river will perform for this district. The people I of Mobile and Birmingham are asleep. 1 believe when Lock + is completed wt shall see the practical and overwhelming proof of what the river transportation means for a city,
 | In reply to this it can be said that the people of Mobile are not asleep, for many l of them realize the opportunity that thu river transportation opens and they set 1 i,, tbo pF haoiD ming of a new era for the export coa business of this port. Already two barg' lines are in operation and the Pratt Con
 solidated Coal company, perhaps tn l largest coal operator in Birmingham, il behind one of them, and it has selected | Mobile as it's port. We believe that Mo
 bile will enter heartily into any an'
 all plans for the upbuilding of the port and our chief business men have fo
 sometime been making overtures to tn
 business men of Birmingham to establish
 a community of interest so as to mak
 Mobile in fact the port of all Alabama.
 The Age-Herald says
 Tn sYaealing of the developments of ,
 NJ Dewberry near Mobile on Dauphi
 Island, MT. Leake said that the peopl
 of Mobile should help MT. Dewberry bull
 up the island if he needed help, for with
 in a short time it will be the greates
 coaling place on the gulf coast or an
 other coast"
 This proposition looks good, too. M Dewberry has been working on it fo seven years, and he keeps on improvin his property and extending his enterprise IL is said to have substantial backing an to promise to become really great coa
 ing port. Connected by rail with Mobi
 it will be a part of Mobile, and therefor has just claims on Mobile.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
More Buying of Iron

Matthew Addy & Co.'S Cincinnati re- port, just issued, says in part:
 There has been no bad news this week. This in itself is a refreshing change to the iron trade. But this merely negative statement is only half the truth, for all the developments of the week have been good. It is as though through the long and weary watches of the night we had been waiting for the dawn and in the east there was gleam upon the horizon. It looks as though the morning of our hopes might be coming.
 ''ln the first place, there is a better tonnage going to the steel mills. All of them are doing little more than was the case fortnight since. This is re- flected in the increasing order list of the United States Steel corporation. The foundries are getting more work. It is particularly noticeable that the foundries doing light work are really busy, soms of them being actually rushed. Those making speciality of heavy castings arc not so fortunate, but there is an i'm provement even with them
 'rhere has been more buying of pig | iron. Orders are coming in for all kinds of iron, not yet in large volume. bu certainly in larger volume than was tn, case in January. In whatever direction you turn you find that while things ii
 the iron trade are bad enough they arr
 not so bad as they were. Perhaps th best sign of the improved tone is thu 1 fact that there are more rush order {, for pig iron and consumers are nor
 insstent on quick shipment Up to tn present, pig iron prices are not higher
 but they are firmer"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
Much Road Building

Many counties of this state that have been backward in the matter of good road building are now redeeming them selves" said prominent business man.
 Last fall, when business generally was almost at a standstill all the counties tbat had road bonds for sale had no dif- ficulty in selling them-in most cases at a premium. Indeed, investors were eager to buy The result is that between $l,000.- 000 and $1,500,OoO is being expended on road construction in Alabama this year, and every community is deriving direct bene- fit from this activity.
 ''It will be only a question of two or three years when Alabama will be in the forefront of good road states"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
POINTED PARAGRAPHS

From the Chicago News.
 Most good takers are poor quitters.
 leader is a great man who knows when to sidestep.
 Many callow youth has been hard hit by soft glance.
 A first-class lawyer can break any will excepting his wife's.
 Better not try it on the dog-unless you are sure of your dog.
 Most people are too polite to speak the truth on all occasions.
 Don't be in a hurry to accept a bald head as an official badge of wisdom And one little taste of success makes man long for all he can swallow Many man imagines he's the whole circus who hasn't the ghost of show. Occasionally man makes & great hi' by doing the wrong thing at the rign time.
 Somebody who knows nothing about , says that the happiest day in married 1 mans life is the day before the wedding. If "a man could live to be 200 or So years old he might have sense enoue to leave off cotton whiskers when n played Santa Claus.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
TOWN AND COUNTRY

By Juvenal Translated by John -Dryden.) But. could you be content to bid adieu To the dear playhouse and the players.
 too Sweet country seats are purchased every
 where With lands and gardens at less price than
 here You hire a darksome doghole by the year, A small convenience decently prepare, A shallow well that rises in your yard, That spreads his easy crystal streama
 around, And waters all the pretty spot of ground There. love the fork, thy garden culti- vate, And give thy frugal friends . Pythae0' rean treat, Iris somewhat to be lord of some small ground, In which a lizard may, at least. tur1
 around.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
Death of Popular Hymn Writer

