1900. 
-457 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—Fire in the repair shops of the Inter- 
Metropolitan ear lines at Second avenue and 129th street, 
New York, April 7, caused a loss of $100,000. 
Renters of land in southern Indiana are notifying land¬ 
lords that they will not work land on shares this season 
and investigation shows that many of them have been 
notified that if they till land for less than two-thirds of 
the crop their crops will be destroyed. An organization 
has been formed in Pike and other counties on the 
plan of the night riders and all renters have been noti¬ 
fied that the payment of one-half of the crops to land¬ 
lords will be followed by personal harm and the destruc¬ 
tion of crops. Landowners have refused to rent for less 
than half crops, and many of the largest farms in Pike, 
Perry and other counties are without tenants. 
Terrific gales extended over a wide area April 7. At Pitt's- 
biirg, Pa., it exceeded any gale previously recorded and 
caused damage estimated at $1,000,000. In Indiana much 
property was destroyed, people badly injured and live 
stock killed. In Noble County a house was blown over and 
set on fire, one man being pinned under the wreck and 
burnt to death. The damage throughout Indiana was put 
at $500,000. In northern Mississippi a tornado killed 10 
persons and wrecked much property. At Toledo, O., sev¬ 
eral persons were injured and there was a heavy property 
loss.An ice jam at Niagara Falls, April 9, 
caused the water to rise, blocking traffic, destroying poles, 
wires, docks and other property.Ethan Allen 
Hitchcock, for more than eight years Secretary of the 
Interior in the administrations of McKinley and Roose¬ 
velt, died at Washington April 9. Mr. Hitchcock was the 
great-grandson of the famous Ethan Allen of Vermont. 
That he had inherited the fighting blood of his ancestor 
was shown pretty conclusively during his eight years as a 
Cabinet officer, for a large part of the time he was fight¬ 
ing attempts backed by powerful politicians to grab land 
from the Government. lie fought these so successfully 
that one of the men whose indictment he secured was a 
T’nited States Senator, and land rings in different parts of 
the country were smashed. lie was born in Mobile, Ala., 
September 19, 1835. He finished his education at a mili¬ 
tary school at New Ilaven, Conn., and then went with his 
father to St. Louis to take up business. For a number 
of years he was a member of a commission firm in that 
city engaged in trading with China, and Mr. Hitchcock 
spent some years in that country and in Europe. When 
he returned, in 1874, he became interested in the develop¬ 
ment of several railroads and mining companies and was 
one of the leading business men of Missouri when Presi¬ 
dent McKinley appointed him Minister to Russia in 
1897. . . . Ten tons of powder, left over from the 
Spanish-American war, exploded at Wayne, N. .1., April 9, 
at the big plant of the Du I’ont de Nemours Powder Com¬ 
pany, killing one man, injuring several, badly damaging 
many houses in Wayne, whose windows and doors were 
blown in, and shattering the windows, doors, and parts of 
the ceiling of hundreds of other homes within a radius of 
several miles. The powder plant, one of the largest en¬ 
gaged in the manufacture of black powder in this country, 
was damaged to the extent of $200,000 or more, and the 
total property loss is estimated by the mill men at about 
$250,000. There were many marvelous escapes among 
the workers at the plant.Gov. Charles N. 
Haskell and the six other well-known Oklahomans who 
were indicted by the Federal Grand Jury on a charge of 
fraud in acquiring Muskogee town lots will not have to 
stand trial. The motion of the defendants to quash the 
indictments was upheld at Tulsa, Okla., April 10, by Judge 
John A. Marshall, of Utah, in the United States Circuit 
Court. Attorneys for the accused men say the statute of 
limitations will intervene to prevent the return of new 
indictments.When the new law goes into 
effect on June 11 no woman can enter any saloon in 
Washington State. A section of the new Criminal Code 
just adopted makes it a misdemeanor for any saloon or 
music hall to permit any woman to enter such place or 
give her any intoxicating liquor. Intoxicated persons and 
felons are also excluded.As the result of an 
outbreak of glanders at the Hillside Park Menagerie, Nut- 
ley, N. J., five lions ^and a jaguar, all valued at $8,000, 
have been put to death, among them Bon, the big Barbary 
lion, which alone was valued at $3,000. Four of the 
lions killed were cubs. Ben and two cubs and the jaguar 
were put to death by Dr. Fred. C. Artopeous, a veterinary 
of Bloomfield, who used potassium cyanide, except in the 
case of the jaguar, which, had to be shot. 
