davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1924-06-21
DeFOREST REFLEX
at $3.50.

But if you are buying the most
radio miles, the clearest reception
of b~roadcasting, the greatest num-
Der of stations, the easiest and
surest operation-BUY A DeFOR-
EST and you have all there is.
DeForest Reflex Radiophones
are made by the mar who invent
ed Broadcasting.
The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1924-06-21

I00l6 Dag above a. lT delIVeE 9EEa. keep ChloE sfartef
The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1924-06-21

First Film Fan: For a movie show
Bill B%radburn makes d good bad
man The Other one: Not to my
thinking. He isn't bad enough to be
good. '-Deroit News.
The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1924-06-21

AGO interest on all time accounts
paid by ~Pleasantville Trust Co.-ady.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13

spective candidates for president were not nominated for more than two years afterwards.
 The fact is the political situation ap- pears to have had little to do with recent expansion in the steel business. That ex- pansion started, not only with the rail roads, but with structural work generally, before anything definite was known about the November election, and when the outcome was in doubt. The tre- mendous building impetus throughout the country was well under way long before the election was seriously thought of. This, and the large expansion in railroad betterments, were among the chief factors in the steel business, and neither was materially influenced by politics, but proceeded from economic causes, such as are still increasingly operative, and, it is hoped, long will be so.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
WHO IS RESPONSIBLE?

During the first nine months of this year the number of automobile fatalities in New York City was I'll. In Birmlng- ham during the same period there were Al deaths from this cause. New York's population is thirty-two times tiEat of Bir- naingham. If the larger city's death rate from automobile accidents were in pro portion to those in Birmingham New York would have had 1,312 instead of 7il deaths from automobiles during the period mentioned. If Birmingham's auto mobile fatality rate were the same as New York's she would have had 22 deaths in the first nine months of 1924 instead of Al deaths. As it is, her rate of in- crease in automobile deaths over last year was IA per cent, while New York $ was only six per cent
 Yet Birmingham is spacious and far less crowded than New York. There IS less occasion for traffic accidents. Bir- mingham's fatalities from this cause should be fewer per hundred thousand than New York 's-not nearly tw1ce as many. Clearly something can be done about it, and something should be done. To whom should the citizens of Birmlng- ham look for this protection, if not to the city government? Somebody IS of- ficially responsible for an unnecessary thirty accidental deaths in this city each wear. Who is it?
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
BIRMINGHAM APPRECIATES IT

The people of Birmingham are gen timely gratified at the cordial co-opera- tion given by MT. Meighan, Miss Lila Lee, MT. Beery and others of the warmhearted film folk in behalf of the success of the Community Chest. Their artistic efforts have not only in themselves contributed generously to the fund, but their example has inspired many others to subscribe to this worthy humanitarian enterprise. The contributions to the Chest have Jagged somewhat, not because Birmingham IS unable to fill it, but because this busy population is intent on it's own strenuous affairs. Nevertheless, the welfare of the needy is an unacceptable public obligation which must be individually and CO., operatively liquidated. In emphasizing anew the claims of the Chest upon public attention, the film folk have rendered a distinct community service, even though they be but sojourners in our midst. In return for their courtesy the people of Birmingham wish them boundless success in their professional and artistic asplra- lions.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
RARcE SERVICE WILL RESUME

Friends of the Warrior barge service will welcome General Ashburn's assur- ance that the waterway service will be restored to Demopolis and Tuscaloosa at an early date. The discontlnuance or this service more than year ago IS re- garded by many as the solitary blemish upon the management of the barge lines since their inauguration. From strictly business viewpoint, only, was the discon- tinuance justified. But the Warrior IS public institution publicly built and publicly supported whenever deficit must be made good. Therefore, many believe that it was not proper nor de- lensible to single out portion of the public for denial of its benefits. Espe- cially is this so in the case of Demopolls and Tuscaloosa, both of which had gone to considerable expense in providing terminal equipment for barge shipments.
 Now that the Warrior facilities are ex- banded and the tonnage growing, that service is to be restored. It is hoped that under the new plan of Warrior admin lstration the future will show constant extension and no curtailment ot the waterway benefit. The discontinuance of service, if an error, was one ot Judg- ment and not of the heart, so the gen cral confidence in the management has deservedly remained unshaken.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
Brief Nature Studies

