davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
THE ROBIN AND HIS SONG
hn Kansas Citv Tim es.


 Do you know the robins song and the hour of it's singing? You may see this feathered songster running upon the laws and digging for worms, hear him in his turbulent fights with his an icent enemy the bluejay. and perhaps not suspect that he has "a song and a particular time for singing. The few chirps, the occasionally resounding challenge that he utters to the jay, the speaks of alarm he makes when sud- denly beset by those feathered disturb CTS of his peace, are not his song.
 If you would hear him sing you should be awake before the sun is up. For in the first graying of the dawn the robin rouses from his sleep and be- gins his carol In sheer ecstacy of ut terance there is none that sufpasses him. He sings with fervor. anSaban- donment that sometimes verges almost on the hysterical It is a rush, an out 1 pouring of song unequaled in the bird world. There is no recognizable mel | ody such as may be heard from the meadow lark, but it comes as wile outburst tumultous medley of chirp- ing of singular volume and sweetness. I Perched on limb or sitting in the grass. barely distinguished in the fee- ] ble light of dawn, he sings his greet ing to the new day. But by surprise ' his song dies down and finally ceases 1 altogether And all through the day he is silent, If he sings again, it is not until the sun IS down and dusk is ap. preaching. But his evening song is no, so often heard. Occasionally, however, he can be seen in a tree. silhouetted against the fading daylight. pouring ou. 1 his ecstatic song in the gathering dark.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
LUKE McLUkE SAYS

Funny how woman can afford to pay 99 cents for an article when she ant afford to pay dollar for it.
 If a girl likes a fellow she doesn't get lalf as mad when he kisses her as she Sould if he didn't kiss her.
 With rattan baby carriages selling for
 and $69, we do not wonder that our sensus doesn't show remarkable growth.
 We may be prejudiced. But we never had much use for sawdust evangelist who raises a lot of h-l to show you he way to heaven.
 Watch a speed fool operate an auto and you'll get the idea that he needs a rubber head worse than he needs rubber tires.
 A man stands pat on his anatomy. But woman is always trying to make something bigger or make something smaller.
 who likes to harp on the fact that it is no disgrace to be poor never seems to get rich.
 Where are we gonna place the blame for the epidemic of crime that has pre- vailed ill this country for three or four months? You can't blame it on liquor as of yore. Can you blame it on pro- hibition?
 When man gets started yapping about free speech he forgets tnar slience is just as free.
 Give girl new engagement ring and she will have her hand up to her face fifty-nine times minute.
 We can't understand why people think 1t a disgrace to smell like stable and an honor to smell like garage
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
OLD RILEY LETTER

From the Anniston Star.
 The big-heartedness of the late James Whitcomb Riley is revealed in the fol- loving letter to one of the south's most beloved men of letters:
 'Philadelphia,. Dec. 90, 1905. ''Jcel Chandler Harris, Esq.
 Dear Friend: Your book of New Sto- lies of the Old Plantation is here from your generous hand, and I am as tickled over it as Old Brer Rabbit on the front cover. And I think it's the best of all Christmas books this year. just as last ear your Tar Baby Rhymes led all the st. La, but I want to see you and talk with you, loaf with you, meander around with you, or sit still. jes' a-tradin' laughs or shut clean to a-sayin nothin' cause we don't haf to!
 Today got off four books to your care (by express). Nothin' new but the pie sures. which in spots at least I know'll please you. How in fancy I see us a-really a-meetin' up again, after these long years, and a-throwin' our heads oack a-sort O teeterin' on one foot and l-hittin' the ground with the t'other, same laS a-peltin' a old dusty cyarpet ith a wet umbrelli
 And now, on the dawn of the new ear, come to you the heartfelt greetings and praises and gratefulness of
 Your fraternal. ever-loving old Hoosier friend,
 JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY.
 "P. S.-To your household all fervent test wishes and continuous. Do write to fuef,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16

