THE TRUMP CARD, RICHARD CROKER, VANISHED RACE, EDWIN YAGER'S BIRTHDAY, AND BACK IN THE OLD PLACE

 

Cortland Evening Standard, Saturday, May 17, 1902.

THE TRUMP CARD.

The Effort to Call Out All the Soft Coal Miners.

THAT MIGHT DECIDE THE STRIKE.

Doubts, However, Whether These Miners Would Go Out on a Sympathetic Strike—Are Under Contract for a Year Still and Are Wholly Satisfied—National Convention May Be Called.

   Hazleton, Pa., May 17.—Hope that the 300,000 union bituminous miners of the country will consent to join the ranks of the 147,000 striking anthracite men in this state, is the rock upon which the leaders of the strike are building visions of victory today. It is a trump card. To affect it and thereby stop the wheels of industry of the entire country, shutting off totally their production of all coal, would probably mean ultimate success for the strikers. But to call out all the soft coal diggers at this time will, it is admitted, take heroic measures. The great army of bituminous men in Ohio, Western Pennsylvania and other middle western states, are now under contract for a year with their employers and for them to join the ranks of the anthracite men would mean the breaking of a yearly contract, which they secured after hard labor and which the anthracite men are now trying to affect for themselves.

   According to statements of Herman Justis, commissioner of the Illinois Coal Operators' association, who is here, the bituminous rank and file will not go out on strike even though a national convention should so order. Mr. Justis' position naturally would influence him to such belief, but he declared today that his expressed opinion was unbiased and was based solely upon his knowledge of the comparatively contented feeling prevailing among the bituminous miners of the West.

   President Mitchell refuses to discuss the probability or possibility of a sympathetic strike of soft coal men. When informed of Commissioner Justis' statements, he smiled and said, "I don't care to discuss it."

   No time nor place has yet been set for the proposed national convention, but it will likely be held at Indianapolis soon.

   If a general strike is ordered President Mitchell said today 449,000 mine employees will be affected.

   The situation this morning remains quiet. With the exception of about fifty men employed in washeries of the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western mines and the engineers, pumpmen and firemen in all collieries, the industry is entirely suspended.

   Later today it was learned that Cleveland is being favorably considered as the place for the national convention. It is considered a little more central than Indianapolis for both soft and hard coal miners.

 

TROUBLE HAS BEGUN.

Non-union Miners Driven Out with Clubs and Stones.

   Wilkesbarre, Pa., May 17.—The first outbreak of trouble occurred at Smithville, near here last night when 100 union foreign miners drove non-union men, operating a washery of the Erie Coal company from work. Clubs and stones were used. An Italian workman was seriously injured.

 

Richard Croker.

INTERVIEW WITH CROKER.

Says That He Has Ceased to Meddle In New York Politics.

   London, May 16.—Richard Croker began an interview concerning the affairs of the Tammany Society with an emphatic protest that he had ceased to meddle in New York politics. "Thirty-seven years of political fighting is enough for one life," he said, "and I am done with it, I tell you at once and for all. I am settled here to make the most of my remaining years and I am spinning them out as long as possible. I am not going to New York again this year. It will be a novelty to me to spend a year round in England. Of course I shall go to New York some time to see my friends, but never again to take part in politics."

   When asked about the Nixon affair, Mr. Croker said:

   "There is nothing to conceal. I am very sad that there should be such trouble in Tammany. I can only imagine that Nixon found the place too hard and was unable to lead the boys. I can conceive of no other reason for this step, which I did foresee and which I deeply deplore."

   "They say," said Mr. Croker's interviewer," that it is your fault, that you tried to boss the boss and that he would not stand it?"

    "There is not a word of truth in it," replied Mr. Croker, and he proceeded to explain that Robert A. Van Wyck's candidacy for the post of grand sachem in no way concerned the political organization of Tammany.

   Mr. Croker admitted the possibility that his views might have been misrepresented but he insisted that he had never authorized any one to say anything to encourage the revolt against Nixon or to make it difficult for Nixon to fulfill his duties.

