The Mooreland Leader. (Mooreland, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, October 4, 1907 Page: 4 of 8
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y:
MOORELAND LEADER
By Omar Schnocbelcn.
MOORELAND,
OKLA.
Youthful Criminals.
Two-thirds of the convicts In Ameri-
ca's greatest prison (the Missouri
penitentiary at Jefferson City) are
men without trade or profession. Look
Into any state penitentiary, and you
will ordinarily find that at least one-
third of the convicts there confined
are young men, ranging In age from 18
to 25 years, and that nearly all of
these came into prison absolutely
without the knowledge of any useful
and gainful occupation. Comparative-
ly few of the younger class of felons
are illiterate. In my own experience,
writes Thomas Speed Mosby, Missou-
ri state pardon attorney, In Success
Magazine, I have never met one who
could not read and write, and very
many (by far the greater number, I
should say) are possessed of no small
degree of Intelligence. But, however
stupid or however precocious, tfiey
are found to be, scarcely without ex-
ception, young men who have not ap-
plied themselves to useful, honest
work. This is true of both the poor
and the well-to-do. Why are they
there? The answer is given by Gus-
tave Marx, one of the Chicago "car
barn" bandits, who recently died upon
the gallows: "It wasn't drink that
caused my downfall," he said; "not
cigarettes, nor bad companions, either.
It was just idleness. Idleness led me
flrBt to cigarettes, then to drink, then
to bad companions—then to the gal-
lows. And I blame my folks. If they
had made me remain at work, work
would have kept me too busy to have
planned robbery and murder." This
is the story that fits them all. First,
idleness; then cigarettes and drink, to
blunt the moral sense and destroy the
will; then living beyond one's means;
then indulging the riotous excessos
that spell debauchery and make for
ruin. And may they not rightly blame
their "folks," as did Gustave Marx?
A
m
C ^jrUljacDDiiias _
^ Sconv/c#r./soi or ametwfluff cawmr
Society Music.
Mar/ will have to be asked to play
w'hen she goes out in societj* A proud
mamma will attend to that. And Mary
will play, with faithful accuracy, some
thing from Chopin or Beethoven or
Mendelssohn, and the young people
will watch her chubby fingers thought-
fully and wonder when the selection
will come to an end, writes Cynthia
Westover Alden in Success Magazine.
They will applaud, too—when the end
Mb reached—for that is good manners,
and everybody likes Mary anyhow.
And then—well, Lucy^ Smith, who has
never taken lessons, will rollick up to
the piano and begin a "coon song,"
hands and feet will beat time all over
the room, half the listeners will hum
the refrain; everybody will see the
difference between the piano as a pen-
ance and as a pleasure, and only
Mary's mamma will make unpleasant
side remarks about the degeneracy of
popular taste in music.
One of the great electric manufac-
turing companies reports gross earn
Ings for the year covered by the
statistics at over $33,000,000, with
profits of $4,179,000. This is the elec
trie age for sure, and the experience of
this one concern is probably matched
by that of others. The demand for
electrical appliances in every form
was never greater, nor is there any
indication of subsidence. An interest
ing accompaniment of this report of
earnings is the government statement
of copper production, from which it
appears that the output of the metal
for 1906 was 906,591,000 pounds, or
18,000,000 pounds in excess of the
amount in 1905. Production and con-
sumption of copper are intimately re-
lated to electrical development, and
this country Is foremost in both re-
spects.
Numerous inscriptions in Latin were
cut on the new building for the depart-
ment of agriculture in Washington.
The head of the department discov
ered the other day that some of them
are In bad Latin, and ordered them all
erased and recut in plain English.
There is no better reason f6r inscrib-
ing American public buildings with
Latin than there would have been foi
putting inscriptions in Greek or Sans
krit on the public buildings in ancient
Rome. The theory that there is pe-
culiar virtue in a foreign tongue is
widely held. It goes so far as to lead
to the singing of French iranslations
of German and Italian operas in Amer
lean opera houses, translations mad^
at the demand of music-loving French
men. who Insist that they shall under-
stand the language sung to them.
CHAPTER VIII.—Continued.
"Jim, you gave me an awful scare,"
he said brokenly. "Don't ever do It
again. I have little left to live for.
