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SATURDAY, JUNE 20, 1914
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KAND W. •UTBCRLAND. Ultor lAUMA A ¦TILM. Bualnaw Maaagar
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ONB T«A« •«»•
¦IX MONTHS •»•«
TNBSB MONTHi • "
ONB MONTH M
AOYBBTlSmO KATBB QN APPLICATION
POETRY—The Music of Lang:uagc
A Departmrat Devoted To Verse Principles
and its FuodBmental
Conducted by
C. J. GREENLEAF
"Bntand a« Baecmd-elaaa maLUr April 3, Itl-t, at tha poat a(Baa at Fraaport. Naw York, undar Ika aet of Marak S, m»."
AU toaiBUBlaaUoa iImuM ho aiUraaad to THE NAMAU POBT.
¦ala Oflaa Pratport, U I. N. T.
Maahailaa Ofloa. ( Baakmaa St, (Itk Floor.)
Braoak* al talirr Straaa, L,rBl>rook, Baat Baakavaj, Bookvlllo Contra, L,onc Baaati. Oooaa SM*. BaUwin. Morrick. B«U- ¦Mra, Waalavk, 8««for4. Baaipataad aad Mia- aala. Ttlopkoaa • <1
BKOWN'S HIGH JUMP
CoDgreisman Lathrop Brown ha? «iucc«ede(i In golUng a steel trap grip on the Inland waicrways project (or IX)Dg Island. He bas it flrmlr by the tall, so to speak, and It will not escape him. Ponner CongreBsnien, Messis. Cocka and Littleton, may or may not luiTe labored for Uila project, but neither of them bad the success of Mr, Brown, to say nothing of his acu¬ men.
This Important waterways scheme will now be taken up anew by the Ar¬ my Engineer wbo turned it down, for his superior oOlcers have directed hliu so to do. Until the Congressman took It up, It was as dead as Julius Caesar for all practical purposes. Now, thanks to his untiring Industry, ever/ Tillage, eery hamlet has become iu- terested, everybody on Long Island is discussing It, everybody sees what a tremendous help it would prove to ev¬ erybody on Long Island; every body BOW wants it
The Long Islanders bad a very clos' •bave. The project had been lyln^ dormant mider their very noses for years and the govemment was on the point of burying It In Its archive i. wben tbe Congressman gave a run¬ ning high jump und just grabbed It aJ it was taking flight.
We shall hear a lot more about tbls boon to Long Islanders. We shall not forget tbat we owe It to our present Congressman, whatever else may slip out of mind.
00L7 AND OnZZLINO
All advocates of tbe game of goK urge In its behalf tbe essential tonic benefits which come from exercise In the open. Some go as far as to say that regular playing of the game wjll put spirit into an otherwise slugglib person and "make a new man" of him.
Accepting that tbese benefits con^t* to those who swing from tbe tee and follow the erratic ball from link to link, still there arc those who inil >i upon repairing to tbe clubhouHi- and winding up the day In analysis of plays over the so-called highball or other latoxIcantB.
Dr. iiverett Hordck wbo held * |7 • 500 mortgage on Uie property of tie Maidstone Golf Club out at Bastbamp- ton, dying, provided that tbe morega«b should be cancelled provided no intox¬ icating beverages ever were sold at th.e «lubbouBe. eiiould liquor be dis¬ pensed there tbe .'ace value of the mortgage must be paid to tbe direct tors of the neighboring public library.
Tbe directors of tbe golf club could do no better work for the cauae of golfing than to accept tbe spirit aa well aa tbe letter of. tbe generous doc¬ tor's conditional beaueat and make the Maidstone Club temperance. "Ttnille men may differ as to tbe use of liquor under other conditions, thero la no need of it either aa a prelimin¬ ary to, during, or at tbe conclusion of m game. In an hour's play over the links tbere is enough atlmttlatlon la the oxygen distilled by nature and ¦•red without price.
