Newspaper Page Text
PRESIDENT HIS CLOSE CALL!
Trolley Car in Pittsfield, Mass., Crashes into Carriage in Which
He Was Riding and Totally Demolishes the Vehicle
twin nut m on
Driver Pratt Suffered Bad
Fracture of Skull.
The President Escaped with Only
a Slight Facial Bruise. While
Secretary Cortciyou Was
Badly Shaken Up.
The president of the United States
escaped a tragic death by only a few
feet in a collision between his car
riage and an electric street car in
Pittsfield, Mass., Wednesday, while
one of his most trusted guards, Secret
Service Agent William Craig, was In
stantly killed and David J. Pratt, of
Dalton, who was guiding the horses
attached to the vehicle, was seriously
injured. President Roosevelt himself
was badly shaken up, but received
only a slight facial bruise. Secretary
Cortelyou, who occupied a seat direct
ly opposite the president in the lan-
deau, sustained a minor wound in the
back of the head, and Governor
Crane, who sat beside the president,
extricated himself from the wreck
practically without a scratch. The
carriage was demolished by the impact
of the rapidlyrmovlng car and the
wheel horse on the eido nearest the
car was killed outright. The crew
and passengers of the car escaped in
jury.
The 8tory In Detail.
After a night passed at Governor
Crane’s home In Dalton, Mass., the)
president'and his party took carriages
for the drive over the picturesque
Berkshire hills to Lenox.
The president made a brief speech
at the opera house at Dalton on leav
ing there Bhortly before 8 o'clock and
going to Pittsfield, where he planned
to stop tor a short time on the way
to Lenox. He was constantly greeted
by groups of cltlxens who were most
enthusiastic in their greeting.
An immense-crowd welcomed him in
Pittsfield and he made a brief speech
from a stand which had been erected
in the public park.
The president then returned to his
carriage with Governor Crane and Sec
retary Cortelyou and requested that he
be driven to the home of former Sena
tor N. L. Dawes.
Mr. Dawes lives not far from the
square and the president was quickly
- taken there. He remained about five
minutes going into the house of the
former senator for a friendly chat.
He was then driven tack to the park
and the start for Lenox was made.
Tragedy Stills Cheers.
One or two of the carriages, Includ
ing those In which the newspaper men
were riding, had gone on ahead. As
the president’s carriage and those con
taining the others of his party made
thflr way along South 'street, the
crowds who lined the pavements
cheered repeatedly and the ovation
which had begun at Qatton and had
hardly been interrupted since the start
was made, was continued.
Along the south street, which Is not
a wide highway, runs the track of the
Pittsfield and Lenox Street Railway
company. Occasionally an electric
car hummer by the carriages. At
point about a quarter of a mile from
the center of the city the street bends
and. the car tracks run In a straight
line across it from one side to tho
other. V
As the president's carriage appeared
at this crossing an electric car was
heard coming along at great speed,
apparently trying to pass ahead of the
procession.
Secret Service Officer Craig ap
preciated the danger and he arose be
side the driver and turning arouno-
signalled the motorman to hold back.
The warning was disregarded and
the next Instant, in view of hundreds
of people, the electric car crashed di
agonally against the carriage, causing
the wheels to collapse splintering the
side and running down the near horse
of the wheel team, killing it Instantly.
The occupants were thrown into the
midst of the wreckage.
Secret Service Agent Craig fell un
der the car and hie head was crushed
and the upper'part of his body was
badly mutilated.
The driver, Pratt, was also caught
as he fell and was injured mainly
about the head, a fractured skull being
his wound.
The . president, although partly bur
ied by the splintered fragments of the
carriage, extricated himself and was
seen to have sustained only a cut on
the cheek.
Governor Crane was not Injured.
Secretary Cortelyou was not so fort-
unate, having sustained a blow on the
back of the head, but soon recovered
and with the president and Governor
Crane, went to the house of A. D. Ste
vens, which is near where the apcldenb
occurred, and the house was thrown
open for the reception of the Injured.
The secret service agent was beyond
help, having been instantly killed.
The body was taken into the Stevens
home.
It was found that Driver Pratt was
unconscious, but not dead.
He also was taken to the house.
A few minutes later an ambulance
from the Pittsfield hospital arrived
and he was removed to that institu
tion.
The crowd became greatly excited.
It rushed into the street surround
ing the wreckage and the car shout
ing at the motorman and the conduct
or and creating a great disturbance.
Souvenir Hunters at Work.
Almost immediately persons began
snatching away the fragments of the
carriage in which the president had
ridden. Only by the utmost efforts
did a force of police, which had been
quickly summoned, prevent the entire
demolition of the vehicle by souvenir
hunters.