THE ruby-throated hummingbird is nov
 visiting south 'of the United States
 \ In going it crossed the Gulf of Mex,'" flying more than 800 miles in a single night Chief City Magistrate McAdoo studied it at Lafayette National Park in Maine.
 "There is only one species of humming- bird in Eastern North America" he writes Very seldom does any one see it with folded wings. It seems to be busier than any bee and after the same nectar from the flowers. It is as every one knows who has seen It. a very beautiful bird, and how with its frai! wings it leaves Northern Canada and Name and makes flight of 5000 miles into the tropics is a marvellous thing to contemplate
 Interesting stories have been told about it in connection with its love for sweets. Last summer at one of the entrances to Lafayette Park (far and away the finest piece of scenery east of the Rockies), at a cottage joining where I stopped a lady had arranged a portico for feeding birds with those things they like well winter and summer. Flocks of birds were going and coming from there ali day long, including several humming- birds. She fed the humming-birds sugared water
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
The Older Sister
IE was one of those born-motherly souls
By DIR. FRANK CRANE

CHE was one of those born-motherly souls !
 There are some women (for them ouT'
 warmest thanks go up to heaven), who= come into this selfish world equipped with the mothering instinct.
 She was the Older Sister. The mother, q weak, 1ovable and entirely incompetent being,} died after she had brought six girls into lifeI
 The OlderS Sister moved naturally up into' the mothers place. She looked after thel younger sisters, mended their stockings, keptI their frocks neat and their bedrooms in order,| their hair combed, and their nails cleaned.
 She watched the home expenditures, checked up the grocery man, and saw to 1t that the' cook prepared something fit to eat.
 She also attended to father, had his suits pressed, his laundry well done, and his slippersl ready. ~tl {2f
 There are two classes of human beings. One| assumes responsibility. The other avoids fl. She assumed it. The others unanimously let| her. ,4@i.5. ..--.--
 She sent the children to school She got| most of their lessons for them. She was ths| High Wall and the Shepherd Dog and the Rear Guard of that family.
 She saw them all married. Then she her1 self was married. She was beautiful with al demure kind of beauty. Her husband adored her
 He took her away and loaded her with at tentions He surrounded her with servants Luxuries were at her hand.
 She pined away. She was not happy. Eome women are by nature wives and some are by nature mothers. She ought to have had chil- dren, but had none
 One day her husband was brought home al cripple. He had been in railway accident. He would never be well again.
 They said he should be taken to the hos- pital. There she stood firm, insisting that she would care for him herself. So she nursed him. And began to pick up. To bel coddled did not agree with her; coddling some one she loved gave her health and happiness.
 After her husband died she began taking care of her sisters children. Her sisters handed them over to her as a matter of course. She mothered them all, planned, worked and dreamed for them.
 Her whole life was spent in an intending sacrifice for others. Perhaps she deserved no credit'' for this because she liked to do 1t. Once, when she was fifteen, her father brought home six large, red apples. She gave each of her sisters one, laying her own on the kitchen shelf. They devoured theirs., Then the two smallest came and stood about look. ing at the apple on the shelf. She cut it in two and gave each one-half. They ate joy fully. 't
 Their explanation of this was that sister DID NOT LIKE APPLES!
 Perhaps the Older Sister was deficient in some way, and possibly there was truth in the remarks of some neighbors, that she lacked spirit, that she never amounted to much, and that she would have done better to have asserted her rights.
 Perhaps
 But, please Lord, don't stop making such
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
WHAT FARMING NEEDS

The remedy for fewer men on the farms seems to be system whereby eacn man may till more acres and do 1t better than formerly. The key to the solution is machinery. Already the tractor, trail ing its blows, harrow and seeder, has ex- banded the man power greatly. But ot the S6,00O,000 horsepower estimated as now necessary to operate American farms, only about three million horse power is produced by machinery. Some of this is the fault of the farmer for not using machinery, especially tractors, wherever he can. Part of it is the lack of inventions for performing some of the more intricate tasks, but not impossible of performance by machinery of the pro per type. Some of the fault also lies with the fact, as one writer draws the distinction, that farming is for most men engaged in it merely an occupation ana not an industry.
 In other words farming operations on most farms have not been organized on a factory, unit-of-cost, or efficiency basis Many farm tasks and chores are repeti- tions of time-consuming routine that could be eliminated by rear1'angements reducing the tasks to minimum of walking, manipulations and repetitions. It has been estimated that the farm wife walks from sixteen to as much as forty two miles day, much of which is need less. So, be it said, does her husband, or whoever it is does the chores. So much time is thus subtracted from that which might otherwise be devoted to productive tasks. Lack of machinery is one cause, but lack of system, of convenient ar 1.angement, is another that may usually be repaired with far less expense and effort than its neglect.
 Some day perhaps farmers on adjoin- ing farms will perform their field opera tions comparatively and with co-opera- lively owned machinery, if their farms gre small. Only in this way can they avoid a large overhead and topheavy per acre investment. Larger farms must be completely re-equipped and re-organ- ized if they are to be made to pay. But more than anything else must farming be- come less of a gamble and more of an engineering science. Too many farmers are at the mercy of unfavorable seasons, inclement weather, haphazard methods, unknown soil factors, improper varieties,
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
HEALTH NEGLECT IS COSTLY

