davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1939-02-12

take another ship for the trip north
to California.
Wells had become associated In
1845 with w. G. Fargo on venture
of carrying express shipments to
Cleveland, Cincinnati and Chicago.
Wells dropped out of the arrange
ment a year later and the pair pur-
sued separate endeavors until 1849,
when they again joined forces, form
ing one of the most important part
nerships in the hosiery of express.
The name of Henry Wells has been
lmmortalzed n Wells College, Aurora,
N. Y, which he endowed in 1868.
Fargo in later years returned to
Buffalo and served as Mayor from
1861 to 1865. His palatial residence
remains a historic landmark there.
Pony Express.
Wells, Fargo & Co.'S California
Express was organized in New York
in 1852, and their overland coach
lines conquered the thousands of
miles of mountain and prairie in
tervening. But the demand was for
still faster communication, and
hard on the heels of the overland
stages came the astounding relay
OF fast riders-the Pony Express.
Among its riders was the late Bill
Cody, better known as Buffalo Bill.
Indians often beset the course, but
the pony express, like the overland
stage, went through. Derring-do
reached its peak in the heroic ride
of Bob Haslem, who. riding through
scenes of Indian massacre, choked
by alkai dust. covered $50 miles in
three days and two nights with but
II hours out for sleep.
About this time came the most
exotic phase of express. Camels, i'm
ported from Northern Africa, were
put into service across Arizona and
New Mexico, and later in Montana,
Nevada, Virginia and Texas. But
camel transportation never lived up
to its promises. The camels, &C
customed to soft desert sand, bruised
and cut their cleft hooves on the
stony trails.
Then the Civil War split the
Nation. 1t also drove a wedge
through the express territory of the
Adams Express, which, unlike Wells
and Fargo, had expanded southwark.
A new company, the Southern, was
formed to take care of all the Adams
Express territory in Virginia, the
Carolinas, Georgia, Florida, Ten
nessee, Arkansas. Alabama, Louisiana
and Texas. The Adams and the
Southern companies operated IN
tacit connection; as the line of bat
Evening star., 1939-02-12
National Growth Is
Accompanied by
This Service

wide in scope, uses all modern
forms of transportation and enjoys
the honor of having been one of
the vital factors that have built
the United States of today out of
a chain of communities scattered
along the Atlantic Seaboard.
Tragedy early threw Harnden's
enterprise into sharp relief. His
brother. Adolphus. was among the
121 victims when Commodore VAN
derbilt's steamer Lexington caught
fire and burned in Long Island
Sound on January 13, l840. When
Adolphus' body was washed ashore,
148 letters we're found in pouch
he was wearing and were mailed.
The $4,000 in money and other
valuables he was carrying were lost
One of New Englands important
financial institutions owned $4,000
of the lost funds, but never pressed
the claim, fearing to ruin Harm
den's express.
European Agencies Opened.
Within three years after launch
ing his business, Harnden had
opened agencies in England, France,
Scotland, Ireland and Germany, in
that order. Foreseeing expansion
of his business in America if the
undeveloped lands to the west were
peopled, he was campaigning for
immigration, splashing billboards on
both sides of the Atlantic with red
posters a foot square proclaiming
Americas attractions.
Harnden died on January IA, 1845,
aged 33. His personal fame and
the industry he had launched went
on growing, however, and in 1866
the express companies of the United
States, in acknowledging their debt
to Harnden as founder of Americas
express industry, erected a 16-foot
shaft over his grave in Mount Au-
burn Cemetery, Cambridge, Mass.
Slowly but surely express pushed
westward. Henry Wells, one of
Harnden's men and later his agent
at Albany, created a sensation by
expressing oysters via stage coach.
train and wagon to Buffalo, and
then, when the restaurateur moved
to Chicago by carrying Holsters
there, where they were cooked at a
great outdoor feast on the prairie.
A heroic role was often assigned
to the expressman. When the
steamer Atlantic was wrecked on
Long Island Sound on November
night In 1846, Thomas o. Goold won
the Nations plaudits by saving all
his valuable packages and rescuing
20 persons in the bargain.
The year 1849 is a date to conjure
with in the history of America. The
year of the great California gold
rush." it also marks the time when
express first reached the Golden
Gate. Tens of thousands of men,
some with their families, conyerged
on a virgin country in mad
scramble to get rich quick. But
there was no means of travel be-
tween the Missouri River and the
Pacific Coast; travellers and goods
could move only on steamers to the
Isthmus Of Panama. and. after .
rought journey across to the Pacific,
Evening star., 1939-02-12
HEROISM AND ADVENTURE DRAMATIC EXPRESS CENTURY
Industry Created
by Original
Carpetbag