an attempt to wreck the existing or ganizations and place all labor under the control of the radicals. The next step would be a soviet.
 The government is disposed to wait until the men who have been misled by Foster realize what is behind the outlaw" strike. It feels confident, and so do the American people, that no self-respecting worker, no Ameri- can citizen worthy of the name, is willing to place himself under an au- tocracy of the proletariat, such as now exists in Russia, where labor is conscripted and the old, old story of a chosen few holding the reins of power and profiting by the sacrifices of the masses is being repeated.
 The department of justice has made a clear case against Foster and his adherents. The railroad "strike" was to be followed by strikes in other industries, with the ultimate purpose of demolishing the fabric of organ ized labor which has been built up by patient and conservative work on the part of such men as MT. Gompers and the heads of the four railroad brotherhoods. These leaders don't suit the radicals, who are by instinct anarchists of the most rabid Sype. "The whole programme" says Mr. Palmer, was part of the plan by Rus sian radicals, designed at the ulti- mate capture of industry, the over throw of government and the setting up of dictatorship like that in chaotic Russia"
 The American worker must be on his guard His own welfare and the safety of America are menaced by radical agitators.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
HOW LABOR LOSES

or not, simply because, no matter now high the wages supplies cannot be pur N chased if they do not exist M
 It seems trite to repeat that money iss only a medium of exchange, but it is a truism which the public mind under stands in order to solve the present prob lem The things which the individual produces in reality are to be exchanged for the things he wants. If another in- dividual is not producing the things he wants, he cannot get them at any price
 Money means nothing of itself. It is the product of printing press. All the pesos which Villa could print could not buy sufficient uniforms, food and guns for his bandits. All the rubles which not provide the Russian peasants with shoes and farming implements. All the marks of the German government cannot buy what is needed, because what is needed has not been produced.>-
 When a person says he is entitled to cost of living, does he mean that he wants it raised to a point where he can buy as much clothing and sugar as in normal times? If he does, he is seeking the impossible. No amount of money can purchase as much clothing or sugar as if the supply were a full one. And, what ever the individual worker may say or feel about his own productivity. the fact remains that the supply is not normait
 The government forecasts the yield hf winter wheat at 75 per cent of normal Farmers throughout the country declare their output in all lines will be reduced by lack of labor. Potatoes jumped 66 per ceft wholesale in Kansas City last Thurs day, because none were coming into the market These are facts which cannot be escaped.
 If organized labor will turn it's atten- tion to increasing production instead of increasing wages. it will find that event. ually the old wages will buy. things which the new wages can never buy, if the things themselves are not being produced.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
Cordial Greeting to
 Christian Endeavor

11T HE Christian Endeavor Union of
 4 Alabama, which is meeting in Birmingham, is receiving cordial greeting. The First Christian Church is the general headquarters, while the First Presbyterian Church is the reg istering quarters.
 A. Clinton Decker of Fairfield, the
 state president, will deliver the open
 ing address and interesting speeches
 will be made by other members.
 The regular routine work will be- gin Friday, and among the features will be several musical numbers. There will be songs by Charles H. Galine, famous song writer, and chorus numbers by the jubilee sing CTS of the chorus of the colored Con- gregational church.
 The Christian Endeavor is made up of the younger members of the Pres !hyterian, the Christian and several other denominations, and is to these
 churches what the Epworth League is
 to the Methodist churches and the
 Baptist Young Peoples Union is to
 the Baptist churches. It is a very active body and has accomplished great good in the spir- itual progress of Protestantism. 1 That the meeting in Birmingham will be fraught with real uplift goes
 without saying. It will be a happy reur ion.
 1 Perhaps one reason why President Will son decided not to spend the summer at Woods Hole was due to the fact that it's name suggests military parsonage who goes about the country saying he knows who kept him out of the war. E * A Another, reason why clothes are high Garment workers who used. to accept a position" paying ss and slo week for sewing on buttons, now turn up their noses at jobs paying less than $50 or ss5 a week.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16

