Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-11-03
Poeit;c4 in
Pe~~o4eoaMio
BY the Ex-Committeeman

BY the Committeeman
Ninety thousand ballots for the
soldiers of Pennsylvania now in
various camps and cantonments
throughout the country to record
their votes next Tuesday will be
in the camps by next Monday. The
first shipment of ballots and sup
plies was made yesterday from the
Capitol in charge of the Commits
sionerS to take the vote at Camp
Gordon, over $4,000 ballots being re-
quired. To-day over $4,000 ballots
were started for Camp Hancock.
where the bulk of the National
Guard is encamped, in charge of
twenty-seven commissioners and be-
fore noon tomorrow the ballots for
the men in Camps Meade, Lee, Sher-
man, Upton and others where Penn
sylvanians are quartered will be on
the way. Eleventh hour arrange
ments were made to send commits
sioners to the camps in Kentucky
and New Jersey where there are
some Pennsylvanians and some time
ago provision was made for Commis-
sioners to accompany any bodies of
troops moved within or without the
country
Each Commissioner is required to
take in the car with him the ballots.
nomination lists and poll books for
use in taking the votes of the SOL
diers Tuesday. The Commissioners
report to the commanders OF the
camps.
The action of the Philadelphia
Grand Jury yesterday in making a
presentment in which the impeach-
ment of Mayor Smith and summary
dismissal of Director Wilson are de-
manded and their usefulness attacked
is the most startling of u series of
stirring political events in Philadel-
phia's campaign, which is now of
statewide importance. The action
was so unexpected and came from Il
source which it was least supposed
would DO anything like that. The
general opinion expressed by men
who have been observing the Phila-
delphia situation is that if the Town
Meeting people have any sort of or
ganiZation they ought to benefit inn
mensely by the Supreme Courts re-
versal of the Vessels decision to
crowd candidates off the ticket and
the tactics of the Ware attorneys.
The Philadelphia Record says
the action of the Grand Jury was by
an unusually representative jury, Civ
ing the occupations of the men. The
North American says "a single biting
paragraph" which makes up the re-
port shows the trend of the public
mind, remarking that tho foreman
is a Ware worker. The Public Ledger
says the recommendation is the first
OF the kind ever made in Philadel-
phia, and the Inquirer says the Grand
Jury was entirely right" The Press
makes this significant comment:
"The Town Meeting party leaders
might have acted in time to make
the impeachment of Smith and Will
son a more direct issue in the cam
paign, but they did not. And now it
only remains to consider the moral
value Of the Grand Jurys findings on
the subject, which is indeed tremen-
dous."
The unanimity of the newspa-
perS of Philadelphia in backing the
Town Meeting party, which has been
the subject of some bitter attacks
by the Wares and their followers,
is made the occasion for some in
teresting comments by the Philadel-
phia Evening Bulletin. In one of its
editorial page columns there is the
following:
because the Philadelphia editors
were Immediately unanimous in their
judgment on the Fifth ward case.
and have since treated its conse-
uEences in the campaign from pretty
much the same point of view, is the
result, of no concerted action. They
have all been of substantially the
same thought on this question, as
they were, and are, on the question,
for example, of our country's deCla-
ration of war on the 9Th of last April,
and there would be Just about as
much fact or reason in shouting that
they were 'conspirators' on that oc-
casion as there is in believing that
they came together in n conspiracy
a.tef the crime of the 10Th of Sep
tember. Even Colonel Elverson, of
the Inquirer. one of the most gen
crous and spirited or men in his ar
dent loyalty to friendship and to
party ties. and proud of his paper
i'm its long career as a spokesman for
the regular Republican organization
away from his customary moorings.
Nowhere Nas there occasion for con-
spirators or conspiraCies; the news
vapers simply responded, for once.
to an impulse common to all of
them
The members of the bars of
and Allegheny coun-
ties have issued calls to the people
of .hose counties to re-elect the sit
ticg Judges There is a notable,move-
ment on in Pittsburgh without re-
Eard to politics.
The Pittsburgh GaZette-Times
savaeely attacks the friends of Will
liam A. Magee for saying that a vote
for Babcock means higher fares. The
newspaper fays that Magee as a
former Public Service Commissioner
ought to know better and advise his
friends. The Pittsburgh Dispatch de-
clares that Magee possesses all the
Mayor of Pittsburgh, and says that
Babcock lacks them. The Pittsburgh
Post, a national Democratic newspa-
per. is for BabcoCk. while certain
Democratic Congressman are for Ma
see.
The Reading Eagle prints an in
teresting statement regarding the
Socialist vote in that city in view of
the tremendous fight being made by
the Socialists to get control of Coun-
Gil. The burden of the article is to