   "It is monstrous to lay the blame of his abandonment of an office which he finds to be more than he can manage upon my shoulders," said Mr. Croker.

   In conclusion Mr. Croker expressed the hope that Nixon would return to office, but he declined any expression of opinion as to who was competent to replace him as leader, declaring: "They must find somebody who is able to keep the boys together. If they don't, everything is lost and they will succeed best if left to themselves."

 

PAGE FOUR—EDITORIAL.

A Vanished Race.

   The eruption of Soufriere volcano on the Island of St. Vincent, says the Utica Observer, added the finishing touches to a tragedy that has been enacting in the Caribbees for centuries. In a little valley near the slopes of Soufriere there lived the remnant of a once powerful tribe of Indians, the Caribs. When Columbus came to this country the Caribs dominated the north coast of South America and the islands skirting the Caribbean sea. They were a fierce and war like race of red Indians. In battle they were relentless and cruel, but with a kind of thrift associated with laziness they treated their prisoners well, making slaves of them and often marrying the women. In this way the race was constantly changing. It did not begin to deteriorate, however, until after the importation of African slaves, when there sprang up a race known as black Caribs.

   When the Spaniards conquered and occupied the Antilles they at first tried to enslave the Caribs. This they found impossible of accomplishment, so they began that other process, extermination. Gradually the Caribs yielded before the superior race, and in one island after another they disappeared. With them disappeared the picturesque nomenclature of the islands and in its place came the hideous style of designation so common to Spanish countries, with its confusing duplication of St. This and St. That. It was much the same in the islands occupied by the English. Long and bloody wars were fought and the Caribs, reduced to a mere handful, disappeared save in their last stronghold, the Island of St. Vincent. This island the Spaniards had not deemed worth the cost of conquest, and the English, when they took possession, gave the Caribs a small reservation in the mountains. Here they lived, and intermarried with fugitive slaves. But these black Caribs are said to have been nearer the original type than any other descendants of the race. There is a branch of the tribe in Honduras, but so degenerate is it that it is scarcely recognizable. Hence those black Caribs on the Island of St. Vincent may be regarded as practically the last of their race.

   Dispatches from Martinique inform us that of the 2,000 victims of Soufriere volcano, the majority are said to be Carib Indians. This means that the race has been practically exterminated, that it has vanished from the face of the earth. A people once feared by all who knew them, a tribe that dominated all the country 'round about, a race of free booters who drew their subsistence from whatever people crossed their path—they have faded and disappeared before as superior civilization. And it was a fitting end, too. They perished not by the hand of man or by the insidious inroads of disease, but in one of nature's greatest cataclysms. Grand and terrible was their fate. They yielded only to a force no mortal man could combat.

 

Judge Rowland Davis.

JOB ON THE ALDERMAN.

Associates Knew of His Birthday—He Had Forgotten all About It.

   Yesterday was Alderman Edwin M. Yager's 42nd birthday, and his fellow council men are glad that it was, in fact, they would not oppose a resolution giving the genial representative of the First ward two or more of these in one year, provided as good a time were promised upon each occasion as was furnished them yesterday. Alderman Yager was the victim of a well formed plan on the part of Mrs. Yager to give her husband and his associates on the [Cortland] city board a drive to Little York and return, with a chicken pie supper at the Raymond House.

   There assembled at the office of City Judge R. L. Davis, about 5 o'clock in the evening, Mayor Charles F. Brown, Alderman E. R. Wright, Geo. F. Richards, T. C. Scudder. R. S. Pettigrew, Vern W. Skeele, Mr. Davis and a Standard man. Mr. Yager, who, as is well known, is a liveryman, and had been asked by Judge Davis to come to his office with his three seated trap to take a party of gentlemen to Little York, urging that he, himself, should drive the rig. This was Mrs. Yager's plan.

   When the rig reached the office the party stepped out much to the alderman's surprise. "What does this mean?" he asked in astonishment.