NEW YORK, Feb. 1l.-That year
a fad called baseball, whose rules
remained to be standardized, swept
America. A rising young poet named
LongfelloW was being favorably
commented upon in sewing circles
and in the coffee houses, but the
latest writing of Dickens, a serial
story called oliver Twist was be-
ing frowned upon as not quite nice.
Barnum, a name yet unknown to
fame, told a friend that in this
fast-growing America the quickest
way to riches lay in thinking up
stunts to capture the popular i'm
agination. The dillettante world was
buying scientific toys based upon
the discoveries of Faraday and Ohm,
in furtherance of DR.. Franklln's
amazing but so far monetarlly un-
profitable feats in harnessing the
lightning. That year, too, young
man named Darwin, having COM
pleted fact-fnding tour of the
world, married and settled down to
systematized certain "impious" and
barely mentionable studies concern
ing apes and mankind.
And that year, just century ago,
pale young Bostonian, William
F. Harnden, his health undermined
by his long working days as book
keeper, as a railway conductor and
as a ticket agent for the Boston
and Worcester Railroad, cast about
for something better suited to his
physique and talents and began
carrying letters and packages in
carpetbag. And just as a con-
juror pulls rabbit out of hat,
history produced from that carpet
bag a mighty industry that now
carries more than 140,000,000 ship
ments annually. using all modern
means of transportation.
Role of the Snoring Dog.
Harnden's carpetbag express was
itself the product of a minor serio-
comedy enacted by himself, news
stand operator, preacher and a
dog that snored in his sleep.
Already marked for consumption,
Harnden told his woes to a friend,
James w. Hale, who operated a
newsstand in downtown New York.
Hale did business with Boston and
frequently his messengers were
Evening star., 1939-02-12

congressional term that he attended
the Inaugural Ball of President
Zachary Taylor, March S, 1849, and
came away in the wee hours of the
morning minus his hat, which he
failed to find in the cloak room.
Elihu B. Washburne. who was
of the Lincoln party upon this oc-
casion, says of this incident: TAX
ing his cloak on his arm, he walked
into Judiciary Square, deliberately
adjusting it on his shoulders, and
started off bareheaded for his lod-
gings. 1t would be hard to forget
the sight of that tall and slim man,
with his short cloak thrown over
Evening star., 1939-02-12

Mr.. Lincoln became President. died
on February 20, 1862. He was
bright and promising boy and OF
a loVable disposition. Mrs. Lincoln
wept as other unfortunate mothers
would have done and her grief knew
no bounds. She never entered again
the guests room in which he died,
nor the green room where his body
lay while awaiting burial.
From early childhood Mrs. Lin
coin was ambitious, and this, indeed,
is one of the few truthful state
ments made by her defamers. Where
can we find man or woman in
the United States interested in the
affairs of the country and wishing
for its success who is not so constl-
tuted?
How dismal would be our lives II
we did not have desire to better
our conditions, to make something
more of ourselves, to elevate our
minds and our morals, to better
equip ourselves for our own and the
puhlics good? Indeed, ambition has
for centuries been the guiding star
of the Anglo-Saxon race; it made
Great Britain what it is, and it
made the greatest republic on earth
today, and as long as there are
enough ambitious people in this
country it will be sustained.
And yet ambition is one OF the
crimes" charged against the wom-
an who shared Iincoln's trials IN
the White House; who in her early
married life did all of her own
housework. made all OF her own
clothes and the better part OF Mr..
Lincoln's and besides made her
children's wearing apparel; and this,
for an educated woman, reared IN
luxury and refinement, surely
stamps her as having been of the
highest American ideals. Had it not
been for Mary Todd the chances
are that Abraham Lincoln would
never have been President. and the
world accordingly would have been
the loser.
Pro-South Family.
Mrs. Lincolns family were pro-
Southern. Her half-brother Samuel
was killed in action at the Battle OF
Shiloh. April 7, 1862. Then came
David Todd. another brother, to pay
the supreme sacrifice for the South.
being mortally wounded at Vicks-
burg in December. 1862, and then in
August, 1868. came the news:
"At the Battle Of Baton Rouge 1t.
Alexander H. Todd, aide de camp
and brother -in-law of Gen. Ben
Hardin Helm, was killed. He was
only % years of age, full of promise.
of handsome appearance and
winning manners and idolized by
his mother and sisters"
But it was not long before she
was to receive even greater shock
in the form of letter sent her by
the President while she was con-
valescing in New York. conveying
the sad news of the death OF her
brother-in-laW, Brig. Gen. Ben
Hardin Helm, only 80 years old and
the son of Gov. John L. Helm Of
Kentucky.
This young Confederate officer
was killed in the Battle of Chicka-
mauga, fought September 10 and
20, 1868. He had married Mrs. Lin
coins sister Emile, who short
while afterward, on passes issued by
President Lincoln, came to Wash
ington and was guest at the White
House and mingled her tears with
those of her sister.
Mrs. Lincoln was a Southern
ICan ppOCrOp pace q sN
Evening star., 1939-02-12

