Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-04-18

tions in the business district, the
Mayor increased the force and de-
cided on a thorough study of syste-
matte despatching of vehicles at the
crowded corners.
This was followed by orders to all
| traffic officers to use uniform signal
system in opening streets, together
with slight changes in other rules to
make the entire scheme a success.
Mayor Meals often said while in
office his greatest aim was to have
satisfactory municipal government,
and spent hours at a time in confer
ences with the late Chief of Police J.
Thomas Zeil, the present Chief, then
Lieutenant Wetzel and Captain
Thompson, who was given charge of
the traffic work.
Waged Successful Campaign
The Mayors efforts to please won
for him many friends. His ready wit
and kindly interest in the many peo-
pie he knew made him one of the most
popular men in the city. His mayor
ality campaign in 1915 was one of the
most successful ever waged by can
didate for office. At the primary cleo
ton the Mayor received more than
fifty per cent. of the total votes cast
for the office and at the general cleo
ton his name appeared alone on the
ballot.
III Is pTODdDlo IndI IL SuCCeSSOT
will be elected until next Tuesday.
Commissioner Gorgas becomes acting
Mayor by law until the vacancy is
filled,
DR.. Ezra S. Meals was born at Ben
dersville. Adams county, July 2S, 1851.
son of Samuel and Elizabeth Rice
Meals. His father. Samuel Meals. spent
his entire life in his native township
and was a blacksmith by trade. For
| twenty-five years he was justice of the
I peaoe,
DR., Meals received his early educa-
ton in the public schools of Benders-
Vile, later attending the Gettysburg
Normal School and the Tyson Acad-
emy, of Flora Dale, Pa,
He began the study of medicine
with Dir, E, w, Mauma, of Benders-
Vile, reading with him for one year,
Later no styrdted with his brother, Ira
j, Meals, at Mill Creek, Huntingdon
county,
DIR, Meals then spent one term
studying medicine and pharmacy in
the University of Michigan, then
passed another year with DR., r, Il.
Elderdiee, of McKnightstown, He was
graduated from the College of Physi-
clans and Surgeons, Cincinnati, Ohio,
with tine class of 1874 and began his
practice at once in McKnightstown.
After a year and half of successful
naming there a short time.
In August, 1871, DR.. Meals came to
Harrisburg and has been in continu-
GUS practice here ever since, Many
| times when he felt his patients were
unable ta pay bill for medical serv-
ices he would tear it up and never
present 1t, freely helping those in need
of treatment, ffe was considered one
of the most skillfulNand successful of
his prefessieni was a charter member
of the Academy of Medicine and on
the roll at the Dauphin and Adams
county medical societies,
Elected as chief executive of the
city in 1908 he served a full term until
lbi1, when he was succeeded by ex-
MaFeF fahn X; Royal Mayor Meals
was the last one TO serve a full term
uRdeF ths cid farm of third-class city
government and the first Mayor to be
elected vader the Clark act.
DR.. Meals also served three terms
en- the school beard, beginning in 1894
and one term in the Legislature.
Mayor Meals was a member OF the
Harrisburg Lodge No. 10, B. p. o.
Elks, and the Knights of Malta. He
has two sons living in the city Ira
! Dale and Harry S. Meals and a
brother, IRA T., in NeFfelk, Va. "