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All honor to the American patriots for their praiseworthy efforts to keep before the youth of our land the Fourth of July, this dear old emblem and the patriotic lessons it teaches, and I am sure I hazard nothing in asserting that you will be the better citizens and more thoroughly love country, flag and home, by reason of this occasion.

FLAGS OF PENNSYLVANIA SOLDIERS.

'LAGS which led Pennsylvania soldiers in the war for the suppression of the rebellion and the Spanish-American War were not long since moved from the State museum to the rotunda of the new State house, after being carried in procession at Harrisburg. Many of the men who bore the 351 standards and guidons were the color bearers of the regiments in the wars, and their escorts were veterans of 1861-65 and of 1898-99 and militiamen. The exercises were interspersed with singing by 150 school children.

At the close of the exercises the roll of the regiments was called and the colors were borne into the Capitol. The flags transferred included 322 of the Civil War, 22 of the Spanish-American War, including the flag of the Tenth Infantry's Philippine campaign; six unknown and three of special character, including one from the War of 1812.

Now

JOHN BARLEYCORN.

OW that John Barleycorn is passing, it is well to note some of the influences at work for the past 40 years which have contributed to his final throttling. Railroad managers have quit trusting the lives of their passengers with even moderate drinkers, for as great a man as General Fred Grant, son of the illustrious hero of Appomattox, is on record as saying "There are no moderate drinkers." The man who so claims will sooner or later be in the gutter.

Out of 650,000 traveling salesmen in the United States, not over 10 per cent are addicted to liquor. Think of the 600,000 "commercial evangelists," as President McKinley, at Canton, Ohio, when I introduced to him 300 Western Pennsylvania salesmen, christened them, being teetotalers. It is not to be wondered that these fine fellows organized the Gideonites and have placed 397,000 Bibles in the hotel rooms in the United States and Canada. “And still there's more to follow."

On one great railroad system alone 785,000 observations were made along the line of compliance with the rules relating to sobriety, and but 158, or one in 800, failed to measure up to the company requirements. What a grand division of fighters against the kaiser and his agents-the saloonists.

Mr. Wallace Rowe of the Pittsburgh Steel Company, in a letter to the judges of Westmoreland county, asked them to cut off all licenses at Monessen, Pa., where the great steel plant is located, and made the astounding statement that 20 per cent of the wages of their 5,000 employes is wasted for rum, thereby impoverishing the families of the workmen. Not only so, but the men are unfit

for work on Mondays, and the cost of steel production is increased by the overhead charges for accidents, 85 per cent of which are due directly or indirectly to liquor. This wonderful waste, he said, adds to the high cost of living.

The West Pennsylvania Railway Company recently ordered all liquor advertisements out of their cars, and between January 1, 1915, and January 1, 1917, the American newspapers which refused to carry liquor advertising increased from 540 to 8,367.

A leading statesman has said: "Take the profit from the liquor traffic and intemperance will be ended."

Three million square miles of territory in the United States is now dry, more than two-thirds of the whole country.

Over a thousand inmates of the state penitentiary of Pennsylvania petitioned the legislature to abolish "booze," so that on emerging from the prison they might be enabled to start life anew, saved from the temptation of the saloon and its hellish ally, the brothel.

Of an enrollment of 400,000 school children in Kansas, 398,000 of the boys and girls have never seen a saloon. We will whale the kaiser and win the war for democracy when the tidal wave of prohibition in Pennsylvania sweeps into the sea the herd of swine into whose carcasses the legions of devils of rum are

cast.

Like a mighty army,

Moves the Church of God;

Brethren, we are treading

Where the Saints have trod.

The Pennsylvania Grange, 75,000 farmers, first asked for the closing of bars in social clubs, the enforcing of all liquor laws, anti-treating laws, county and local option, and, finally, national prohibition.

At a gathering of railroad managers and employes, a well-informed president of one of the great lines stated $250,000,000 are annually paid for lives lost, people injured, and merchandise destroyed which has to be paid for, and for new equipment to replace the cars and engines destroyed. The absolutely sober men proposed that if the companies would tighten the rules and compel universal "teetotalism," the clear headed army of employes would guarantee to reduce the loss mentioned to $125,000,000, or one-half.

Three thousand saloons went out of business in seven states on January 1, 1916, and old man Booze has been staggering ever since. Everybody has noticed his crippled condition.

And ever and anon someone signing himself "Old Mortality" arises to remark that "prohibition does not prohibit," whereupon we reply: "Seven hundred newspaper men, 160 bankers, the governor and all the state officials and every political party in the state declare that prohibition in Kansas is a pronounced success." And the same may be said of West Virginia.

The Schuylkill county coal operators, with millions of dollars invested, are fighting against "booze," claiming the demon hampers coal production. On every hand coal operators are begging the authorities to erect barriers to shut out saloons within a radius of five miles. If five miles, why not five hundred?

The

Military authorities in Camp Fremont, near Palo Alto, Cal., say: liquor traffic in and around the camp is to be crushed-that's all. It has already been driven out of the camp at Rockford, Ill.

The Tennessee Coal & Iron Company use 120 carloads of coal per week, just half enough to run the breweries for one day.

But says the distiller and brewer of Pennsylvania: What will you do with the ninety-five millions of dollars we have invested in the business in the Keystone state, and when our employes are turned loose what will become of them? Strange to propose such a silly question. No business with the same investment employs a less number of people. At the outside, a little over 7,000 employes are on the pay rolls, and there is disbursed annually for wages about three and a half millions, while the same capital invested in manufacturing, say shipbuilding, so much in demand just now, would employ 23,000 hands and disburse $19,000,000 in wages.

