davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
Nobody Is Surprised
(Chicago Newsl

Chicago News)
 When self-styled political inspr- gents who thrive on discomfort, clamor for a special session of congress "to do something for the farmer" nobody is surprised. Loose talk in that quarter is too familiar to attract much attention. Tariff rates, if extortionate, ss many of them are, can be reduced by the president upon the advice of the tariff commission, and any complaint naturally would be re- ferred by congress to that body. Further, there is not the slightest prospect of a general revision of the tariff at this time. As to freight rates, the Interstate Com merce Commission, not congress, makes and revises them. Politi- cal rate making is neither desIr- able nor possible. The courts would enjoin any arbitrary rate reduction order. Finally, the question of aid to Europe, If raised in congress, would split that body into a dozen factions. No definite plan is ready for pre- sentation. Farmers no doubt would be grateful for concrete, practical ideas in regard to bene- ficial action in their behalf. Pend ing the emergence of such ideas they are likely to be indifferent to political agitation for futile special session of congress.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
REACTION AGAINST VIoLATORS

Law violators have resorted to dyna- mite in Ohio to get vengeance upon prohibition enforcement officer. The officers home was blown up, his wife and child injured, and the entire fam fly had narrow escape from death. The guilty are thought to have been bootleggers whom the enforcement of ficer had prosecuted, and who had made open threats against him. The illicit whisky seller is usually a man of low order of intelligence, who fails to realize that acts of violence will not advance his cause. On the other. hand. such policy arouses increased senti- ment against him and his methods, and strengthens the view that disrespect for one law has made him callous to- ward all law, and has reached a point where he does n9t hesitate to resort to the worst and most atrocious form of violence when he thinks his pur- poses will thereby be served. Such acts indicate that prohibition enforce ment is gradually accomplishing it's purpose, and that the officers commits stoned with enforcement duties are making themselves felt. The use of dynamite against helpless women and children will arouse greater revulsion in the public mind against the boot legger and all that he represents.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15

ever before. The desire for eduea- tion is almost universal. Parents are making sacrifices to give their chil- dren proper schooling. They have been willing to vote the extra three mill taxes for the support and maid tenance of their schools. They have co-operated cheerfully whenever called upon, and whenever shown that the money was needed to give improved school facilities.
 It will, therefore, be unwelcomc news to them to learn that, in spite of what they have done, the returns are less and that school efficiency may be to that extent curtailed. Their first thought will be to inquire who is to blame for such a situation. It is ap- pa1'ently not easy to place. There is reason to believe that some are not paying their share of taxes, and that the tendency towards tax-dodging in recent years has gained such momen- tum that it will affect not only tEe schools, but every other work for which the taxes are utilized. The people see a prosperous state going ahead with new gains in industrial and commercial life each year, and yet showing a decrease in it's assesse} property values. When this situation is understood in the remotest school districts in Alabama there is reason to look for proper system of tax equalization which will largely remove the obstacles brought about by es- capes, evasions and under assessments.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
MOTHERS OF FAMOUS
 MEN
The Mother of Michael Faradny

Look in on Margaret FaradaS in 1796 and you will find her ct home in some dingy rooms up over a coach house! After a time you will see her husband come home, Jim" Faraday, the blacksmith, all grimy and sooty and tired and cross.
 Little Mike" five years old, goes proving about and tips over a pail of water. And little Mike" gets tanned" for doing it, Cor the big blacksmith is tired and doesn't want to be bothered. What chance is there for genius there? How astonished poor, tired Mar 'garet Faraday would have been if she could have known that l:t- tie Mike" would become the great Michael Faraday, one of the worlds greatest chemists, a man who added so much to human wis dom that it is staggering! As it was, she cooked and washed and took in boarders and saved her pennies and spanked young Mike" and did the best she could.
 Her big blacksmith husband died and she went at it good and hard and supported the family until the family got big enough to support her. Her husbands brothers helped her a little, but not much. They were a little of everything; one was a flax beatet; one kept little store; one ran small farm; one sold provisions :; one mended shoes. Generally, they left her to herself. She didn't mind that, but went ahead and did her work, with them or without them. Good soul, she lived until 1888, when Michael was forty seven and a famous man. She herself was quite an ignorant sort of woman, but she knew enough to know she had a famous son and that he loved her-and that be sent her more money than she had ever dreamed of having-anl so' she rocked back and forth and smiled as she thought of her baby-the great Michael Faraday!
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15