Eire at Lenox, Mass., April 11, killed six persons. The 
property destroyed included the Clifford Building, the Eddy 
block, the William T. Bull block and the Mabanna block, 
all in Main stret. The property loss is estimated at 
$200,000, and 12 families are homeless. All the dead were 
tenants of the Clifford Building, a three-story wooden 
structure, the ground floor of winch was used for business 
and the upper floors for a furniture warehouse and apart¬ 
ments.April 8-12 a blizzard raged in the 
Colorado mountains, the temperature al Cripple Creek fall¬ 
ing to six below zero. Trains were stalled and railroad 
traffic stopped.Fire at Rochester, N. V., April 
13, burned three business blocks, 40 residences, and two 
churches; loss $500,000.Fire at Hope Valley, 
R. I., April 13, practically destroyed the industries of the 
village. The damage, amounting to $200,000, was chiefly 
in the big plant of the Nichols & Langworthy. Machine Com¬ 
pany.April 12 was one of the coldest nights 
of the season in the Canadian Northwest, the temperature 
going 14 below zero in Saskatchewan, with heavy snow in 
many places.Following an investigation 
which has extended over a month Government officers 
April 12 raided an oleomargarine plant at South Bend, 
Ind., and confiscated 2,500 pounds of alleged bogus butter 
and arrested the three owners. It is charged that the 
plant lias been in operation 13 months and in that time- 
has defrauded the Government out of $30,000. William 
Hanna Way, of Chicago, and William Roe and Fred. Teet- 
zel, of South Bend, were owners of the plant. . . . Fire 
at Pembroke, Ont., April 11, destroyed a business block and 
other buildings: loss $100,000. . . . Petitions were 
denied by tHe Supreme Court at Washington April 12 for 
rehearings in the three cases involving the ousting of the 
Waters-Pierce Oil Company from Texas and imposing fines 
aggregating $1,000,000 for violations of the antitrust 
laws of that State. The decisions in these cases in favor 
of the state were handl'd down nearly two months ago 
and the denials of the petitions mark the closing of the 
litigation. __ 
THE DIRECT NOMINATIONS BILL. 
I was sorry to find that you are lukewarm in your advo¬ 
cacy of Gov. Hughes’ direct primary bill. It. will give 
comfort to the opponents of the measure and help to 
postpone the day when the people will govern themselves. 
The bill may not be perfect, but it is the first time the 
people have had a chance to declare their purpose to be 
emancipated from the rule of a few men. It may be a 
long time before we have such a leader as tin 1 present 
Governor again, and it behooves us to stand by him in 
his efforts to do something even though it may not be the 
ideal. No doubt Gov. Hughes would be the first to agree 
to something better, but it is but fair to suppose that 
the measure is as radical as the people are ready for. 
It might as well be admitted that the proposed measure 
will not ensure good government ; its purpose is to give 
the people a chance to govern themselves if they will. If 
the majority are indifferent or corrupt we shall con¬ 
tinue to have bad officials under the, Hinman bill or any 
other. Your proposition to nominate by petition would 
be as open to misuse as any other. The thing we need is 
a chance for the humblest citizen to go to the polls and 
count for something; everything else will follow. 
Gov. Hughes champions the cause of the people; the 
politicians are trying to sneer him out of court. Shall 
we let them do it? It is not the Governor’s fight; it is 
the people’s. The “bosses” care little for the people. 
They think they can hoodwink them most of the time. 
They have taken advantage of the lukewarmness of the 
people regarding direct nominations to make an open fight 
upon Gov. Hughes, the most dangerous antagonist they 
have ever met in the Governor’s chair. They hope to “do 
him up” and clear the way for the future. Shall they be 
allowed to do it? Let us smash the ring that is in 
politics for “revenue only” and do it now. Minor objec¬ 
tions should l)e left out. 
This we know, at present, the rank and file of the 
voters count for nothing in the caucus. The coherency of 
party voters is such that the caucus rules. The greatest 
fault I find with Gov. Hughes is that he seems to over¬ 
estimate the value of the party organization, it is this 
cry of party loyalty that has enabled the manipulators of 
caucuses to hold a dissatisfied majority in line on election 
day They will not be as successful in the future. If we 
must remain slaves to the caucus system we can at 
least register a protest on election day. The salvation of 
parties seems to me to depend upon reform in the caucus 
system, such as Gov. Hughes proposes. I hope Tub TL- 
N. Y. will be wholeheartedly on the right side in the fight, 
which has not yet begun. a. c. hill. . 