(see PROCTOR, Page C-5)
Evening star., 1939-02-12

his shoulders, starting for his long
walk home on Capitol Hill at 4
o'clock in the morning without any
hat on
Under Strong Guard.
However, Lincoln found it quite
different when he returned to Wash
ington in 1861. Indeed, from the
time he left Springfield for this
city he was guarded with the greatest
secrecy and care by Col. Ward H.
Lamon and by the famous Pinker-
ton of that day, assisted and advised
by Col. Thomas T. Scott, then pres
ident of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Saws Col. Lamon:
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07
Super-Highways Deferred

The federal Bureau of Public Roads, after lengthy consideration, rejects the proposal to build a great gridiron of Super-highwayS covering the country. is pretty well built up now with good roads, and counties and states are going ahead as they can, to fill the gaps and replace the worn-out strips of paving. Uncle Sam has just about done his share and can afford to ease up for while; or more accurately, he can't afford to keep on at the recent pace. A spell of compar- ative federal economy is "indicated", as doctor would say.
 The proposed road system was sug- gested partly as an emergency employ ment measure; partly for national de- fense" after the manner familiar in some European countries, and partly to pro- mote business and travel Also, perhaps, on the general principle that Americans just naturally love big construction schemes. The plan was to make it toll road system, which eventually would pay for itself. The idea may be sound, but the War Department has no enthusiasm for it, and the public will agree with the federal bureau that it can wait for a while.
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07
Will Fight For Tests

Even if he were faced with the possi- bility of losing reappointment to his post as head of the Motor Vehicle Department, which he isn't since his term does not expire until 1941, we'll wager that Com missioner Michael A. Connor would use all the powers of his persuasion to keep on our statute books the law requiring semi annual inspection of all Connecticut motor vehicles. There is a determined effort afoot to have this law repealed. Even Governor Raymond E. Baldwin said in his inaugural address that the law hadn't proved itself. It's hard to make such a'flat statement as this and at the same time ignore patent facts
 The law requiring periodic inspection of motor vehicles has faltered merely in the inconvenience it causes to great many motorists. But were sufficient funds available, even this could be elim- mated. After bare expenses are paid surplus funds divert to the general high way fund. Were tair share allotted to expansion and improvement we feel sure that the same efficiency would charac- terize this service of the department that now is so familiar wherever one comes in contact with it.
 Recently Commissioner Connor said, eff the law needs any defense, I'll make it. It is not pet scheme of mine - bet ter men than have been advocating it for years. A total of l9 states have similar laws now and I'd wager that ten more will have them before the end of the year. The majority of motorists are for it. I know that. ="
 If it did nothing else than prevail upon most motorists to have their car lights, brakes, windshield-wiper, and other vital safety appliances checked up twice year, the law would be worth keeping on the books. We feel sure Connecticut legislators will think twice before throw ing this much-abuSed rule out.
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07