political agitation on the program. That is the life of the capital city. It would seem to make comparatively little difference whether the president adopts the one method or the other, except as his decision may have some effect upon the way his recommends tions and suggestions are received. The personal method, or the Speech from the throne" as it has come to be known, was tried by two executives before it was discarded, and two others since adopted it. Whether they found it more effective is a matter of inGi- vidual opinion, though President Will son held, with apparent force in the argument, that the reading of his mes sages by himself would render both the policies therein and the expression itself more impressive than were it mouthed in monotones by routine clerks.
 Thomas Jefferson is said to have changed the method of communicating with congress because his physical appearance did not compare favorab!y with those of Washington and Adams, and he did not possess the gift of ex- pression with which his immediate pre- decessors were favored. The late President Harding had a commanding appearance and an engaging person- ality, though there is nothing to show that either carried any particular weight with the members of congress. Before his illness President Wilson's physical appearance was, while not up to those of Washington, Adams, Me Kinley or Harding, not such as to cause unfavorable criticism. Yet neither Wilson nor Harding can be said to have been the gathers on this score; for both were in more or less of a wrangle with congress during most of their terms.
 President Coolidge may prefer the personal method of putting his views before congress in exact form. He is trickler for preciseness, and when he speaks at all, his words are usually the expression of carefully consid- cred thoughts. Nor is he one to go out of his way to shatter precedents. Whatever his final decision, his mes- sages will probably not be so unmer- cifully and unnecessarily long as have been the average White House docu- ments.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
For Political Purposes
(Detroit Free Pressl

Npttl Ut Ilee II6SSJ
 The agitation for a special ses- sion of congress to pass farm leg islation, which Senator Brookhart undertook to fan into flames when he returned from his hobnob with the Moscow ohieftains, was ob- viously only piece of political strategy and was founded on neither sense nor reason. Sena- tor Capper of Kansas, head of the farm bloc, gives the country the common sense view and inciden- tally shows up his brother senator rather sharply when he asserts that he can see no need for an. extra session of congress and will not ask President Coolidge to call one. He is especially illuminat- ing when he remarks During the last few months I have conferred with the leading farmers in forty two counties of my state and I have found little or no demand for an extra session of congress. They seem to realize that there is no way to relieve their plight by Legislation, and they are disposed to agree that their trouble Is due largely to an over supply" Which rather indicates that Brookhart, Magnus Johnson and their group are either singularly out of touch with the sentiment among the far. mers of the country, or else are deliberately trying to manufac- ture an issue for political purposes purely.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
OUSTING A GOVERNOR

Latest dispatches from the scene of Governor Walton might have saved himself some embarrassment by re- signing before the legislature puts him out. Such action is the purpose of the law-making body. The program has been arranged to that end, and the preliminary details are in process of development. Several of the governors former supporters, men whom he ap- pointed to office, have either been dismissed from the service of the state or have broken with the chief execu- tive. Some of them, while expressing the wish that the Ku Klux Kan be prohibited under the law from parad- ing under mask, declare their purpose to carry on the fight in different, less spectacular and presumably more eff fective ways.
 Whether or not the move to outlaw mask parading in Oklahoma will sue ceed, the impression in most of the country, as we'll as among the people of Oklahoma, is that Walton is a po- litical grandstand player, and that he undertook to make himself virtually dictator in that state, disregarding the law as interpreted by the people who repudiated him by an overwhelming majority at the polls. It is probable that litigation will follow action of the legislature in impeaching the governor. In that event the spectacular situation will drift into hum-drum court affair which may take months in the settle ment. Meantime martial-law condi- tions and much of the political jug glery incident to the fight between the governor and the people will die for lack of continued interest outside as well as inside the state.
 In the whole mix-up with its compli- cations, one point stands out-that the majority of the people of Oklahoma desire to get rid of Walton and his methods. Constructive influences of that state realize that he has done Oklahoma much damage in the eyes of the world by bringing about situ- ation which also hurt the state at home. Whether or not any action which may be taken by the legislature to remove him will stand the test of the courts, Governor Walton's in- fluence and usefulness in the public service of Oklahoma have been nulh- fled as result of his own official acts.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
POOR BOYS WHO
 BECAME FAMOUS Nv Frederick Houk Law
William Davies
y Frederick Houk l