MNW 'sThe Ruhr basin was the pow V V CT plant of Germany's former industrial machine and mighty war engine, hence it is not surprising France shouiu be suspicious of any movement wnicn might lead to jockeying by junkers 10 regain control there," says puiietin from the Washington headquarters oi the National Geographic Society. ..The peace treaty stipulation that Ser many must not construct fortlhcatlohs within 50 kilometers to the east or the Rhine loosens her absolute control over one of the richest coal fields in the shat- tered empire. over Ruhrort, which had the largest river harbor in Europe over the once busy factory cities along the Rnhr's crooked course, and, above ail' over Essen. city of the Krupp cast steel and cannons.
 .sThe confluence of the Ruhr and the Rhine was the geographic factor in mak- | ing Ruhrort, though only one-twelfth the size of our own Pittsburg, comparable 1 ir economic importance to that municipal child of the Ohio and Allegheny rivers. The entire region might be likened to western Pennsylvania.
 .Between the Rhine and the Ruhr is puisburg. city of rolling miHs, foundries and factories Once this bee hive of in dustry was university town, and , sriny memorial fountain to Gerardus Nfa,cator. Latinized form of Gerhard | K remer. is reminder that the inventor of the famous map projection method was associated with Cassander, who, nearly | four centuries ago, was commissioned 10 found the University of Dusburg. krem- CT was not German, it should be noted. i hut a Flemish geographer who studied at | Louvain.
 "But the crown jewel of the kultur' which drove the earlier culture of uni lyersity life out of the Ruhr basin was
 Essen. Essen, too, experienced trans formation, for it originally was the site of Benedictine convent. For three cen turies preceding it's incorporation into Prpssia. Essen was governed by the Ab- boss. who became ex-officio, princess Duisburg is connected with the Ruhr by
 a canal.
 1 ..rhoueh the Krupp works were found
 | ed in 1872, the year 1S4S saw them with only 70 employees. But with the advent of railways and cast steel guns the Krupp works expanded rapidly, and their sub sequent story as world famous-or in ifamous-for their incubation of wars .Mulheim is 2 railway center, seven
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
THE RUHR BASIN

miles northwest of Essen, where conver- gence of rail and water routes brought an enormous traffic. -Four miles east of Essen is another Ruhr river port, Steele. a mining town with iron and steel works, also noted for its freproof bricks.
 Farther up the Ruhr is Witten, i'm portant not only for steel but also for beer, soap and chemicals. Within .,e area of the present disturbances, though 1t is on the Rhine, scant five miles, south of the Ruhr's mouth, is Dusseldorfs This is one of the most pretentious cries in western Germany. It was bombarded by the French in 1795, later was the cap ital of Berg when that state was a Napoleonic duchy, and passed to Prus- sia, with the rest of Berg, in 1915.
 '7The Ruhr basin coal fields not only were important to the German empire because of their heavy production, but because they alone were accessible for water importation of ores. canal con nected Dortmund, a city of the Ruhr basin with the Ems river, thus afford ing an outlet directly to the North Sea at Emden.
 "A by+product of this development of water transportation to care Tor the coal mining and the attendant iron and steel industry, was the growth of textile man ufactures. In cotton spinning the Ruhr basin held first place in Germany. Nearly third of the spindles in the empire were located there.
 The Ruhr was made nayigable f-ss n the Rhine to Witter, some forty-three miles, by means of locks. Even then. low water frequently ~hampered nav1ga- ticn :,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
Sinister Hand of |. w. w.
 Revealed in Outlaw" Strike

TN ELUDED railroad employees who W struck in defiance of their con- stituted officers can no longer believe in the justice of their course, now that the department of justice has shown the whole movement to have been inspired by the pernicious I. w. w. and to have been directed by the discredited leader, William z. Foster.
 Not content with having made an ignominious failure of the steel strike, which brought union labor into dis repute and for time threatened to jeopardize the constructive leadership of the men who have made the Amer ican Federation of Labor one of the most powerful organizations in the world, Foster tried to repeat his ''bor- ing from within" by disrupting the railroad brotherhoods.
 No sane, fair-minded working man can view the tactics employed by Foster and the l. w. w. with any other feeling than indignation. The Gone big union" idea is nothing but
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
From the Chicago Tribune.