In the olden, golden days, as they say in the classics, western lands re-echoed to the crash of guns as cattle-owners and farmers fought for water rights. It took long time to settle some of the disputes which arose over pasturing of cattle on certain ranges adjacent to sufficient water. In fact some of the disputes have been carried down to the present day. Righ now in New Mexico the governor of that state is defying the federal gov ernment. He has ordered irrigation gates along the Gila River opened so that farmers in the valley may get their crops watered. Uncle Sam controls those gates for the Arizona Indians further down the stream. The U. s. Supreme Court will ultimately settle this dispute, one that recalls gun-totin' days.
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07

selves alone," he said, i've are in an un- tenable moral position. We must be equally jealous for she rights of others, and this involves willingness on our part to defend the right of any citizen freely to express his views, even if those views are abhorrent to us"
 It is hard saying, but it is necessary rule, If we are to preserve our freedom. It is all right to make converts for our own way of thinking, if we do it by free persuasion. No citizen imbued by the principles of American democracy should ask more than that.
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07
LET'S COL!

There is no good reason why this great nation of ours cannot be pros porous.
 There is no good reason why we have so many unemployed or any un- employed.
 There is no sane reason why our children should face the presently discouraging prospect of no avail able places for them in business or elsewhere when they graduate from college or professional schools or business or trade schools.
 There is no sound reason why this great and richly-endoWed nation, rich in its people, it's education, it's intelligence, it's resources, should be working on part , time, part-pay basis, moving in low gear when it might be travelling in high along the smooth road tc normal activity and business.
 There is no logical reason why we should be spending in excess of revenue; why we do not balance the national budget; why we should tax business and normal enterprise excessively and to the point of Encouragement.
 
 cannot regain and enjoy the prosperity of 1921 to 1929 on healthier basis, sound base, more lasting basis.
 There are reasons why these things are so - But - THEY ARE NOT GOOD REASONS OR SANE REASONS.
 WE must return to common sense to the old truths-to peace and under standing, not only among nations inter- nationally, but among ourselves as a people, regardless O. whether we are rich or poor, Republican or Democrat, capital or labor, merchant or salesman.
 For years, we as a people, we have been torn apart, disunited, arrayed against ourselves, bewildered, sdetracked for our common purpose and from confi- dence in our nation and ourselves and turned into a discordant, covetous, dis trusting, suspecting, and incorporating people.
 No one trusts anyone no one knows what the morrow may bring in wild pro-
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07

posals to upset the confidence and sta bility of our everyday lives. No one dare invest in business or expand his business because we get more and more taxes bigger and heavier burdens, greater con- fiscation of profits and investments. No one has any incentive to work harder, to save, to invest, to invent, to employ his fellowmen for profit.
 This is sorry state of affairs-an un-American state of affairs. It should cease we should and must get back to common-SenSe.
 Our governments - federal, state, and city - must spend less, must tax less, must economize, must balance their bud gets, must encourage business employ ment, and people.
 From now on it .s going to be more popular to reduce rather than increase taxes, to lower rather than add to the public debt, to economize rather than throw the public's money to the winds.
 America will follow the leadership which unites it in a common purpose the well-being of ALL, not merely a majority, of it's citizens, the leadership which recognizes the simple everyday facts of life, the fundamental truths of business as the key to employment and prosperity, which realizes that the power to tax is the power to Destroy, which leads our people back to normal pursuits, to normal activity and growth and mutual confidence. United we stand (and pros perl - Divided, we fall.
 The opportunity is ours, in America, as it has always been; it is just ques- tion of our willingness to grasp it. The turn of the year Is fitting time for us to take stock and inventory ourselves, our resources, our abilities, our mistakes, and our opportunities.
 Good will to men - to our fellowman is the first requisite of a united people, to progress, employment, business recov- cry, and prosperity.
 Nineteen hundred thirty-nine can be good year for everyone if we try to make it 80 as a united people LET'S GO!!!
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07
Book A Day
The Nostalgia of Mark Sullivan
 BY BRUCE CATION

