The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1916-08-18

ment the greater will be the impetus
to the cause of education.
The amendment once adopted the
people of Birmingham should be so
eager that they would fall over them
selves to vote for county and city
levies. 1t is indeed something to look
forward to with enthusiasm.
INVESTIGATORS have unearthed
i an extensive traffic in high school
and college diplomas in Illinois, the
purchasers for the most part being
young men who wished to become doc
tors of medicine and dentists.
1t is said that many diplomas were
stolen, but enterprising ithographing
firms printed
Brisk Business Done certificates IN
Selling Diplomas large quanti-
ties and with a
fine contempt for established "foun-
tains of knowledge" peddled them at
handsome profit.
Buying diploma outright for few
dollars has obvious advantages and is
bound to appeal to the young man
whose time and capital are limited.
Why spend three or four years porting
over books when a deal can be con-
summated in few minutes with
smooth distributor" where
by one may become possessed of a
genuine dlploma-though stolen one
or an excellent imitation which will
even fool college professor?
But there are pitfalls in the short
cuts to knowledge, just as there are in
various schemes for trying to get rich
quick. Suppose the purchaser of fake
diploma is suddenly called on to give
the college yell of his alma mater?
Suppose he is asked some intimate de-
tails of celebrated pitcher, or half
back? Once his ignorance of these
matters was shown, he would be ex-
posed forthwith.
A CONNECTICUT man has in
"A vented torpedo catcher and 1t
is reported that his device will be
adopted by the United States govern
ment. In a dispatch to the New York
World the invention is described as an
arrangement of
Torpedo Catcher half-inch wire ca
tn BE Tested bles in net form on
an IL shaped slid
inp steel frame, and is hung from
the ships side about twenty-five feet
away"
When a torpedo is fired at war
ship it bumps into the net. Hydraulic
pressure is released and the lower part
of the net is raised, leaving the pro-
peller of the captured torpedo spin
ming impotently in the air.
The inventor who contrives some
practical means for making battle
ships immune from torpedo attacks
will unquestionably fill "a much needed
want. AS lond as submarine can,
with a single shot, send dreadnaught
to the bottom, with loss of millions
of dollars and hundreds of lives, just
so long will the efficiency and desira-
bility of dreadnaughts be questioned.
VAT 18th the United States on the
w verge of great railway strike,
which President Wilson is using hercu-
lean efforts to avert, the minds of old
er citizens turn back to the greatest
and most far-reaching labor disturb
ance the country ever had.
This was the railroad strike of Chi
cago in July, 1894. 1t resolved itself
into a bitter fight
Great Railway between the Ameri-
Strike of 1894 can Railway union
and the General Man.,
ayers association, in which little con-
sideration was shown on either side
for the rights of the other, or for the
rights of the public. The strike in the
end was unsuccessful.
About 100000 men employed by the
twenty-four railways radiating from
Chicago were involved and in addition
to the loss of their wages during the
strike and the loss of revenue to the
railroads Bradstreet's, at the time, es-
timated the monetary loss to the
country at not less than $80,o00,0o0.
The strike was accompanied by all
of the unpleasant and seemingly in
evitable features of great labor dis
turbances. There were riots, intimida-
tons, assaults, murder, arson and
burglary, to say nothing of lesser
crimes, and history has recorded the
verdict that both sides deserved their
share of blame for the paralysis