From the Chicago Tribune.
 N MEXICAN laborers always are
 AA being asked to produce more. but S S are not given anything more for producing more,' J. w. Johnstone, rep resenting the Live Stock Handlers
 Union, complains to Judge Alschuler. The complaint might be in part justified if the laborers actually were producing more, as MT. Johnston implies, but they are not Tn the very case to which he has reference, a strike of some 90 stock handlers threw approximately 10000 work CTS out of employment at the stockyards for several days, and absolutely cut off production for that period.
 On the heels of that strike come the railroad difficulties, and again produc- ton has practically ceased at the stock yards and in numerous other lines In which unions in no way affiliated with the railroad men,, and the public, are in nocent victims
 Already 12,000 men have been thrown out of employment and production has
 been reduced 75 per cent in the Gary blast furnaces. Several thousand are re- ported idle or facing immediate likeness at the Corn Products Company plant at Argo. In the Philadelphia district 5q90o steel workers are said to have been thrown out of employment At Youngs- town, O., S0OO0 are idle. At St. Louis 3,000 packing plant workers are left with out work and without income, and 5l mines in that district art unable to pro- duce while 10000 miners cannot work.
 These figures are merely illustrative. The same condition prevails in dozens of other cities. | In New York the harbor workers strike blocked traffic and halted production among hundreds of thousands. Minor strikes have had, and are having, the same effect of curtailing production.
 | All these strikes are for higher wages, based upon the plea that the workman cannot meet the cost of living. They are bound to defeat themselves in the long run, whether higher wages are granted
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
Grand Opera on
 the Third of May

0HHIS has been Birmingham's most
 brilliant musical season. We have had many artist recitals, two symphony concerts and several choral works by local talent. But the great est attraction is yet to come. The Scotti grand opera will give three performances.
 It is booked for May 3 for two short operas in the afternoon and La Boheme" at night. The princi- pals and the chorus are all from the Metropolitan opera company and the full Metropolitan opera house orches- tra will make up the force.
 The performances will be given at the. Jefferson theatre and the prices will be five dollars for the choice seats. The sale will be announced later.
 If the top price is considered high, it should be remembered that five dollars is the New Orleans and the New York prices for the best.
 Grand opera with famous stars and an orchestra of fifty pieces comes high. The orchestra alone costs at the rate of three thousand dollars a day, and the stage ensemble brings the cost up to seven thousand dollars. The Music Study Club brings the Scotti opera to Birmingham, and Bir- mingham will greet the artists with enthusiasm. There will be no doubt about the theatre being filled to ca nacity
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
Worse and Mnrse

Servants come high and are very hard to find these days and times" said H. B. Perry. About year ago we lost faithful old negro nanny whom we have had in the family for a long time. Since then we have had by actual count fifteen servants. each one costing more than the last, and eachs one left for either more money pr shorter hours.
 My case may be an exception, but many of my friends indorse it with experiences of their own in the same line. Though there is no servants union, it appears that they have some sort of agreement, especially about he minimum wage for which they will work"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
IN HOTEL LOBBIES
 AND ELSEWHERE
Praises Commander Booth