Immediately after the accident, Mo
torman Luke Madden and the conduct
or, James Kelly, were placed under
arrest and taken to police headquar
ters, the chowd giving them a stormy
reception as they passed along the
street
Having seen that the body of Craig
was properly attended to and hearing
the Clamor of the crowd outside, the
president stepped to the door. The
tumult indicated great .excitement
among the people, seeing which, Pres
ident Roosevelt urged the people not
to cheer, as one of the party was dead.
He assured the assembly that he was
uninjured, but that the driver of his
carriage, he feared, was fatally hurt.
He said he would continue his journey,
as it did not seem just right to disap
point the large number of people who
were expecting him.
Then the president returned to the
house and directions were given for
another carriage to be brought up.
Ride Is Resumed.
It was soon ait the door and the ride
to Lenox was resumed. As soon as
the president had left the Stevens
house the crowd began to disperse
and within a few minutes the streets
had resumed their usual appearance
here,, save for a few groups who lin
gered to discuss the accident.
LEGISLATURE TIIK C1IKAPEST.
'Governor Anxious That Pennsljvanla
Solons Tackle Strike Problem.
"An extra session of the legislature
would cost the state less money than
it is costing to maintain the militia
in the anthracite region to prevent
and suppress riots.”
In these words Governor W. A.
Stone, of Pennsylvania, indicated to a
few of his friends during a visit to
Pittsburg Wednesday, his purpose to
call an extra session of the legisla
ture to try to end the anthracite
strike.
BILL ARP’S LETTER
Bartow Man Writes of Che Beoent
Negro Congress in Atlanta.
DISCUSSES ‘INHARMONIOUS’ FEATURES
Education in Morals, Manners and In
dustry Taught by Former White
Masters Better Than Book
Knowledge of Today.
AXXF.X.VTIOX OF HATH
Is Tentatively Discussed by President
and Advisers.
The Washington Post says that the
president has tentatively discussed
with some, of bis close advisers the
question of annexing the island of
Haytl, with a view to action in case
the Haytiens themselves tail to re
store peace and order. The frequency
of the revolution in Haytl necessitat
ing the presence of American men of
war to protect American and foreign
interests, says The Post, have led to
the informal discussion of the possl
blc necessity of Interference.
DIVORCE LEAD* TO FOItTUXE.
Houghton Compiles With His Father’s
Will and Gets Wealth.
George R. Houghton, of Atlanta, 6a.,
is divorced from his wife in Chicago
and by the transaction comes into
possesion of an estate valued at nearly
8200,000.
Geofge Houghton, a Milwaukee bank
president, father of the Atlantlan, died
five months ago and left a condition
in his will that his son should not re
ceive his share of the estate- until his
wife died or he was divorced from her.
Under the court’s decree, Houghton
will have to pay his wife alimony to
the amount of 121,'500.
Of course I was very much interest
ed in the great negro convention. So
was every thougntful man north and
south, but there were some features
about it that did not harmonise, with
tho views and memories of the old
masters. The oft-repeated assertion
that forty years ago the negro emerg
ed from bondage and baibarism la a
mistake. It is worse, for it is slander.
One orator said that they had been in
a savage state for one hundred years
—another said two hundred and fifty
years—and their progress since free
dom came was wonderful. Some of
our young people of this age and gen
eration may carelessly believe that,
for they have U3en taught it from tho
north, where it Is universally believed.
Booker Washington may believe it, for
he is in his middle age. But even
Eval Howell and 1 and all other veter
ans, whether white or blask, know
that it is not so. I don't want the old-
time negroes slandered. , The orator
might as well have said 2,250 yeaijp
ago, for their ancestors were all in
Africa then—none of the grown up ne
groes who were set free had been in
bondage more than fifty or sixty years
and none were savages or barbarians.
They compared well with the illiterate
white people, and in fact felt above
them and spoke of them as poor white
trash. The clos£ association for two
or three generations of these slaves
with their white masters aid their
families educated, most of them in
good morals and manners and indus
try, which is a better education than
books, and the truth is they were when
freedom came infinitely superior to tho
race as it now is. The progress that
Booker Washington and his associates
boast of is an alarming retrograde and
degeneracy. When freedom came
there was not an outrage in all the
southern land nor was there a convict
or a chaingang nor a negro prison, but
now there, are 4,400 convicts end tho
number Increases faster than the pop
ulation. No—there is no upward gra
dation in their morals. The higher
education thaA these negro colleges
are giving to the few have no good
effect upon the many) and, according
to Mr. Washington’s own statement,
he is alarmed because most of his
graduates aspire to be leaders and
teachers and bosses. They are a pam
pered negro aristocracy and widely
scattered es they are, they have not
reformed the race in morals or In hon
esty or an observance of tho marriage
relations. I can assert with truth
that at least one-third of the negro
children In and around OnrtcrsvlUe
are bastards. There are r'.ue within
a stone’s throw of our house—and yet
‘.heir mothers are very good servants
and make good cooks, chambermaids
and washerwomen. They lose no caste
or social position or church member
ship by reason of their unchaste and
unlawful cohabitation, and the chil
dren of these women are growing up
without moral training and are as no
torious young thieves as the Arabs of
the desert. The white people have
got so accustomed to their petty thiev
ing that they do no proseeute them.
