The Seattle Star Newspaper, September 19, 1919, Page 1

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\ OBS TRAIN HERE | MAIL CLERK BOUND AND GAGGED IN SEATTLE Tides in rRipay Serr. ae oy High Tite LA Seattle SATURDAY SEPT, 20 First Highs Tide VOLUME 22. NO. 175. ~ SEATTLE, WASH., FRI at Beattie, Wash, under the Act of Congress March 3 An American Paper That Fights for Americanism The Seattle Star Entered as econd Class Matter May 3, 1899, at the Postoffics 179 CENTS Late Edition Mail 9.00 Per Year, b $5.00 to y, SEPTEMB 19, 1919. $$ ‘Tonight and Saturday, showers: cooler; gentle southerly winds Weathe or F Forecast: JAPS REBUT. U REFUSE TO SAY WHEN THEY WILLD NE SPOT where the fisherman is happy. World’s work is daily becoming easier, but mother still has her troubles. One of the big sporting goods houses in Seattle has a fishing map that gives many a town-tired fish- erman a bit of quiet pleasure. ‘The big roller map is manipu- with a cord that is bung like Jatch string on the outside of the The fisherman comes caught that 19inch rainbow shows Up. and then for half an hour they fre lost to the world. Trout fishermen hang over this map during the noon hour and lose » themselves in the roar of faroff waters, the surge of the waist-high mountain streams, and the long green trails thru the forests. Sometimes the catch of some lucky angler ts spread on a big cake of ice in the doorway, and the atmosphere is perfect. Every year new highways reach out into the wilderness and old fishing haunts are spoiled. Even today real trout fishing means a journey on some branch line a hard mountain hike, but the Map. surrounded by dry flies, six- foot leaders, rods like little whips and fat creels bound in leather and brass, remains a breath of adven- ture in the heart of town. Happy is the true fisherman—it takes little to make him content, and he stays young, no matter how the rheumatic twinges remind him that ice cold mountain water is no longer for him. Every day the world’s work is done more easily. We have re- marked on this before, but it re- mains a perpetual marvel. Yesterday we saw several thou- wand feet of heavy timbers un- loaded in half a minute. A few years ago it would have taken a dozen men the better part of an hour, A fiveton truck snorted up to the curb, beside the excavation for a big’ down-town building. The driver released the chains that held the load in place, gently bumped the truck against the curb, the bed of the truck rose in the air and the entire load slid down the bank and crashed to the base ment floor. We don't know what a construc- tion engineer would think of that way of doing it—he might find a ew new strains and stresses in e big timbers after they made the high dive, but the ease and expedition with which big, heavy masses are picked up, whirled over the city for miles and placed where needed In a few minutes, is as sug- gestive of the new order as it is in teresting. A farmer with a tractor can do the work of six teams and three men, and do it better and more quickly One big truck will accomplish more than five men with teams. An aeroplane will do in minutes what an ox team did in days. And as man does more and more, he does it, on the one hand,, with {nereaging ease, and on the other in lene time, and with greater re ward. About the only laborer who does not benefit from the new mechan- feal reign is the housewife, and * ghe would if vacuum sweepers and eelctric irons and power washing machines and steam cookers were ‘as common as trucks and cranes and motors. But beeause no fixed amount is . charg@@ out for the work of the wives of the world, and because only chivairy feminine insist ce, necures these automatic home devices, they are usually seen only in @ store window. The mother in Israel doesn’t get @ square deal by half, A man isn’t necessarily smart be (cause he says some things that do. & " ROTTEN, THAT'S ALL bT Sevneyte Gh fs” or “ands” we arise to remark that telephone service in this man’s town is rotten. So accustomed to rotten service has Seattle become that it takes a truly odoriferous situation to arouse the dulled nostrils of the town, but the telephone company has finally managed to get most of the town talking about the absolute lack of anything re- sembling service that we have been experiencing. During the war the service was Abominable, but we were informed it was our patriotic duty to pay for service we didn’t get, and to keep still. Just why it was a duty to pay for something we didn’t get was not vouchsafed. After the war, when the company and its em- ployes squabbled, and service was absolutely nil, we were told that we would get rebates for lack of service. We got rebates, if we went after them hard enough—a 12 per cent rebate on a 100 per cent bill. Today the company persist in maintaining the old grafting (we chose the word with deliberation, de- rived from sad experience), with the nickel-in-the- slot machines, termed pay stations. ; This type of telephone takes your nickel “before you can get central; sometimes you get your num- ber for a nickel—frequently you do not. Very often she goes off to the fair fields of romance and y@s- terdays and leaves you up in the air, and your nickel snugly reposing in the company’s little lock chest. How many here present have spent 20 cents get- ting one number? Thank you; we see you have all been there. The needs of the