DI bhOCE CA11ON
 It is any earthly, back -the-good old-days sort of autobiography that Mark Sullivan has written to cap distinguished career. ''The Edu- cation of An American" Doubleday, Doran: $350).
 Looking back through the crowd- ed years, MT. Sullivan seems to find solace in recalling the farm days of his youth. So he dwells on the na- ton as 1t was before the turn of the century. The result is quiet, thoroughly readable volume, but there is little lon the scenes" re- collection here to stir you as In his earlier book, "Our Times"
 Leaving his Pennsylvania Eome, young Sullivan worked his way through four years of normal train ing" then became editor and part owner cf country weekly. From there he drifted cn to Harvard, where he studied law, but continued writing to pay his tuition.
 His law practice had scarcely be- gun when Edward Box picked him to handle a secret investigation of the patent medicine racket in the United States. After this as;ign- ment, Sullivan never returned to the law, but became instead q writer, editor, political columnist, friend of Presidents and the great and near great.
 All this he reviewes in his auto- biography, throwing in a good word now and then for the days when America was younger and with more opportunity. And with some of this you may not agree, but in any event MT. Sullivan has succeeded in pre- serving an extraordinary accurate picture of the yesterdays.-P. G. F.
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07
THE GIANT FROM TIPPERARY
 (New York Herald -Tribune)

So Matt McGrath is old: The years at last have caught up with him. Some time this year the rule now in force in the Police Depart ment requiring the retirement of officers who have reached the age of sixty-three, regardless of the state of their health, will mean the end of the long police service of In- 1 spector Mathew J. McGrath. The mighty McGrath joined the force when he was twenty-six. He was a strong man, and brave one. He dived into cold rivers to rescue men bent upon self-destruction. He could subdue a desperate gunman by heaving bricks at him. He was a tough man in a fight when he used what he called Marquis of Kilkenny rules" And he had ability, too: he had to have to rise to the post of inspector in charge of Man hattan's traffic.
 At sixty-three Matt McGrath may be old, according to the theories of a soft generation, but he can still throw the hammer and put the shot, and he has kept his weight at about what 1t always was--a mere 230 pounds. McGrath in his prime
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07
Views of The Press

(and that glorious prime lasted c long tine) was one of the mightiest athletes ever to come out of Ireland. It was McGrath who took the meas ure of the great John Flanagan. He was a hero in four Olymplads. For years, he held the record for the 16-pound hammer and the 56-pound shot. He has medals and trophies enough to fill a bushel basket. His name in athletics belongs high fl, that celebrated group of Celts which included John Flanagan, Sheridan, Kiely, Mcdonald, Ryan, the spec tacular Davin boys and sad-faced old Jim Mitchell. Once they held all the records, records which have passed on into the hands of men with strange-sounding names. Matt McGrath has been competent po- lice officer, famous athlete and an unfailingly good sportsman. May the years of his retirement be as full, as useful and as satisfying as all the others were!
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07

his time with the representatives of Wall Street.
 Harry Hopkins is very un- affected, rather kindly soul. He lives simply in a small house in Georgetown next to several houses occupied by Negroes. The walls of the downstairs hall are cov- cred with cartoons of his big ears and gangling frame as depicted by newspaper cartoonists during the last six years, while the hall it. self is cluttered with a scooter, a tricycle. and various children's wraps.
 Harry's two boys are married and away at school, so his six year old daughter Diana is Harrys chief pride and joy. He has been both mother and father to her since the death of Mrs. Hopkins, usually reads to her just before she goes to bed, talks to her very much as If she were a grown lady.
 Son of a Midwest harness maker, Harry was born in Sioux City, Iowa, just 48 years ago and graduated from Grinnell Col lege. There he played basketball, was business manager of the college paper and put 1t in the black for the first time.
 After graduation, Harry was about to take up farm journalism, when one of his professors urged him to take up social service. Co., ing to New York, he got a job at $45 a month checking applicants at Bowery flop houses. He has
The Waterbury Democrat., 1939-01-07

And while out there in New Mexico it's interesting to note that another sur vey of the river basin of the Colorado is being sought. Seven states, affected by flow and control of flow of the Colorado are seeking it. They are Wyoming, Cobra do, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona and California. Right now 1t is possible that Congress may amend the Boulder Canyon Project Act as a result of recent conference held by the Basin States Ex- pensive surveys must prove themselves be- fore cities, counties, states sign up for them.