The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-09-22

ment, by the way, has been notably under Postmaster General Burleson. Red tape is more and more ninimized and the business of han fling the mail is simplified.
 In the matter of Albany, Ala, the will soon forget that the ;ity was ever called New Decatur May the metropolis of Morgan county never cease to flourish.
 lNh RS. MARY A. LOVEJOY of HV1 Frederick, Md, has been granted a widows pension of s2O a month and is the first woman beni- ficiary under a new act of Congress by President Wilson Scptem- per 8.
 In her younger days Mrs. Lovejoy, who is nearly 100 years old, was an in- innate friend of Barbara Frietchie,
 whose charac- Barbara Frietchie's ter has already Friend Gets Pension b m e SO
 legendary that 1t is necessary every now and then for some literary person to make a to Frederick and write The Truth About Barbara Frietchie." !"
 There are skeptics who even go so lar as to say Barbara is a myth-a nere figment of the imagination while others contend that her flag exploit either did not happen at all, ,r was greatly exaggerated and dis ,orted for literary and patriotic pur- poses.
 There is no telling how many "seek- ITS after truth" have interviewd Mrs. 1ovejoy, but she has been asked more han once to tell what she knows about Barbara and just how Barbara man. aged to get into the school textbooks md be spoken about on Friday after loons, when school oratory comes to he front.
 Incidentally it may be well to state hat Mrs. Lovejoy was not granted a pension because she was friend of Barbara Frietchie, but because she is he widow of Samuel B. Lovejoy, private of Company H, Fifth Ohio in- 'antry.
 THE democrats point with pardon J able pride to the constructive egislation accomplished during the Wilson administration. Never was here such . record of achievement ,y any party within the short period ,f three and half years.
 Among the first of the measures on he Presidents programme which Congress adopted was the banking
 and currency Hughes Talks About act, creating Reserve Bank System the federal re-
 serve system. It was received with warm approval by business men throughout the coun- ,ry, and now that it has been in op- ,ration long enough to be tested and prove it's merit, economists and practi- ,al financiers do not hesitate to pro- lounce it the best currency legisla- jon in the history of American bank ng; and yet MT. Hughes makes the absurd claim that the republicans originated ''the idea" "The federal re- serve act" he said, " far from being a democratic measure, pure and simple, was taken in great part from material by republican commission and draft of a republican bill"
 Was any claim ever more foolish? It is like some of Roosevelt's com- plaints that the democrats had ap- oropriated his progressive principles. Suppose republican commission had supplied in great part the material which it did not-it remained for the democrats to shape bill that would meet all the requirements and then pass it.
 Wall street did not want such law put it dared not fight the bill openly. The reactionary party, to which MT. Hughes belongs, would never have giv- ,n the country an elastic currency system, because such system con- flicted with New York's idea of a great central bank.
 After MT. Hughes was asked re- oeatedly by his opponents, How about the federal reserve and is not the system a boon to the business world ?" le finally had something to say, but made a mess of it. No utterance of ais has been quite so weak, perhaps; nothing has been, to use one of his pet phases, so inept. z