COINS AKlt THBIVT
Ths American Society for Thrift. irhlch has a number of Long Islaur*. members and well wiaberB, la urging the Director ot the Mint to favor th> coinage of the three-cent piece, claim¬ ing that tor three cents on may now pay tor a oar ride in aoms plan's, ani for sa&dwlchss, cups of coffse. les
The two little poems presented this we*k are of quite a different nature And yet each is a gem in ilk own way, Andrew Lang's "Scythe Song" is a beautiful bit of veree, delicate, elusive, almost spiritual In Its nature, and yet treating of the common things of country life, the mowers and their scythes, the grass and tbe llowers. It is all ao tender and gentle, the swinging of the scythes, their whisper to the grass, and there la no hint of pity In "Hush and tccd not, and, fall wletp." It Is simply carrying out the general plan
of it all.
In iiid last four lines comes the quick, certain summing up ot the poem, the lesson, the applicatiou. And this, 1 bold, must be one of the factors of "Lvery poem. It may be well argued that It Is not a poem without thlB com- prc^Mon and application.
Hush and heed not, for all things pasa." Couid we remember and apply that, how much It would Bave us. "II IB not a great poem and never will be so rated," said one of the brilliant yoimg editors of New York. And I replied that I was glad it waa not fcreat. That it was juet what It was, nothing more, nothing lesa. It will probably Uve alter ^ome of the "great ones" are forgotten.
One is ImpreEsed with the idea that Miss Pratt must have carried much
of the child on into her womanhood to have been able to have written such a
pretty, chlld-Ukc thing as p. "Mortifying Mistake." If there Is no great lesson
taught it will at least cuutu a smile, and sometimes that is better than a lee-
son. k'or we ever have more lessons than smiles.
SCYTHE SONG.
Mowers, weary, and brown, and blithe,
Wbat Is the word methlnks ye know,
Endlebs over-word that the Scythe
Sings to the blades of tbe grass below?
Scythes that swing in tbe grass and clover.
Something, still, they say as they pasa;
What Is the word that, over and over,
' ""' Sings the Scythe to the flowers and grass?
• .¦•..'
¦*-...»-.. .- Hush, ab hush, tbe Scythes are saying
Iluch, end heed not, and fall asleep;
Hush, they say to the grasses swaying,
, Hush, they sing to the clover deep!
Hush—'tie the lullaby Time is singing—
Hush, ah hush! and tbe Scythes are swinging
Over the clover, over the grass!
ANDRKW LANG.
A MORTIFYING MISTAKE.
I studied my tables over and over, and backward and forward, too;
But 1 couldn't remenibtr six times nine, and I didn't know what to do.
Till Elster told me to play with my doll and not to bother my head,
"If you call her 'Fifty I'our' for a while, you'll learn it by heart," she said.
So I took my favorite Mary Ann (though I thought 'twas a dreadful shame
To give such a perfectly lovely child such a perfectly horrid name),
And I called her my dear little "Fifty-Four a hundred times till I knew
Tho answer of six timtB nine as well as the answer of two times two.
ILLEGAL RE
PUBLIC
IN OUR
SCHOOLS
ADVICE TO OUR CITIZENS
AND
WARNING TO OUR BOARDS OF HEALTH
AND OUE
BOARD OF EDUCATION
Next d'-y EUzaboth Wlgglesworth, who always acts so proud.
Said "Si.x times .nine is fifty-two," and I nearly laughed aloud!
But I wished I hadn't v»hen teacher said "Now, Dorothy, tell if you can,"
For I thought of my doll and—sakes alive! I answered, "Mary Ann."
ANNA M. PRATT.
cream, and of course many Yankee no¬ tions. The thrift, as the Soclo'y sees it. is to encourage the buying of thing > sold for three cents instead of for five cents, thereby saving two cents on eacb occasion.