JOH

HON. JAMES P. STERRETT

OHN A. OBEY, a popular conductor on the Citizens Passenger Railway, was stabbed to death as his car was passing over the old canal on Penn avenue at Eleventh street, by a young ruffian. One of the most impressive scenes ever enacted in the Oyer and Terminer Court of Allegheny County was the sentence of death of Keenan, by His Honor Judge Sterrett. Keenan shook his head in the negative when asked if he had anything to say, when Judge Sterrett said:

Thomas B. Keenan-At the last term of this court you were indicted and tried for the murder of John A. Obey. You were ably defended by learned and experienced counsel, who did everything that could be accomplished in presenting your case in its most favorable light; but an intelligent and impartial jury of your fellow citizens-a jury of your own choice-after a most patient hearing and careful consideration of the testimony, have pronounced you guilty of murder in the first degree—a crime at which humanity shudders, and one against which the law, both human and divine, denounces its severest penalty. In the law of God it is written, "Thou shalt not kill," "whoso sheddeth man's blood by man shall his blood be shed." The law of the State, in this respect, is but a transcript of the Divine law. The penalty which it affixes to murder in the first degree is death.

On the morning of the fatal deed you left your home armed with a dagger -an instrument of death. After spending the day in idleness and dissipation, you and your companions entered the car of which the deceased, John A. Obey, was conductor. While there your conduct was such as to offend your fellow-passengers and endanger their personal safety. Mr. Obey, in the mildest and most courteous manner, admonished you that there were ladies in the car, and entreated you to behave. His admonitions and entreaties were treated with worse than contempt. When, in the discharge of a duty which he owed to helpless women and children depending on him for protection from insult and injury, he attempted to remove you from the car, you drew the dagger and shed his blood.

Although the work of death occupied but a short time, the manner in

which it was executed, and the way in which you concealed the dagger under the cushion of the car, must have satisfied the jury that you knew full well, all the while, what you were doing-that the act was a willful, deliberate and premeditated murder. When the verdict was rendered it met the approbation of every member of the court then present, including the learned judge who assisted in the trial, and whose commission has since expired. A careful revision of the testimony and charge of the court since by Judges Mellon and Stowe, as well as myself, satisfied us all that the verdict should not be disturbed. We can see no just or legal exception to any of the proceedings. Under the law and the evidence before them, the jury could not conscientiously find any other verdict.

The penalty attached to the verdict is a fearful one, but the crime is equally so. A young man in the bloom of life, kind and courteous, honored and beloved by all who knew him, is hurried from time into eternity, by your hand. While he is thus suddenly summoned to the bar of God, the law considerately and mercifully affords you time and space for repentance. While a vindication of offended justice may consign you to a premature grave, your sad fate should be an awful warning to those who make an improper use of deadly weapons, and too lightly esteem human life.

Do not permit yourself to be flattered by the hope that the sword of justice may be averted. There is nothing in your case, as it appears to us, that should reasonably justify any such hope. We would, therefore, kindly entreat you to make a wise and diligent use of your allotted time in preparing for that great change which awaits you and all of us. Kind and sympathizing Christian friends will esteem it a privilege to visit you, aid and assist you by their counsel and advice and point you "to the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”

It is indeed with unfeigned sadness that we now approach the discharge of the last and most painful official duty connected with your trial. As the humble ministers of the law, it is our duty to pronounce the dread sentence it has affixed to the crime of which you stand convicted-a duty from which we cannot shrink, however unpleasant it may be.

The sentence of the law is that you, Thomas B. Keenan, the prisoner at the bar, be taken hence to the jail of the county of Allegheny, whence you came, and thence to the place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck until you be dead; and may God in His infinite wisdom have mercy on your soul.

The prisoner received his sentence with remarkable calmness until the court reached that part of its remarks where he was told not to hope for mercy. At this point his lips quivered and tears glistened in his eyes, but he still stood straight and erect in the box and, all things considered, bore himself with great composure. After the sentence he lingered a moment or two in the court room in conversation with his counsel, and then with elastic step walked back to the jail. The scene was altogether a most impressive one, and brought tears to the eyes of many of the spectators. There was not a single friend or relative, that we could see, of the prisoner present, and notwithstanding that the blood of a fellow being was on his hands, and the mark of Cain upon his forehead, his position, so sad and desolate, created for him considerable sympathy.

JOSEPH K. EMMET.

OW many of the readers of this volume will vividly recall Jos. K. Emmet,

the versatile comedian in the German dialect, in his popular play of "Fritz, Our German Cousin." His singing and acting at once put him in the forefront and he soon piled up a fortune. His songs included "Sauer Kraut Bully," "Kaiser's Dog," and "I Got Bologna."

The play sketched his first appearance to sing in New York, when the manager engaged him at $4 per week. Fritz immediately asked the manager "if he had enlargement of the heart," and further exclaimed he didn't think there was that much money in the whole world.

Mebbe you will be interested in his song, "Kaiser's Dog," as I recall part of it.

As I dook a lemonade de unner day

At a blace vots ofer de vay,

A veller came in and took a glass of gin,
Und undo me did say,

"Kaiser, don't you vant to buy a dog?

He'll make good sausage meat;

He's as lighd as a fairy and aintd very hairy,
Und he's only got dree little feet."

CHORUS.

Oh, didn't dat dog look sweedt,

Mid his stumpy tail and only dree feet?

I told him to go out mit dat dog;

Said he would when he got an egg nog.

But as he vent troo de door

He loudly did roar, saying

"Kaiser, don'd you vant to buy a dog?"

I followed him; I cannot told you vy;
Und I hit him in de mouf and in de eye,

When a policeman made a start

And took dot veller's part;

Saying for dot I should die, ah!

He didn't take me home off der door,

But righd to the jail, do you see?
And mit de poodle in his arm,
He looked shust like a charm,
Und he wag his stumpy tail at me.

CHORUS.

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