Frances Jane Crosby Van Alstyne, known in the literary world as Fanny Crosby, died yesterday at her home at Bridgeport, Conn.,, at the advanced age of 95. She was a writer of popu- lar hymns and in tens of thousands of Christian homes her name is a house. hold word.
 Fanny Crosby was born in the state of New York. When only six weeks old she became blind from the appli- cation of hot poultices to her eyes dur ing an illness. but before she had reached womanhood she was pro- ficient in blind reading, and when she graduated from an institution in New York she was recognized as woman of rare accomplishments. From 1847 to 1858 she was teacher of English grammar and rhetoric and Roman and American history.
 She was the author of "The Blind Girl" and other poems published in 1844, and Bells at Evening" and oth- CT poems published in 1898. Only g few years ago she published an en- gazing book entitled Memories of Eighty Years" But Fanny Crosby gained her greatest reputation as 2 hymn writer. She was the author ol more than six thousand hymns, among them being, "Safe in the Arms o1 Jesus" and Jesus Keep Me Near the
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
THE MADNESS OF THE MOB

From Leslie's.
 The year 1914 was distinctly a year of mobs which is synonomous with saying it was a year of desoation and wreckage. Mobs never build colleges, feed the poor, or nurse the sick. Mobs devastate prop erty, plunder homes and destroy life.
 Virtues are mostly individual stupen- Gous crimes are largely collective If an individual goes insane he is locked be- hind stone walls and iron bars. If a col- lection of individuals go mad they usual ly choose the most radical of their num- Der for leader and become more dan gerous than a pack of jungle beasts. A mob is not a collection of separate individuals Individuals as a whole are
 generous and kind. In the crowd they
 lose their sense of responsibility. their capacity to think.
 A mob will perform acts that each oi it's separate members would condemn with horror. Ruskin says. You can taih mob into anything It mas no l foundation for it's feelings, no hold oi | them You may tease or tickle 1t lnto any thing at your pleasure. It thinks py ih' lection, for the most part, catchins al 1 opinion like cold, and there IS nothing l so little that will not roar itself WIG about when the fit is on, nothing SC
 great but it will forget in an hour wher 1 the fit is past"
 In the early part of last July' frencn
 men were visiting Berlin and Germans
 were laughing in the music halls of Paris
 Peace and prosperity were the order O ] the day. Suddenly all Europe becam
 gangs of mobs lusting for blood. As in dividuals they entertained one anothe l In their hcstelries and homes. and enjoye' the prof1ts of mutual commerce and in tercourse. As mobs they charged to bay l onat one another in the face of guns tha are IA times per second. Individuals usual iv breed love; mobs always breed hate. Compared with Europe we may con rratulate ourselves on the quantity. bu not the quality of our mob havoc. Seven ty-nine persons were killed. by mobs fl the United States in 1914. Some of tn reasons given for these atrocious crime were: Insulting women, murder, drunk enness, asking a wamon if her husban was at home. assisting criminal to es ) cape, soaring women and children, steal , ing $10, being found in a white person } home, creating disturbance by firin
 . pistol. and one negro was lyncned "a
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
THE COST.
BY 6 MONTHS OF WAR

From Half Year of World War" by
 view of Reviews.
 CTX months after the outbreak of the
 world war the outstanding fact was 0 that peace seemed as distant, al most more distant than it did in Septem- Der. Yet if the close of the conflict re- mained still a subject for speculation, it was now plain that the issue had been determined in September and that all that had happened since the battle of the
 Marne had in fact been the natural consequence of one more decisive battle
 of the world On fields and hills but little
 distant from the plain where Roman
 civilization turned back Attila, the Ger
 man bid for world supremacy. the Kali
 ser's chance to play Napoleon were abol-
 ished.
 In the opening month of the war there was a chance, a real chance that Ger many might destroy France before Rus sia was up. force Russia to make terms before England was ready and then, mas ter of the continent as the France of Ma poleon, renew the duel with the British empire that fTdnCe nau dDanuOHeu pre- cisely a century before. After the battle of the Marne the chance had vanished. Week by week. month by month, Rus sian, British, French military power de- veloped increased. On January 20, Ger
 many held less of France than on Sep tember 1; instead of a 100000 British troops, the advance guard of a fresh mill lion were already in Flanders; French troops were breaking out in Alsace. | In the period between the battle of the Marne and January, 1915 Germany had | made three great campaigns. On the Yser l the very flower of her troops had gone down under the eyes of the Kaiser in a 1 frantic attempt to gain the French coast cities, to grasp the eastern shore of the Straits of Dover, to get within reacy ot
 the hated Englishman's home. A first at- tempt to seize Warsaw to crush Russia France being indestructible had failed
 before the Polish capital. A second offen- l sve into Poland, after great victories and terrible losses had come to a halt be- | fore the Bzura.
 Six months after war had begun Ger. many was still faced by thee nations | their military force wholly unshaken l their armies still gaining in numbers, theil deficiencies in artillery, in machinery al
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
TWAS PROBABLY FRIDAY
n the Augusta Chronicle.