To be sure I have some feeling for
mother, Fred, and sisters. But for you
I have a love second only to that I
should have felt for Beulah had I been
allowed to have her. The thought,
Jim, that I had wrecked your life,
with all you have to live for, would
have been the last straw. My life is
purgatory. Beulah is only an ever-
present Curse to me—a ghost that
rends my heart and soul, one minute
with a blind frenzy to revenge her
wrongs,"the next with an icy remorse
that I have not already done so. If
I did not have her, perhaps in time
I could forget; perhaps I might lay
out some scheme to help poor devils
whose poverty makes life unendur-
able, and with the millions I have
taken from the main shaft of hell I
might do things that would at least
bring quiet to ray soul; but It Is im-
possible with the living corpse of
Beulah Sands before me every minute
and that devil machinery whirling in
my brain all the timeu the song, 'Re-
venge her and her father, revenge
yourself.' It is Impossible to give it
up, Jim. I must have revenge. I must
stop this machinery that is smashing
up more American hearts and souls
each year than all the rest of earth s
grinders combined. Every day I de-
lay I become more fiendish In my de-
sires. Jim, don't think I do not know
that I have literally turned into a
fiend. Whenever of late I see myself
in the mirror, I shudder. When I
think of what I was when your father
stood us up In his office and started
us in this heart-shrivelling, soul-cal-
lousing business, and what I am now,
I cannot keep the madness down 'ex-
cept with rum. You know what it
means for me to say this, me who
started with all the pride of a Brown-
ley; but It is so, Jim. The other night
I went home with my soul frozen with
thoughts of the past and with my
brain ablaze with rum, intending to
end it all. I got out my revolver, and
woke Beulah, but as I said, 'Bob is
going to kill Beulah and himself,' she
laughed that sweet child's laugh and
clapping her hands said, 'Bob is so
good to play with Beulah,' and then
I thought of that devil Reinhart and
the other fiends of the 'System' be-
ing left to continue their work unhin-
dered and I could not do it. I must
have revenge; I must smash that
heart-crushing machinery. Then I
can go, and take Beulah with me.
Now. Jim, let us have it clearly under-
stood once and for. all."
Remorse and softness were past;
he was the Indian again. "I am going
to wreck that hell-annex some day,
and that some day will be the next
time I start In. Don't argue with me,
don't misunderstand me. To-day you
stopped me. I don't know whether
you meant what you threatened; I
don't care now. It Is just as well that
I stopped, for the 'System's' machine
will be there whenever I start In
again. It loses nothing of its fiend-
ishness, none of its destructive powers
by grinding, but on the contrary, as
you know, it increases its speed every
day it runs. Now, Jim Randolph, I
want to tell you that you must get
yours and the house's affairs in such
shape that you won't be hurt when I
go Into that human rat-pit the next
time, for when 1 come from it the
New York Stock Exchange and the
'System' will have had their spines
unjointed. Yes, and I'll have their
hearts out, too. Neither will ever be
able to take from the American people
their savings and their manhood and
womanhood and give them in ex-
change unadulterated torment I am
going to be fair with you, Jim; this
is the last time I will discuss the sub-
ject. After this you must take your
chan& 'vith the rest of those who
have to '<> with the cursed business.
When I &irike again, none will be
spared. I will wreck 'the Street,' and
the innocent will go down with the
guilty, if they have any stocks on
hand at that time.
"My power, Jim, is unlimited; noth-
ing can stay. it. I am not going to
explain any further. You have seen
me work. You must know that my
power is greater than the 'System's,'
and you and I and 'the Street' have al-
ways known that the 'System' is more
powerful than the government, more
powerful than are the courts, legisla-
tures. congress, and the president of
the United States combined, that it
absolutely controls the foundation on
which they rest—the money of the
aation. But my power is greater, a
thousand, yes, a million times greater
than theirs. Jim, they say that I have
made more money than any man in
the world. They say that I have five
hundred millions of dollars, but the
fools don't keep track of my move-
ments. They only know that I have
pulled five hundred millions from my
open whirls, the ones they have had
an opportunity to keep tab on. But I
tell you that I have made even more
in my secret deals than the amount
they have seen me take. I have had
my agents with my capital in every
deal, every steal the 'System' has
rigged up. The world has been throw-
ing up its hands in horror because
Carnegie, the blacksmith of Pittsburg,
pulled off three hundred millions of
swag in the Steel hold-up—yes, swag,
Jim. Don't scowl as though you want-
ed to read me a lecture on the coarse-
ness of my language. I have learned
to call this game of ours by its right
name. It is not business enterprise
with earned profits as results, but
Shortly after this talk Bob left for
Europe with Beulah. A great Ger-
man expert on brain disorders had
held out hope that a six month's treat-
ment at his sanitarium in Berlin
might aid in restoring her mind. They
returned the following August. The
trip had been fruitless. It was plain
to me that Bob was the same hope-
lessly desperate man as when he left,
more .hopeless, more desperate if any-
thing" than when he warned me of his
determination.