Mr. Washington made another mis
take when he said that the number of
convicts Increased because they were
too poor to employ counsel. It Is well
known to the bar and to those who at
tend Lae courts that the judge always
appoints competent counsel, and he
leans to the negro and protects him
as far as he can consistently with hit
duty. I know that our judge does.
ALout a year or more ago betrled three
negroes for crime in a neighboring
county. They were easily convicted,
for they were guilty. He fined each of
them $25 and the cost and sentenced
them to one year’s sentence In the
chaingang. but told them he would
held up the sentence for n year, and
If they could get any responsible white
man to take them in charge and let
cnem work out tneir'tmes and bring
them back to the court at the next
term and give a good account of them,
he would not send them to the chain-
gang at all. The negroes found good
men without leaving the court house,
and they did work out their fines and
behaved well, and their employers
made a good report of them and they
were honorably discharged. How much
better that was than the chaingang
with all of Its bad associations and
brutality. The southern people are
uniformly kind to good negroes. Lost
year my faithful servant. Tip, came
to see me, for be was in tronble. He
had laid up a few hundred dollars and
had bought a snug Uttte farm near
Rome for $300, wbi.Vh took all his mon
ey. Tho man he bought from then
suddenly disappeared and Tip found
out there was a mortgage on the farm
for |500. “Where did the man come
from?” I asked. “He came from
Ohio,” said Tip. “And then you did
not ask any lawyer to look into the
title?” "No, air,” said Tip. “He talk
ed so fair and I had knowed him some
■time that 1 thought shorely he
wouldn’t cheat me." And now Tip Is
still working out that mortgage and
the man cannot bo found. Reckon he
Is drawing a pension and holding an
office in Ohio. What we wish to see is
some good practical results of those
negro colleges. Before the war every
man of wealth who owned slaves had
among them masons, carpenters,
blacksmiths, wagonmakers, shoemak
ers, etc.; my man Tip was a paper-
hanger and a good one, for my wife
taught him, and he has made good
money by it since the war. The ne
groes are naturally mechanics and im
prove rapidly in their trades, but I
have not seen or heard of one from
Tuskegee yet.. Washington says he is
trying to teach them that ft is honor
able to walk between the flow han
dles. Why, we can’t get it white col
lege boy to do that much less a col
lege negro whoso education; has all
come from charity, and these colleges
keep begging for more and get it.
But what frets us old masters Is all
this tommyrot about the negroes hav
ing just emerged from slavery and
barbarism. I wish to declare to this
generation that our old slaves had
more common sense and' far better
morals than those we have now, and
they had wives and children and were
not ashamed of them. It sweetens my
memory to go back to tho good! old
faithful stock like Tip and Sind a and
Aunt Peggy and Virgil and big Jack
and little Jack and Uncle Sam and
Aunt Ann and hundreds of others
who were happy and contented • and
whose children have got Into the
chalngangs through the malignant leg
islation of our enemies. Harper’s
Weekly seems to have repented' of
late, but the cruel work Is done and
cannot be undone. The mofrt hopeful
sign In the proceedings and reports of
that convention was that given by a
mulatto Or cupper-colored negro from a
negro town near the Mississippi, be
tween Vicksburg and Memphis, where
they owned a good body of farming
land and worked it and made good
crops and had a good town of 2,000
people and sixteen stores and good
common schools and several churches
and plenty of good mechanics and a
mayor (ind Council, and there were no
Idlers, and if a tramp came there they
waited on him and shippd him off
on the first train—and there wasn’t a
white man in the town, nor did one
live In five miles of it I am going to
watch that' town. Maybe that win
help to solve the race problem.
P. S.—In answer to letters wanting
Judge Clark's book, write to M. O.
Sherrill, state librarian, Raleigh, N. C.,
and send him |5.—Bill Arp, in Atlanta
Constitution,
SURGICALJPERATIONS
How Mrs. Brace, a Noted Open
Singer, Escaped an Operation.
Proof That Many Operations
for Orarian Troubles are Un- (
necessary.
“Dus Mbs. Pikkrax : —Travelling 1
for years on the road, with irregular
meals and sleep and damp beds, broke
down my health so completely two
years ago that the physician advised a
complete rest, and when X had gained
»ns. G. BRUCE.
sufficient vitality, am operation for
ovarian troubles. Not-a very cheerful
prospect, to be sure. r,. however, waa
advised to try Lydia El Flnkham’b
Vegetable Compound and Saw*
atlre VTaali; I did so* fortunately
for me. Before a month had passed S
felt that my general health had im»
proved ; in three months more I wa»
eared, and I have been in perfects
health since. I did not lose an engage*
ment or miss a meal.