My enthusiasms are few and far be- tween" said c. B. Hollingsworth, Bes- semer banker. ''but I must say that the Salvation Army andaits wonderful commander, Miss Booth, are numbered among them. never see a Salvation Army soldier without thinking of the great work that this noble army of men and women is doing and when l heard that the commander, Miss Booth, would visit Birmingham next Monday and lecture at the Jefferson theatre, l made up my mind that I wouldn't miss this rare opportunity of hearing about the work Over There and during the peace times which have followed
 The home service work of the army regard as equally wonderful as what was accomplished during the war, and it is great privilege I think to have Commander Evangeline Booth visit Birmingham and deliver one of her celebrated lectures"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
Yt 2. 9s Underwood's Campaign Drawing to a Close

e ENATOR UNDERWOOD will 0 conclude his speaking tour in Alabama tomorrow, with an address in Birmingham. He has kept his campaign free from personalities and has ably defended his record in Goa gress. Wherever MT. Underwood has appeared his straightforward speeches have dissipated any prejudice that may have been created against him by his opponents who have used ques- tionable methods to bring the senator into disrepute.
 That such tactics have failed, and failed utterly, is shown by reports received from correspondents in all parts of the state. The citizens of Alabama resent an attempt to die tate to them how hey shall cast their votes. Neither the prohibition bosses of Ohio nor labor leaders in Wash ington will be permitted to say who shall represent them in Congress- Such outside interference in local af- fairs will not be tolerated.
 Strenuous efforts have been made to "line up" the farmers and prohi- bitionists against MT. Underwood, but without success. His campaign man. ager has long been one of the states leading prohibitionists. Farmers and business men of south Alabama, as shown by an exhaustive survey made by the Mobile Register, are for MT. Underwood. They consider the pro hibition question settled and take no stock in the claim that MT. Under wood has done nothing in Congress during twenty-five years of service The charge is absurd. It can be ade- quately answered by calling attention to the fact that MT. Underwood was leader in the lower house of Con gress and will shortly be elected mi nority leader of the Senate, although serving his first term.
 Senator Underwood will return t Washington and resume the work h put aside to make a dignified repl. to his detractors in Alabama. Hi personal campaign has given him ad ditional prestige. It has impresse' wavering voters with his courage, hi sincerity and his honest desire t serve all the people to the best o his ability.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
Mistake Excusable

In the newspaper game I have no doubt that many, sins of omission and commission are charged to the so-called typographical errpr,' said Tom Pound, the well-known locomotive engineer. Tn a letter I addressed to the editor of The Age-Herald, which appeared in Pound appeared instead of Tom Pound as I wrote it. Now, I am not going to charge the typo that set up the story with a typographical error, but lay the blame to my peculiar chirogra- phy. for to tell the truth I can scarcely decipher my own handwriting when it gets cold, and the mistakes was ex- cusable"
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
MARK TwAIN,s HOUSE

From the New York Times. 'Lo. men for gain would tear his home
 stead down The home of him who touched the
 heart of Youth To leaping laughter at his living
 truth Of dreaming Boyhood in a Western
 town, Now Tom and Huck. the Prince and
 Pauper. frown. The Yankee to King Arthur cries.
 ''Forsoeff My modern fellows do but show tns
 tooth,''- Joan smiles wise in a blue-silvered
 gown. He needs no breeze or stone memorial; His art brought down a white undy-
 ing Fire To shine on Time and gleam through
 this gray day. Yet we will keep his home sign to all Of our deep debt to him whose Aigi
 desire Found lusty joy along the common
The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-04-16
Former Citizen

While I have lived in Memphis for a number of years.y said c. D. smith," I still feel very much at home in Birmingham, where I put in much time during my early manhood. The two towns are absolutely different, each in it's way stands in a class by it. self Birmingham is rich in it's great mineral resources. while Memphis is in the heart of one of the most pro- ductive Agricultural sections in the whole country.
 Memphis has the Mississippi and am glad to know that at last Birming- ham is to benefit from the Warrior. A river at ones doors is both an asset and liability. I take a very great pride in the continued growth of the city in which I found myself as 3 young man.