When he left for Europe "the
Street" breathed more freely, and as
time went by and there was no sign
of his confidence-disturbing influence
In the market, the "System" began
to bring out its deferred deals. Times
were ripe for setting up the most
wildly inflated stock lamb-shearing
traps. It had been advertised through-
out the world that Tom Reinhart, now
a two-hundred-time millionaire, was to
consolidate his and many other enter-
prises into one gigantic trust with
twejve billions of capital. His Union
and Southern Pacific railroads, his
Southern lines, together with his
steamship company and lead, iron,
and copper mines, were to be merged
with the steel, traction, gas, and other
enterprises he owned jointly with
"Standard Oil." Some of the railroads
owned by Rockefeller and his pals, in
which Reinhart had no part, were to
go in too, and with these was to unite
that mother hog of them all, "Stand-
ard Oil" itself. The trust was to be
an enormous company, the like of
which had until then not even been
dreamed of by the most daring stock
manipulators. The "System's" banks,
7
the Stock Exchange or "the Street"
Shortly after the listing of the "Peo-
ple Be Damned," as "the Street" had
dubbed the new trust, he began to
show up <\t his office regularly. Thia
was the condition of affairs when
Fred Brownley called me up on the
telephone, as I related at the begin-
ning of my story which I did not real-
ize I had been so long in telling.
My thoughts had been chasing each
other with lightning-like rapidity back
over the last five years and the 15 be-
fore them, and each thought deepened
the black mist over my present men-
tal vision. In the midst of my re-
flections my telephone rang again.
"Mr. Randolph, for Heaven's Bake
have you done nothing yet?" It waa
Fred Brownley's voice. "Things Are
frightful here. Bob's brokers are sell-
ing stocks at five and ten thousand-
lot clips. Barry Conant is leading:
Reinhart's forces. It Is said he has
the pool's protection order in Anti-
People's and that it is unlimited, but
Bob has the Reinhart crowd pretty-
badly scared. Swan has just finished
giving Conant a hundred thousand off
the reel in 10,000 lots, and he told
me a moment ago he was going to
get Bob himself to face Barry Conant.
They're down 20 points on the aver-
age, although they haven't let Anti-
People's break an eighth yet. They
have it pegged at 106, but there is.au
ugly rumor just In that Bob, under
cover of a general attack, is unloading
Anti-People's on to the Reinhart wing
for Rogers and Rockefeller, and the
rumor is getting in its work. Even
Barry Conant is growing a bit anx-
ious. The latest talk is that Reinhart
is borrowing hundreds of millions oik
Anti-People's, and that his loans are
being called in all directions. Do you
know Reinhart is at his place in Vir-
ginia and cannot get here before to-
morrow night? If Bob breaks through
Anti-People's peg, it will be the worst
crash yet."
(TO BE CONTINUED.)
DIDN'T THINK jHELP NEEDED.
Simple iFsherman Had Heard of the
Wonders of Science.
H. G. Weils, the novelist, spoke at a.
Boston club about the wonders of
modern Invention. "So thick and fast,"
he said, "these new inventions come,
life grows rather confusing for plain
and simple folk. There was an old
fisherman-rowing In his boat one day-
when an automobile canoe sprung a
teak near him and immediately sank.
To the indignation of the eanoe's oc-
cupants, the old man paid no heed to
them, but rowed calmly on his way,
puffing an old clay pipe. However, the
wrecked canoeists managed to swim to
him, and as they clambered into his
boat one spluttered angrily: 'Confannd
you, why didn't you lend us « hand?
Didn't you see we were sinking?' The
old man took his pipe out of his mouth
and stared at them in astonishment.
•Blest if I didn't think ye wuz one o*
them new-fangled submarines,' he
said."
"When I Strike In Again, Don't Attempt to Stay Me, for It Will Do No
Good."
pulled-off tricks with bags of loot-
black-jack swag—for their end.