   "Well, Ed," said the judge, "how old are you, anyhow?"

   This explained the situation, and the First ward representative tumbled forthwith.

   The day was glorious for a drive, and back of Mr. Yager's fine span of blacks the trip was most enjoyable for the city dignitaries. When beyond Homer a dense cloud of smoke was seen to rise from Mount Topping, and Alderman Skeele insisted that the famous peak was in a state of eruption. A closer examination, however, showed that fierce fire in the woods was causing the remarkable amount of smoke to rise.

   Little York was reached and supper at the Raymond House was ready, thanks again to Mrs. Yager's foresight. It was of course one of the chicken pie suppers for which the house is noted. And what a chicken pie supper it was! There was only one thing better than the chicken, and that was the delicious strawberry shortcake that Mrs. Raymond served after every blessed alderman, and the mayor too, had finished up two plates of chicken, Mr. Lucius Davis and Mr. Fred Hollister, who had driven to Little York ahead of the other party, joined in at the supper table, and they were not a bit slow there either.

   It was a quiet crowd that was visiting the lake, but somehow D. T. Bodish, the popular merchant of Little York, got wind of the personal of the party, and a box of fine cigars was at the disposal of the officials when they had completed supper. The lake enticed all to the shore, and some of the crowd went out on its surface in row boats. The cottages of Dr. E. M. Santee and Jas. A. Wood of this city were visited.

   At twilight the return trip was made, but the springs to the trap, that in going up had stood wide apart, now jolted together and seemed strained under the greater weight. Perhaps that good supper had a great deal to do with the way they acted. Cortland was reached at 9 o'clock.

   After supper in Little York, Judge Davis in well framed phrases, presented Alderman Yager on behalf of the gentlemen of the party with a set of eight volumes of the work of Victor Hugo, which were received by Mr. Yager with words of surprise and satisfaction.

 

Conservatory Recital.

   The following is the program for the weekly recital at the Conservatory of Music:

   Vocal Duet—I Waited for the Lord, Mendelsohn

   Misses Pearson and Hubbard.

   (Miss Tickner.)

   Piano—In Summer, Severin

   Miss Suzanne McGraw.

   Oratory—Prodigal Son, Mrs. Edith Łatimer

   Vocal—Mighty lak' a Rose, Nevin

   Miss Rema Reckhan.

   (Mr. Wellman.)

   Violin—Andanted Finale (Concerto in E Minor, Mendelssohn

   Miss Addie Rynders.

   Vocal—Absent, Metcalf

   Miss Mabel Collins.

   (Miss Tickner.)

   Caprice de Concert for Two Pianos, Remand

   Misses Rynders, O'Connell, McConnell, and Collins.

 

Notice "Singer" sign posted on Standard building at street level just above the horse drawn streetcar. The Singer Sewing Machine office was on the second floor just above the sign.

Back in the Old Place.

   Mr. C. W. Lyman has resumed the management of the local office of the Singer Sewing Machine company. Mr. Charles Garrity, who has had charge of the office, is going to Seneca Falls, N. Y.

 

BREVITIES.

   —About thirty members of the Agonian fraternity of the Normal school are enjoying a trip to Little York lake today.

   —The funeral services of Mrs. Charles Sprague, who died at her home in Blodgett Mills yesterday, will be held from the house at 1:30 o'clock tomorrow afternoon. Interment at McGraw.

   —The funeral of Mrs. Margaret L. Flanagan, who died at her home, 9 Hubbard-st., at noon yesterday, will be held from the residence at 7:45 o'clock Monday morning and at St. Mary's church at 8:15.

   —New display advertisements today are—Smith & Beaudry, Cleveland Bicycles, page 5; Gas Light Co., Gas Ranges, page 7; C. F. Thompson, Butter, page 6; C. F. Brown, Dandruff cure, page 6; Corner Grocery, Grape fruit, etc., page 6; Carriage Goods Co., Coaster brake, page 6.