In the city streets of England a few years ago people stopped to listen to a street singer. There was in his voice an appealing quality, and in his face an ex- pression of sensitiveness that at tracted attention. They stopped for 8 moment to listen to the songs that he sung, and then they passed on, without thought that the one who had been singing would have his name recorded in books of literature, that he would write poems and novels and essays that people would treasure, and that he would be what the world calls famous man. The singer was William Davies, now recog nized as an important poet, essay ist and novelist.
 When William Davies was a small boy he went for time 10 the lower schools, but the hand Of poverty led him from the class room and put him at work earning a living with a saw and mitre, framing pictures. Day after day lie MOIhtu III d lllLiVy POOiiS NSAiSi" lated shop, and bent over his hum ble tasks.
 When Davies grew older he wished to see more of the world than his work would permit, So he found a position on a cattle steamer and came to the United States. There, moving from place to place, and supporting himself as he could, he managed to see much of the country.
 Back again in England, while later, he continued a wandering life, sometimes singing on. the streets and sometimes selling things from door to door. All this time he was reading as well as observing and thinking. Occa- sionally he put his thoughts into writing, and after a time pro- duced his first book of poetry. When he was thirty eight, acting under the advice of friends to whom he had told some of his many adventures in wandering about, he wrote book called The Autobiography of a Super-tramp." For this book no less important an author than George Bernard Shaw wrote a preface, calling it to the attention of the public.
 From that time on William Davies has issued various other books, both in prose and verse. In recent years he has turned his att tention more in the direction of the observation of nature. From being in all reality tramp he has become an important writer of the day.
 Effort seems to be necessary to success, and William Davies had the energy to make the effort to become a writer.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
AGAIN THE DEATH TRAPS

News dispatches from an Ohio town tell of the crashing of a passenger train going at full speed into school bus at grade crossing, killing eight children and seriously injuring sev- eral others and man. In Birming- ham and in every city in Alabama hundreds of thousands of people are subjected to dangers of this kind day after day, and apparently nothing is being done towards providing relief. Every year large number of people are killed and injured in this city at grade crossings. Millions of dollars are wasted through the loss of time and labor to commercial and shipping interests arising from the same source. Time and again the principal streets in the business sections are blocked from two to thirty minutes by freight trains or parts of trains left standing at the crossings, while hundreds of people are delayed from their busi- ness and labors.
 Sometimes dozens of street cars full of passengers hurrying to their avoca- tions are blocked, the street railway system thrown out of schedule in large parts of the city, numerous trucks, drays, taxis and private motor vehicles forced into dangerous and aggravat. ing traffic jams, all because of the deadly grade crossings in the heart of the city. Frequently these delays continue from twenty to thirty min utes or more, though the law provides that crossings shall not be blocked longer than. five minutes.
 These and other discouraging con- ditions arise from failure by the rail- roads to provide relief in the form of viaducts and underpasses. The sit uation grows worse with each passing day, the dangers to human life and the handicaps to industrial and com- mercial interests increasing with the growth in population and street traf- fife. The city commission has the power to require the railroads to rem edy the situation. If amicable nego- tiations avail nothing, the law stands as the peoples safeguard. Two hum dred thousand people continue to won der why nothing is done for their pro- lection, while they continue to pat ronize the railroads in ever increasing generosity.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
TO BE LIVE POLITICAL ISSUE

Since Henry Ford called attention to the dereliction of Secretary of War Weeks in his nasty sale of the Gorgas steam plant, it was expected that re- publicans would impute political mo- tives to him and intimate that he is trying to ride into the Presidency with the Muscle Shoals project as cam paign issue. MT. Ford raised a politi- cal issue which promises to become increasingly lively until it is settled; but the issue is more far-reaching than the political fortunes or industrial in- terests of any individual. It involves whether selfish interests working si- lently shall be able to thwart the wishes of the people. It is a political issue to that extent, but more impor- tant still than is the economic phase which means so much for the future of agriculture in this country.
 Mir. Ford initiated a plan for tie manufacture of cheap fertilizer, and announced that if given the opportu- nity he would produce fertilizer in quantity at prices cheaper than it has ever been sold before. Fertilizer is a farm essential, and agriculture is basic industry. The fertilizer inter- ests constitute practical monopoly. The farmer must pay the price de- manded because there is no other source of supply. MT. Ford declares that this monopoly and the power in- terests allied with it can easily afford to pay $100,000,000 to prevent the manufacture of fertilizer at Muscle Shoals if they could thereby continue their exactions from the farmers of the country.
 The issue is further political to the extent that it must be fought out be- fore the peoples representatives in the next congress. The farmers will have more friends and supporters in that body than heretofore, and this fact leads to the belief that there will be less secrecy during the coming session. Devious methods of recent months bid fair to be exposed. The public will be informed of hidden motives which inspired strong antagonism to the de. velopnfent of Muscle Shoals along lines proposed by Mir Ford.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
ALL SHADES of fOPIllON0
No Need for Extra Session