"I got away with three hundred mil-
lions when Steel slumped from 105 to
50 and from 50 to 8, and no one knew
I'd made a dollar. You and 'the
Street' read every morning last year
the 'guesses' as . to who could be
rounding up hundreds of millions on
the slump. The papers and the mar-
ket letters one morning said it was
Standard Oil; the next, that It was
Morgan; then it was Frlck, Schwab,
Gates, and so on down through the
list. Of course, none of them denied;
it is capital to all these knights of the
road to be making millions In the
minds of the world, even though they
^iever get any of the money. Dick
Turpin and Jonathan Wild never
were fonder of having the daring
hold up that other highwaymen per-
petrated laid to their doors, than are
these modern bandits of being credit-
ed with ruthless deeds, that they did
not commit. But Jim, 'twas I who
sold Pennsylvania every morning for
a year, while the selling was explain-
ed by the press as 'Cassatt cutting
down Gould's telegraph poles. Gould
and old man Rockefeller selling Penn-
sylvania to get even.' Jim Randolph,
I have to-day a billion dollars, not the
Rockefeller or Carnegie kind, but a
real billion. If I had no other power
l ut the power to call to-morrow for
that billion in cash, it would be suffi-
cient to lay in waste the financial
world before to-morrow night. You
are welcome, Jim. to any part of that
billion, and the more you take the
happier you will make me, but when
I strike in again, don't attempt to stay
me, for it will do no good."
as well as trust and insurance com-
panies throughout the country, had
for a long time been getting into
shape by concentrating the money of
the country for this monster trust.
It was newspaper and news bureau
gossip that Reinhart and his crowd
had bought millions of shares of the
different stocks involved in the deal,
and it was common knowledge that
upon its successful completion Rein-
hart's fortune would be in the neigh-
borhood of a billion. On October 1st
the certificate of the Anti-People's
Trust, $12,000,000,000 capital, 120,000,-
000 shares, were listed upon the New
York, London, and Boston Stock Ex-
changes, and the German and French
Bourses, and trading in them started
off fast and furious at 106. The claim
that one billion of the twelve billions
capital had been set aside to oe used
in protecting and manipulating the
stock in the market, had been so wide-
ly advertised that even the most dar-
ing plunger did not think of selling it
short
It was evident to all in the stock-
gambling world that this was to be
the "System's" grand coup, that at
its completion the masses would be
rudely awakened to a realization that
their savings were Invested in the
combined American industries at vast-
ly inflated values, that the few had
all the real money, and that any at-
tempt upon the people's part to regu
late and eontro1 the new system of
robbery, would be fraught with un-
paralleled disaster—not to the "Sys-
tem." but to the people.
Since Bob's return from Europe I
had seen him but a few times. Up
to October 1st he had not been near
Extravagance in Dress.
Very few persons outside of the
glittering circle of our enormously
rich families, who constitute what la
referred to as "the best society," tan
understand how any young womaa In
this or any other country can spend
upon her wardrobe such vast amouata
of money as are expended by the
daughters of some of these families.
The history of the world does not
show such reckless extravagance In
the way of dress. Nor, for the mat-
ter of that, does the history «f the
world show so riotous a use of money
as that practiced by our very riuh in
their strictly _ sooial divertisemeats.
Happy is the lot of the man or wom-
an who is not tempted to such foolish
indulgences, which take the edge from
life's real joy!
Good Enough for the Dog.
Bobby's mother was often distressed
by her small son's lapses from correct
speech, all the more because bis re-
ports from school were always ao
good. "Bobby," she said, plaintively,
one day, "why do you keep teiltng
Major to 'set up' when you know 'sit
up' is what you should say?" "Oh,
well, mother," Bobby answered hasti-
ly, "of course I have lots of granurxw.
but I don't like to waste it oa Major
when he doesn't know the difference,
being a dog."—Youth's Companion.
Good at Figures.
A lawyer In a seaport towa adver-
tised for an office boy. A lad applied
for the situation who had hitherto
been employed in the local fish mar-
ket. The boy, on being asked if he
was a good writer, answered la the
affirmative. "And can yoa do men-
tal arithmetic?" "I think sc, sir."
"Well, what would 36 pounds cf sal-
mon at one-half-cent a pound be?"
"Bad, sir," was the quick reply.
•Twas Ever Thus.
"I thought you called tip information
for the number," said he. "Why did
you quit and ring off?" "Information
had either dropped dead suddenly or
gone off to dinner with a friend," she
replied. "I waited and waited and
waited, and all I could hear was some
blooming phonograph playing away."
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The Mooreland Leader. (Mooreland, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 26, Ed. 1 Friday, October 4, 1907, newspaper, October 4, 1907; Mooreland, Oklahoma. (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc157704/m1/4/: accessed April 19, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.