“ Your Vegetable Compound is cer
tainly wonderful, and well worthy the>
S raise your admiring friends who have'
een oured are ready to give you. I
always speak highly of it, and yom
wiU admit I hare good reason to- do*
so.”—Mbs. G. Bruce, Lansing, Mich,.
96000 forfeit If abooe Uitlmonlal I$ not genuine.'
The fullest counsel on this;
■abject can he secured without
cost by writing to Mrs Plnkham*.
Lynn, Mass. Tour letter will ba
entirely confidential.
OUR ADVERTISING RATES
ARB EXTREMELY LOW. AND
ARE A GREAT INDUCEMENT
FOR BUSINESS MEN TQ PAT
RONIZE OUR COLUMNS TRY
US.
SPORTING BREVITIES.
The Abbot-Bornlmn 810,000 inn tell
trotting race Is off.
Cohl. mlny went her in Scotland tins
spoiled grouse shooting.
Don Patch paced n mile in 2.0014 nt
tin. Iteodviile lMnss.1 truck.
Major Dclnmr won the 815.000 Mas
sachusetts trotting stake nt Rendvillc,
Muss.
Direct Hal. tlie. pacer, lowered his
record to 2.0(5 at tho ItciulvIUe (Muss.)
truck.
Advance Guard won the- Saratoga
Cup. one mile and six furlongs, nt Sar
atoga. N. Y. ,
W. C. Whltnry Jins decided to sell
liis thn-e-yenr-oid colts. King Ilunorcr,
Pretorlus and Slipthrlft.
C. K. G. Billings purchased The
Monk, 2.05%. paying 8-15.000 to Fred.
Gcrkcu for the cruel; trotter..
There are now four golf courses on
Block Ishuid, where the game Is not
only popular, but fashionable.
A. J. Joyner lias been engaged to
train n stable of Sydney Paget next
season nt a salary Bald to lie 820,000.
It*F. and U. L. Doherty won the tin-
ttonnl lawn tenuis championship in
doubles from Holcombe Ward and D.
F. Davis, at Saratoga.
Edna Cook, 2.12, L reported to have
worked a mile recently in 2.03% for
Ed. Geers. She Is ten years old, und
made her record In 1S».
The great brood mare Flaxy now
has the distinction or being the dnm of
two 2.05 performers. Royal it. Sheldon,
2.01% und Audubon Boy, 2.05.
William J. Duffy, an old athlete,
swam from Brooklyn Bridge to n point
off the Couey Island iron pier in four
hours. The distance Is almost thirteen
iqtles..
Alfred Featbcrstonc will sell his rac
ing stable during the Sheepsbead Day
meeting. He has been on the tnrf a
number of yean, beginning under the
Urm uame of Bromley & Co.
(ram Ubby'a f«moot Hyglenlo kitchen*,
where purity prevail*. AU meat* u*d la
LIBBY’S
Natural Flavor
Food Products
ars 11. 3. Oororamott Inspected.
Keep la tin bout tor tmerfecolea—tor
•upper*, tor nadwtobw—for any Urea
when yoo want aoaothlas rood and want
It quick. Simply tura a key and tha can
la open. Aa app*tiling lunch la ready la
an batant,
LIBBT, MelEILL A LIBBY, CHICA60.
Writ* tor oar (no booklet, "How to Hake
Good Thlnya to Eat"
Osnalae stamped C C C. Fever sold In bulk.
Beware of the dealer who tries to sell,
“something just ss good."
DROPSY
10 OATS’ TREATMENT FUEL
in.n.E.omu-D
Box U
romom
Atlanta, Ga.
WANTED
BOO Young Men
At onca to quality tor good poalttona which. w»
will tuarantco la wrlUng under a $5,000
dopoalt to promptly procure thorn.
The Ga.-Ala. Bus. College,
MACON, GEORGIA,
ofcotootooisoKotoolaofcotoofeobofcofe
ITTEADASHE, t
S M FEVERISH CONDITIONS £
oil AND COLDS CURED BY o
5 “CAPUDINE 2
ar Sold by all Drnccna*. X
RQRQIto>toHORo>to»to»toitotto»to»to
A||| REPAIRS
■ _ M Rrefl saws, ribs,
mA H U «N Brittle, Twin*. Hahl.lt,
wffi ■ ■ WSa .forany wutkoorGIn
ENGINES, BOILERS AND PRESSES
(aUfe&£»&NSS&& tie
i
PFRDiV KtaKy made, at home,
rCRllAI mailingcireal*ra. Nocan-1
retains. The Uoma Remedy Co., I
Atiitell Building. ATLANTA.GA. I
W-Olva the name of this paner when
writing to advertisers-(At. 36. ’02)