 Still harping on an extra session of congress, so-called progressives in agricultural belts apparently can see nothing but the additional legislation as a means of relief for what they describe as the dire condition of the farmers. Yet au- thoritative reports show that ag- riculture has notably improved in the past months. And what would additional legislation promise that the laws enacted by the Sixty seventh congress are not effect ing? To those who chart their judgment by the fixed stars of Americanism, the fanciful propc- sals that some of the progress sives" offer hold no promise of anything but confusion and dan ger. The farmers relief legisla- tion enacted by the last congress was drafted by the opponents of agricultural interests, by men who were in touch with conditions un- der which the farmers were strug- gling. Nothing has since hap pened to change the situation which the enactments of the Sixty seventh congress were designed to meet. Those laws are now work ing and fulfilling their promise.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
FOR BETTER FIRE PROTECTION

After a survey covering many weeks bv experts of the National Board ot Fire Underwriters, formal report has been issued containing comment ana recommendations for additional pro- lection against fire hazards III Birmingham. Some of the recom- mendations suggest an ideal to be strfven for; others are capable of irn- mediate application, while still others are in line with work and plans under way by the municipal authorities. More men and additional equipment are urged for the fire department, all though high praise is given the de- partment as at present manned and organized. This feature is another of the problems confronting the city commission in it's preparation of the annual budget. It might well be borne in mind that money paid out for ef- fective fire protection is sometimes wise investment producing large re- turns in other ways. The greater the fire hazard, the larger the insurance
 
 rates. Money properly spent in pro- tection automatically reduces the costs and all policy-holders share in the ben efits.
 Some of the boards recommenda- tions apply directly to the public utili- ties, such as the water company, which is urged to make a number of in- portant changes in the size and loca- tion of water mains, provide for the installation of proper feeders, see that the pumping stations are fire proof, and provide regularly and thoroughly inspected valve system. The report also puts special emphasis upon the necessity for providing fire-proof roofs on residences and buildings of all kinds. It is suggested that the installation of such roofs, whether on new or repair jobs, be made compul- sory by law.
 The report will be valuable guide for future programs, not only for the city, but for the utilities, building con- tractors and policy holders.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
INCIDENT WITH ITS MORAL
Columbia State)


 During the strike of newspaper pressmen in New York the great stores reported business very dull. It was mechanically impossible for the newspapers to print advertise ments andsno substitutes that merchants could devise appeared to have any punch.
 But the strike finally ended and normalcy returned last week. 1t had tragic results. A big store on Fourteenth street secured space in the newspapers and advertised bargains" The New York news papers report that five thousand persons gathered in front of the building and struggled for ad- vantageous position in the front ranks. Traffic was tied up and the police reserves called out. Under the pressure of the throng the glass windows of the entrance to the store were smashed in. Four women were taken to hospital.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
JUDGMENT AND DISTRACTION

Secretary of State Hughes packed much wisdom into a few words in his address at the convocation of Brown University. He emphasized the duties of the universities in training the young, and stressed the difficulties that must be overcome because of ephemeral distractions. "We find ourselves" the secretary said, "in the. age of the motor, the movie and the radio, which with freedom of locomo- tion, novel and easy intimacies, and the ever present and constantly ex- banding enterprises of the press, give us adelusive facility in acquiring infor- mation. It is the day of the fleeting vision. Concentration, thoroughness, the quiet reflection that ripens the judgment are more difficult than ever"
 The trouble in securing time fo~ forming ripened judgments Secretary Hughes finds particularly poignant in the case of public officials. Facility of communication" he added, "is agreeable and useful, but it leads not only to making more numerous and more importunate the demands of every calling, but to vast waste of time by rendering easy countless in trusions on serious work. A host of or. ganizations spring up to give an artifi- cial insistence to these demands" The secretary expressed the belief that the university, to the extent that ie merely reproduces the rush, the hustle and the rapid give-and-take of life, to the entent that it fails to yield serenity and reflection, sacrifices it's great ca pacity for service in a tumultuous world.
 Every thoughtful man realizes that sustained mental and physical effort are growing more rare, not only with those in public life, but in practically every field of human endeavor. They are consoled, however, by the thought that modern distractions have arisen so suddenly that they may be looked upon as in a measure sporadic, and as likely to subside with the same rapidity.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1923-10-15
SMILES
Her Tyrannical Superior
(Los Angeles Times)

CLOS Angeles I1meS)
 They had a woman traffic of- ficer in an Eastern city and she was a good one, too. She wore white gloves, knickerbockers, a jaunty cap and directed traffic with all the nonchalance of an expert. The other day, however, she turned in her equipment and returned to skirts. A friend wanted to know what the trouble was.
 !" don't care to discuss it." the aggrieved one declared.
 "Aw. go ahead and tell me, dearie." said the other.
 Well. the chief refused a req sonable request and I quit"
 Something in the line of duty?" the other woman wanted to know.
 T so consider it. I merely wanted an hour off to get my hair washed"