The death rate for 1923 showed an in crease over that of 1922 in the 38 states comprising the health registration area of the United States. The increase was from 11.8 to 123 per hundred thousand, or an increase of 5. This showing evi- dently formed the basis of the recent warning of Surgeon General Cummings that reduced national health appropria- tions were being made at the direct cost of human health and human lives. There is a point where economy merges into shortsightedness and injury. This point should never be reached in the protection of the public health. No concern of gov ernment is more vital.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
NOT POLITICAL BUT ECONOMIC

There is apparently no such political significance as is claimed for the in crease in untitled orders for steel Of more than half million tons as of No vember 30 compared with the record of the previous month. That the increase IS comparatively large indicates that there IS additional industrial expansion in near iy all centers of activity. The statement that many orders were held up pending results of the election and released as direct result of the outcome is hard to reconcile with the fact that there mad been increased thrilled orders in steel products for four successive months, and long before there was any certainty as to how the election would go.
 There were larger thrilled orders on the books of the United States Steel Cor poration on November 30, 1923, when the election was yet far off than after the election. It is interesting to note, too, that in September, 1922, there was a tremendous gain over the previous month of about OO,OO0! tons. Yet the re-
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
OUR PITIFUL AIR FORGE

One of the enlightening features of General Pershings report is his statement on tie United Statse air service. Here are his fig ures: On July we had 9SS planes, of which 6S6 were produced during the war. At this rate we shall have only 2S9 planes in 1926, of which only 1S7 will be in any sense of the word modern. At present writing 80 per cent. of the present force is unsuitable for combat
 Finally, our quota-the amount which coun- try of this size really needs-is 1855 planes. These figures need no embellishing rhetoric. They seem to sing an all too eloquent swan song.-Boston Transcript.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
Trotsky Follows Lenin.

The labor internationales at Amsterdam and Vienna are anxiously awaiting publication of Leon Trotsky's book, which brought about the anathemas of Kalinin and the orthodox communists and which cost Leon his position as commissar for war in the soviet republic. Austrian "Arbeiter Zeitung" and the Amster- dam "Voorwaarts" both express the hope that Trotsky has in reality written down his dis illusionment or at least declaration of dis approval on the trend of affairs during the last seven years in Russia. If Trotsky has seen the hopelessness of bringing millennium and communism within a reasonable length of time and has made a frank statement of his beliefs he will but follow the footsteps of Lenin, who admitted that grave blunders had been committed and who ordered the famous economic retreat to avoid disaster in the future
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13

J. L., of New York City writes as follows :
 "Please advise whether it should be: I have never heard of .......' or, I had never heard Of ........
 q say that the first sentence is correct, but a critically minded person holds that after you have heard of a thing for the first time, you should change the auxiliary have into had thus saying, I had never heard of such thing
 Naturally I know that my sentence, I have never heard would sound better by adding the word before. However, hold that the expression, I had never heard of is the product of a person who is accustomed to think in Spanish, French, or Italian'
 The present tense is NI hear." When action is complete in the past, one says T heard" When action is complete, but the time of its completion may have been at any moment right up to the present, one says Il have heard"
 When action is complete and it's completion was at time prior to some other time already mentioned or about to be mentioned, one says Il had heard"
 Examples: I have heard about your de- cision; When I arrived yesterday, l had al ready heard about your decision. According to the first example, l may have heard about the decision only minute before spoke. According to the second example, the time I was appraised of the decision IS more limited. It was at least before arrived yesterday.
 Yesterdays Error. Wrong: My apple trees, which have borne
 Right: My apple trees, which have borne well this year
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
@Af43QNE!IE .H'NU OYER MEE;,RE
Police and the Holiday Liquor Trade, .ON'T trust any liquor these days unless you buy it from a policeman! ".

fOnco and the Holiday Liquor Iraue. NON'T trust any liquor these days unless U you buy it. from atpOheeman!
 A good police department stands back of every bottle it sells.
 According to recent allegations in various parts of the country there are in numerous American communities gendarmes who are always making it hot for boptleggers on the ground that they don't make deliveries fast enough. '%
 In New Jersey police captain lieutenant and eight patrolmen have been arrested charged with actually cooperating in the un- loading of rum ships.
 New Jersey isn't the only state having its police department rum scandals. There are communities in America today where the dis every hour just to see if the patrolman on the beat has any new customers.
 "Hello," phones a citizen. "Is this the police department? At.
 "Yes, sir! what'n you have, rye or scotch?'
 "Yes, sir"
 Gan you send officer to 355 Strawberry avenue right away?'
 What for?"
 .I am about to murder my wife and eight children"
 You'll have to wait. All our patrolmen are out filling liquor orders!'
 *As*
 This is the season when cop is apt to be especially busy on account of the holiday trade. Over 20 American cities have asked appropriations for at least 50 extra policemen to take care of the Christmas dema "ds for rye in pints.
 No man can expect to have his liquor wants satisfied if his police department is under. manned.
 Take the town of Patooka Connectisota, for example, there's town with the right idea. No man is taken on the police force who hasn't had at least five years experience Hi wear white aprons at all times when on duty.
 The chief of police was whskey drummer for over 40 years, 10 of which are still ahead of him. One of the first things he did was to issue an order forbidding handcuffs and requiring every officer to carry corkscrews sample cases, tunnels and orderbooks.
 Before he took office it was the custom to give policeman a white stripe for every five years of service. That's old stuff. H. now gives them a gold stripe for every 50U cus- toners. f.
 Next week the police of Patooka are going to put player pianos, free lunch counters and art calendars in every police station so the public will feel more like ,patronizing them.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
Watching The Parade
By JOHN PILGRIM
.LD. TOM DUGAN was lunch guest at
 the Professors Club the other day. Call it the Professors Club. That s