city have outgrown the service, and there is no apparent intention on the company’s part of meeting its new obligations. Subscribers in many districts of the city cannot secure service. Many residents cannot secure a telephone, even tho it was promised months ago. ® Down town connections are uncertain, service is lackadaisical, and about the only real ability shown is in getting the monthly bills out on time and in dis- connecting you if your money doesn’t arrive promptly. Seattle is too big and too busy to be hamstrung by this sort of service. Probably the state officials having to do with such things will do nothing—as they did in the gas strike. Doubtless all these public servants, who are hired to safeguard the public from this sort of rotten serv- ice, will devote their time to their annual reports and to dictating neat alibis to the public. But from some quarter relief must be had, and if that relief consists in frankly junking the present plant and going ahead with municipal service, all right. Nothing can cost the city what the present daily outrage costs. It may be that the telephone trust, than which there is none tighter on earth, desires public owner- ship and the guarantee of a safe per centum profit on its antique and uncertain properties. Sometimes we think that must be the explanation, because it is inconceivable that any corporation de- siring to live and retain public patronage could con- tinually and perpetually, so brazenly and indiffer- ently infliet such a miserable subterfuge for service on any city. Maybe they think we are helpless and must take what we get and pay what they demand. |\Here’s Black Eye |New South Wales | to Frisco Weather| House for Irish | SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 19—San| gypney, N, 8. W., Sept. 18. | Francisco will continue to swelter| hdaprtates EN eee By a vote of to 28 the assembly Weather Man Willson. The temper-|o¢ ature, which reached 90 yesterday,| was $4 at 9 o'clock this morning. | pressed itwelf in favor of Ireland. according to New South Wales today éx Loots Mail and Makes After binding gagging! and. forcing Harry Mero, | |mail clerk, into a locker, a lone bandit, still at liber- ty, rifled the mail car of|_ |Northern Pacific train No. i4 Friday morning, before | \the train had reached Se-| attle’s city limits on the! way to St. Paul. | A package of currency con-| signed to the Roslyn bank | was in the mail car, and this, along with other registered | imail, was included in the loot. | Government mall tnapectors are checking up to determine the value of the loot. No estimate had been made up to 1 p, m. Friday. The train left Seattle at #15 a m. today. The robber is belleved to have boarded the train here and pall car by way | of the bageage coach. Just after by sticking a blue steel revolver in| his face, and then bound and gagged him. He then forced Mero into the | was taken or where he off at | At Auburn, the robber exchanged lar mail clerk When the = train passed thru Ravenadale no pouch was thrown off, and at the next stop, | Kankasket, the crew of the train| went into the mail car to investigate. Mero was found bound and gagged. | ‘The deputy sheriff's office at Seattle was notified and Deputy Sheriffs Frank Brewer andy Herbert Beebe started for the s@ine in company with officials of the United States railway mail service. The robber is described as about 4 fect, 9 inches tall. He wore al dark cravenette coat and black cap. | According to Mero, the bandit was ‘cool and calm.” Post office author. ities declare the theft to be one of the cleverest pieces of work that has come to their notice, Sheriff Stringer is holding blood-| hounds ready to send out on the trail of the bandit as soon as officials can determine where he left the train. Report Tonight on Strike Settlement Immediate settlement of the} building trades strike depends upon referendum returns on the plan to| create an arbitration board, which will be reported at the meeting of the Bullding Trades council Friday | night. | The referendum was ordered at a) |spectal meeting of the council Sun- day. The arbitration board would] settle all differences between mas- ter builders and buitlding trades men. The strike of carpenters, | lathers, cement mixers and laborers has been on since Labor day. jagainst en ‘A want ad in The Star will bring Results to you in everything. The cost i# small, when you com- pare The price youll pay for ads else- where. | Mabelle E. Small, Brem- erton, Wash., contributes the above to the Want Ad Rhyme Contest. New con- test announced Saturday. | jattack, but it was ne |stores of all kinds, lof misleading the enemy |main force of t | upon GET OUT SHANTU LUDENDORFF TELLS WHY GERMAN DRIVE FAILED TO WIN. WAR ‘ American troops speeding across the ocean in ever grow- ing numbers—that was the factor which determined where Ludendorff should deliver his first blow in 1918. To strike for Calais and Boulogne would have been preferable, but Flanders mud forbade operations before April and he had to So the Arras-St. Quentin front was chosen. striking across the devastated region| with an unlimited objective—and so flying in the face of the the train passed Argo crossing, the @ioms of strategy—but he made his decision in the hope of robber entered the mail coach, com. Splitting the British and French armies and by a big victory pelled Mero to throw up his hands| shaking