Albany Co., N. Y. 
R. N.-Y.—Does Mr. Hill expect The R. N.-l\ to go to 
boiling heat over a fire made of green wood? He will 
admit that this paper has during the past year done as 
much for the direct nomination principle as any other 
paper in the State. We have made a careful study of the 
plan as worked out in Western and Southern States. In 
order to do this we went to our readers—thousands of 
whom helped enact these laws and have voted under them. 
We have paid most attention to the opinions of country 
people, because the farmers of New York are most in need 
of a strong primary law. We shall never have direct 
nominations in New York until the farmers and country 
people are willing to fight for the principle. Now the 
unanimous opinion from tin 1 West and South seems to be 
that nomination by petition is safest and best. You will 
find little or no desire to change from this method to any 
such plan as the one suggested by Gov. Hughes. The 
entire scheme of success in breaking the rule of the bosses 
is based upon the plan of getting away from the con¬ 
vention system of nominating or any imitation of it. 
The plan of nominating by political committees is regarded 
as an imitation of the convention method. Thousands 
of people support the_bill because they believe in Gov. 
Hughes and recognize"the fact that in any contest with 
the politicians he deserves their support. If you can get 
tin' sober judgment of those same people most of them 
will tell you that any scheme which gives the preference 
to political committees will fail in its purpose and must, 
sooner or later, be changed. 
We had our experience with Gov. Hughes over the 
famous cattle case. We felt all through the controversy 
that he meant to do exact justice, but he did not realize 
the feeling among the farmers. Some thousands of farm¬ 
ers proceeded to set him right. He now admits that he 
was wrong in the position he took regarding this case. 
It is our belief that the Governor will, after fuller study 
of the situation, find that his direct nominations bill 
must be changed. We believe that the country people will 
convince him that his political committee plan is not t lie 
best and that he must cut entirely away from the politi¬ 
cians with a radical plan. That is the history of this 
movement in every State where direct nominations have 
been made legal. It might be popular at this time to ad¬ 
vocate the present bill because Gov. Hughes says- it is 
right. We shall not do so, because we do not think it 
is the best bill, and because we do not believe the farmers 
of New York should follow any man blindly or believe 
his judgment is infallible. We assure- our correspondent 
that “The R. N.-Y. will be wholeheartedly on the right 
side in the fight.” His letter shows that he feels much 
as we do about if. If, instead of urging a Hot fight for 
a measure to ■which he must tack an apology he would jojn 
us in calling for a bill which will require no apology 
whatever there could be no question about the “right 
side.” 
LEGAL MATTERS. 
Rebate for Wide Tired Wagons. 
My attention lias been called to a paragraph in your 
issue of April 3, 1909, in reference to a rebate allowed on 
highway taxes for the use of wide tires pursuant to chapter 
468 of the laws of 1893. This is not now a law. The pro¬ 
vision of law mentioned was amended by chapter 324 of 
the laws of 1904, providing, that no such rebate should be 
allowed in a county where the board of supervisors have 
enacted a law forbidding the use of wagons on a highway 
having tires less than three inches in width. This provi¬ 
sion as well as the former was specially repealed by the 
new highway law enacted by the Legislature in 1908 
(Laws 1908, chapter 330, section 318), and all of these 
provisions have been specifically repealed by the high¬ 
way law enacted as part of the Consolidated Laws at the 
present Legislature (Laws of 1909, chapter 30, section 
358). As the law now stands there is no rebate for the 
use of wagons with wide tires. Herbert l. smith. 
Attorney Onondaga Co., N. Y. 
Tenant’s Crop in Ohio. 
On page 397 reference is made to tin' law governing a 
crop put in by a tenant just before his lease expires. 
I append the Ohio rule as laid down by the Supreme Court 
in 1856 in the case of Foster vs. Robinson. 6 Ohio State 
Reports, page 90. “In case of a lease of farming lands,” 
whether by deed or in parole, from the first of April in 
one year to the first of April in the next year, the con¬ 
tract of lease being silent in respect to an outgoing crop, 
and containing nothing, either expressly or by fair impli¬ 
cation, to negative a customary right of the tenant to 
such crop, a general custom, established in the place where 
the parties reside and the demised premises are situate, 
giving to the tenant the right to the away-going crop, 
annexes such right, by way of incident, to the contract 
of lease.” The custom is well established in Ohio that 
tenant may sow a reasonable acreage and reap sarm- after 
expiration of lease. ralph it. rule. 
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