 Call it the Professors Club. That s near enough. All around him sat and chatted in low, decorous tones, and munched ln re- fined and careful fashion men who were ab- solutely filled with education. They were a bit thin and pale, perhaps, and the percentage of baldheads was high and almost every man wore a noseglass
 "I'm sorry for 'em," said Tom Dugan. Poor diviles"
 He is thick and strong and loud voiced. When he was young he had nis chance to go to college, but he preferred to go prospecting instead. He told tale after tale of his ad- ventures He had been blown up, halt- drowned, shot, knifed, broke, rich, million aire. He had lived his life with the zest of hungry man tackling ham sandwich. And these poor divvles," he ruminated, "have just lived here like cabbages. They have seen nothing heard nothing, done noth- ing except work. There isn't foreman in the lot of them. l might have been like them if had stayed at home." It's doubtful Tom Dugan isn't the sort who could stay at home. The higher education would have done him little good, if he could have absorbed it, for his are the out-of-door would have suited him. He is a gambler, a fighter, rover born. The Professors Club looked on him with disapproval as he rumbled his comments It isn't often that a Tom Dugan intrudes upon it's cloistered shades.
 They've done more than you have, Tom, D said when tired of his boasting. There are names here that will be remembered when you are forty years dead."
 To which Tom replied that they had not lived. Yet it is doubtful if the professors could have comprehended his point of view, any more than he could see theirs.
 Why try to mix steel and oil? It cannot be done.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
The Sorry Little Boy

There was a sorry little boy Who was the sorriest thing; He was sorry for the little boy That couldn't smile and sing, And sorry for the little girl That had no doll but one That was so shabby and so old Its work on earth was done. He was sorry for the old, old folk Who hadn't much, and he Was sorry for the orphans That could not afford a tree; And sorry for the lonely men Who hadn't any dinner, And sorry for the prisoner Because he was a sinner. So sorry was the little boy He even wept and prayed And that is why when he awoke He found the world arrayed In spangled light and splendid light, And all the young and old, The poor, the sinful and the weak, Arrayed in Christmas gold.
 B. B., in Baltimore Sun.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13

bad seed, lack of labor and the manifold that prevent entire success.
 ,s Farming is in the paradoxical position If requiring more capital to be eminently stable, and of needing to be eminently more stable to attract capital. This diff ficulty will in time be overcome; has been overcome by some individual farm CTS of unusual capacity. or opportunity or both. But farming is not on the de- cline. It is just beginning to realize that it must undergo thorough and systematic revision. It will be done.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
SNOW AND AGE

Feeling about snow is an index to age, according to one writer. When you look out of the window, see the snow coming down, and enjoy it, you are young When you watch it with indifference, you are middle aged. When you watch it with displeasure, you are old. But there are times, such as on football days, when young people are very old-Worcester Telegram.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13

Postal officials estimate that fifty thousand extra employees will be required to handle the peak load of Christmas mail this year, and that the additional cost will be about two and half million dol lars. And once on time all this work was done by a single old gent yclept Santa Claus. We are steadily becoming less efficient.
The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-12-13
LITTLE ERNESTS ESSAY IXneriencn.

Everybody has to learn by their own ix- perience No matter how meny people you see fall down on slippery payments, the only sensation you get out of it is plezzure until you fall down on one yourself and realize it has panefill side to it. After that wen you see somebody take flop on the ice you know enuff to be glad its not you, thus adding to the plezzure.
 The best way to tell if the water in the bath-tub is hotter than you think, is by the ixperience of sticking part of one toe in ferst, because if it berns your toe wat would it do to the majority of your body?
 If you eat pickels and ice cream and fried tomatoes and get a fearse stummick ake, the ixperience will teach you to eat some other mixture next time, but on the other hand if you eat it and nuthing happens you awt to have sents enuff not to do it agen enyways.