Clemenceau and Lloyd George -into acceptance of The weather was not what he wanted, but he dared not change his order to attack March 21. He also reveals, in the section of his book, “My Thoughts locker #0 that he could not see what/and Actions,” printed in today’s Star, how he drew the im- jumped | perial crown prince into the battle, so that he could have excuse for taking direct control without appearing to over- the mail by impersonating the regu. |7ide Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria. move in March. It was a big chance, his peace plans. By | GEN. ERICH VON LUDENDORFF It was difficult to decide where to sasary to do 80 early. It took weeks and required considerable foresight and the most detailed preliminary Work to concen. trate the troops in a confined area, bring up by rail the trefhendous quantities of ammunitions and other carry out the work allotted to the troops them- selves such as preparing battery po- sitions, screening roads, constructing Jantiaircraft shelters and preparing gear for crossing the trenches, and finally to deploy for battle. Of course, all this increased the danger of discovery. It was therefore |necessary to commence dummy works on the fronts remote from the attack, which, as # matter of fact, served as the basis of attack later on. But the bulk of the available labor troops were required on the front of attack at an early date. The prepara tions on other fronts could not be ex tensive, but there was some chance and the de- ception was to be completed by skill |fully condacted defensive measures. FORCED TO MAKE EARLY ATTACK I discussed tho selection of the front of attack with the chiefs of staff of the army groups, and with the officers of my staff, and heard their opinions. Three sectors were considered—Flanders between Ypres and Lens, between Arras and St Quentin or La Fere, and on both sides of Verdun, leaving out the fortress. As is always the case, there was a great deal to be said for and h proposal. ny Wag in great strength and Arras, in front of the Ailette position, and further to the east, as far as Verdun; the weak est part was on both sides of St | Quentin; north of that town the ene: my line had been denser since the battles of Cambrai In the north the ground was dim cult, The condition of the Lys val y, west of Lille, across which the attack would pass. depended to an extraordinary degree the season and the weather; before the middle of April its passa- bility away from the roads was doubtful. That was very late, in view of the Americans. In the center the ground itself caused no difficulties, but further progress would be hampered by the crater-areas of the Somme battle. The attack at Verdun would lead us into very hilly country These two attacks could take place at any time of year ‘Tactical conditions, therefore, fa-| vored the center sector; here the at: | tack would strike the enemy's weak est point, the ground offered no dim culties, and it was feasible at all sea- sons. Strategically, the northern attack had the advantage of a great, tho limited, ctive, It might enable us to shorten our front if we suc ceeded in capturing Calais and Bou- logne, The attack on Verdun might also lead to an improvement in our front, tho more of « tactical nature The center attack seemed to lack any definite Jimit. This could be remedied by directing the main effort on the area between Arras and Peronne, toward the coast. If this blow suc- coeded the strategic result might in- deed be enormous, as we should cut the bulk of the English army from the French and crowd it up with its back to the sea, I favored the center attack; but I was influenced by the time factor and by tactical considerations, first] among them being the weakness of the enemy, Whether this weakness | would continue I could not know. Tactics had to be considered before purely strategical objects, which it is futile to pursue unless tactical sue: cess is possible. A strategical plan which ignores the tactical factor is joomed to failure. Of this the en- te's attacks during the first three years of war afford numerous ex amples. After determining the divisions and other forces available for the attack, it was decided to strike between Croisilles, southeast of Arras, and Moeuvres, and, omitting the Cambrai reentrant (the strong position held by the British from which they might make a counter-attack), between Vil lers-Guisiain and the Oise, south of St. Quentin. It was to be supported on its left by a subsidiary attack from La F The 17th army, therefore, had to make the attack on the line Croi sillessMoeuvres, the second and 18th BY H. H. KINYON ’ (United Press Staff Correspondent) ( TOKYO, Sept. 19.— statement is desirable according to announce- ment the foreign min- ister is reliably reported to have made to the diplomatic council. “Foreign Minister © Uchidais reliably report- ed to have told the dip lomatic council,” says the Jiji Shimbun, “that Japan cannot predict’ events which depend upon negotiations be-~ tween Tokyo and Pekin, © which will be opened at the earliest opportunity.” WASHINGTON, Sept. 19.—(United Press.)—Officials here today maintained — silence on Tokyo dispatches, saying Jona that between Villers-Guislain and La (Continued on Page 13, first page, Second Section.) . will not make a categorical statement the return of

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