From the Augusta Chronicle.
 A Sunday afternoon spent in moving picture theatre is better than a Sunday afternoon spent in a poker Same-Bir- mingham Age-Herald.
 This paragrapher must be the Alabama man who, it ks reported, held the four hines against (he straight flush. But 1t was not beforS stated that the incident occurred on SuHlay afternoon
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
Fine Fishing Weather

These beautiful days are good ones to try for bass with live bait" said nimrod. "They will not rise to the fly until after a very warm spell and the top waters are warmer.
 Thursday, Mrs. J. C. Tomlin, after quite a battle with it, landed a bass weighing 4s4 pounds from the waters of Lake Purdy, using a live ninnow. It was duly and officially weighed and rec orded at the Birmingham Arms, in the years contest for a prize.
 Suckers will bite freely in running waters for the next few weeks where they have been bated. One way is to use bread thrown into a favorable spot for a day or two and then fish with earth worms To make a killing so to speak, cows head or sheeps just spelling placed in an old gunny sack and sunk into the fishing hole will do the preliminary the angler can take them with worms as fast as he can bait his hook with due allowance for a slow-biting sucker .''
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
The fashion of n dOublet, or hat, q cloak. is nothing to a man.
 Much Ado About Nothing.

BEGINNING THE DAY-1 thank Thee, my Father, for the love ana wisdom which have restrained Thee from answering all my prayers. thank Thee that Thou hast heard my prayer for strength rather than my prayer for lighter burdeh; that Thou hast given me trust rath- CT than riches. and communion wth Thee rather than freedom rom tears. Amen.-H. M. E.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

but made good. Such advantage as her preparedness had given her, the credit balance in her favor, was now exha austed.
 In the same period her Austrian ally had three times been beaten almost to her knees by Russian victories, was now fac- ing an invasion across the Carpathians into Hungary. Twice. too, the Hapsburg Emperor had seen splendid armies g nominiousy routed, destroyed by the hated Serbs, who in their turn were pre- pairing to flow over the Danube into Hun gary.
 Around the world the German hopes had equally proven vain. The Turk had suffered disaster, the holy war had fallen to empty nothing. The South African rev olution had fickered out as an absortive quence than to insure the loss of Ger man Southwest Africa. In Asia her col ony had disappeared into Japanese hands, in the Pacific her islands were lost irrev- ocably, in Africa her remaining colonies were being slowly. but steadily consumed by her enemies as one eats an artichoke. leaf by leaf.
 To balance this Germans could still point to conquered lands and provinces. In Poland, in Flanders, in Champagne her lines held, her counter-attacks regained lost trenches regularly. In Alsace, along the Aisne, in Articis and Belgium, Anglo
 French attacks, ambitious offensive, were speedily beaten down. East and west Ger
 many were still a match for her ene-
 mics, but east and west the -aoment for victory had passed, irrevocably passed, l east and west German operations more l and more tended toward the defensive. What Gettysburg had been to the south. the Marne was now proving to have been | to Germany, Nowhere in January was
 there the slightest sign of new promise
 for German victory and what was true ! in January had been true in the earlier | months.
 | Half year of war has given history
 one more decisive battle for Europe con-
 ceivably the greatest in permanent mean- | ing since Waterloo. In that .attle it had
 been decided that Euroje should still be
 Europe and not Prusslan. At the Marne Franco had saved herself and Europe;
 after the Marne the problem was how | long it would take Europe to conquer Germany, and in Janpary it was unmis-
 takable that as yet Europe had made ne progress.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
PRESS POINTERS

Montgomery Times: The man who sprinkles ashes on an icy pavement IS COT sidered in some parts of the coun- try close second to Abou Ben Adhem- Birmingham Age-Herald.
 It is a selfish act, after all, for no man so loves his fellow man as to go to so much trouble, except to save his own shins
 Andalusia Star: Every time we look at the legislature we're almost convinced that Speaker Carmichael wasn't far wrong when he said the people cannot be trusted
 GuntersVile Democrat: Everybody IS shouting for diversification, and good old friend the other day wanted to know just how crop devastation could help the renter class. We had to pass.
 Selma Times: Alabama's s constitution is no doubt badly in need of repairing and renovating, but somehow it is not yet the psychological time.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
NOT TO BE ENvIED.

He goes to the theatre every night, but always wears a pained expression" Don't you know who that is?''
 Certainly not"
 Hes the husband of the star. His pained expression comes from watching the leading man make love to her"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13
IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.

The captain of a foreign ship
 His knowing head was seen to wag; He said, When starting on a trip
 I always take a U. S. flag
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

If the Russians have continued to im- prove as much as it was said they did the first few weeks after the sale of vodka was prohibited. they must now be super men,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

The French socialists have declared themselves in favor of the war, all though it seems to have been started without first getting their consent.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

There is still a great deal of optimism left in this country. For example, there is the New York newspaper which is discussing the question, Where will the peace conference meet?'
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

Filling the decayed teeth of war horses seems to be profession that offers boundless possibilities.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

When Birminghams gunmen begin to shoot down young boys, it's high time that they be shown the error of their ways.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

While Colonel House in no way resem- bles a peace dove, that is thought to be the part he will play abroad.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-02-13

Alabama's legislature seems to have ears only for the voice of it's master the ''prohibtion lobby'