Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1919-08-25
Trailing
The News
OF The Day


the state prison farm at Milledge-
vile for the theft of $3.50, ac-
eording to sentence passed in that
city Saturday. The money had
been given her by her employer
with which to buy fish for dinner.
That's what a news dispatch
from that city said, but it doesn't
sound true, or possible in Ameri-
ca. However, we frequently run
across true stories like this, both
in and out of courthouses. And
there ,ay have been circumstances
connected with the cases unreport-
ed.
The people of Salina, Kansas,
the Journal of that city, no longer
strain their necks to look at air
planes. They save their necks to
look at little clouds which might
contain some rain.
Which paragraph will cause some
of the too-muchly-watered inhab-
itants of this section to sigh for
some of the Sahara-like qualities
of Kansas least for a long
enough period of dryness to per-
nit the meager crop of cotton the
boil weevil has left to ripen and
dry out sufficiently for picking
and marketing. But too much rain
is better than too much drouth-
take the word of those who have
been through both.
Here's a little whee 'e about dry
country. A Georgian was recently
visiting a relative in the middle
west who had spent IA months in
Western Oklahoma couple of
years ago trying to get start in
life as a farmer. Not a drop of
waterfell for year, and the ex-
penses of that IL months, with no
crops to pay for them, put him out
of business as farmer. The two
were discussing the type of inhabi-
tants of that section when the ex-
Oklahoman stated that large per
centage of the people were
foot-washing Baptists.
"Please inform me-" was the
query of the other, chow the foot
washing is managed in state
where no rain falls in year,"
"They have to get along with a
sort of a dry-cleaning process"
said the ex-farmer.
Word comes from Washington
that President Wilson's Cabinet is
split wide open on the following
question;
Was Captain Matlack justified in
beating" the Mexican bandits out
of $4,000 for the ransom of the
two army aviators?
With the professors of ethics,
who supervised military morals
during the war demobilized,
there have been no authorities to
turn to for ruling, and it looks
as if President Wilson, who in
structed the senate committee last
Tuesday on the difference be-
tween a moral and legal obliga
ton, would be called upon to de-
eide this moral issue.
One group of Cabinet members
condemns the cheating of the ban
dts as dishonorable, asserting it
rephesensible to break promise
made even to criminal. An
other group contends that the
breaking of the promise made un-
der duress is justifiable. Then
there is a utilitarian school of
thought maintaining that the bar
gain ought to have been carried
out implicitly because the impair
ment of our regulations with the
handles for good faith may en-
barrass future negotiations to
ransom our citizens.
''It's a good deal like the ques-
tion of whether a lie is ever justi-
fed" said one Cabinet minister.
"Once when l was away a bur
glar broke in, awoke my wife and
demanded where she kept her
money. She pointed to a closet
At the point of revolver she was
compelled to empty her purse OF
its contents-$1.76-into the
hands of the thief. He asked hel
if that was all the money she hac
in the house. She said it way. He
rhanked her and went away. Wher
l came home my wife was trou-
lied in conscience because she hac
lied to the burglar-there was
S100 downstairs. l absolved her on
the ground that a lie at the point
of gun is not lie."
And while we're on the subject
Of Mexican bandits, here is the
Kansas pedigree of Jesus ,Rentoria,
the leader of the Kidnapping ban
dts, as furnished by Wellington,
Kansas, correspondent:
Jesus Rentoria, Mexican ban
dit chief, and his brother, Appel
Onia. lived here for several wears