It may be that there is need of the coinage and circulation of the thre>;- cent piece and poBsibly there might be a call for the .thlnplaster of our daddies too. but we Imagine the little coin would be useful only In places where there Is a fixed three cent prlc-- for various articles. On Long Islanc* it would not add to the commimity thrift, for the three-cent Idea of val¬ ues does not obtain bere. To encour¬ age thrift among boys and girls there Is no better way than to refrain from giving them five and ten cent pieces for spending money where peimles would answer just as w«IL
OirX POOKBTBOOX TN THK HOKE
In a decision by Surrogate Ketcham of Brooklyn, whose knowledge of the laws of probate springs from a mind long recognized for its clarity, agree¬ ment between husband and wife er- pressed in the homely saying "What Is mine Is yours, and what Is yours is mine" does not hold.
When James L. Brown, a cotton merchant and member of tbe Union League Club, died he left no will. His widow as administratrix of her hus¬ band's estate applied for letters of administration, and filed an account¬ ing, omitting, however, to Include In the property the contents of a safe- deposit box which had been jointly hired by Brown and hla wifo and In which were deposited securities val¬ ued at 1160,000. Thc widow said she regarded the securities aa all hers. To sustain her claim, ICrs. Brown called as a witness before the Surrogate her housemaid. Tbe maid said she heard Mr. Brown use the words "What Is yours is mine and what is mine Is yours" many times; tbe maid also tes¬ tified that she heard Mr. Brown say that there was "hut oam pocketbook
. in the family." It was conceded thit Uhe securities all belonged to Mr. 1 Brown at the time of his death.
In rejecting Mrs. Brown's claims and directing her to account for the 1150,000 worth of securities, the Sur- rogate said:
"The declaration of the husband that 'what is yours is mine, and what is mine Is yours' is too much like the amiable nullity which the husband ad¬ dresses to the bride at the altar, 'with all my goods I thee endow.' The one Imparts to tho ceremony an idle charm which the other carries into the trials of life. But neither bas enough of pre¬ cision or active intention to alter rights of property.'
Family agreement regarding prop¬ erty are being entered into every day little heed being paid to the fact that what may be well understood when all the parties to verbal understanding are alive and able to speak, becomjs a matter of legal doubt when one of them dies.
"Wbat is yours is mine and what ir mine la yours," if expressed In legal form, signed and witnessed, will hold in the law. Merchant Brown's mis¬ take was in not hiring a lawyer to s^e to it that his desire to provide for his wife was stated in a way to receive the endorsement of a judge of probate.
This Open and I'ub.'Ic Letter to the parent of a pupil In our Public School*, with regajd to rcrtaja acts of Illegal Vaccination now being prac¬ ticed In our Public .Schools j'lxd In some of our Parochial and Private Scboole, will spiak cleurly for Itsolf on this Important question and will answer the inquiries of several of my ccirespondents similarly wronged by such oppressive, usurping and illegal pels of our healtb and scbool otflclsiB In t^ City
Mr. JOHN J. CANNON,
S06 E. I£i2d Street.
New York City. Dear Sir;
'.h
STANDINQ BY ITS OUNS Hating entered the campaign as an opponent both of the principle and the practice of vaccination, the Antl-Vso- clnatlon League of America loads Its guns and trains them against the bat¬ tlements with repeated fires. The sup¬ ply ot argumentative ammunition seems never to run low.
While men In the professional world are engagd In this flght, the layman, whatever his opinions, cannot fall to approve of the eamestnes with which Charles M. Higglns keeps to this task of presenting the League's propagan¬ da. He Is a fl«htor who bas no «se tor bird shot
I regret very much that your recent letter was mislaid in a mass of other corrrspondence nc rrqulrlng Immediate answer, but I will aow ful> and carefully anewer your inquiries.
You do not state whether tne trcnooi wnicB discharged your daughter for refusing to be vaccinated was a public school or a parochial or private school. This makes a big difference In answering your questions for the reason that the state Tacclnaiion law applies to public schools only. But I as¬ sume that tho school you refer to was a Public Scbool.
If any Uialth Board doctor or other person threatened to come to your house and compel-you to have your child vaccinated against your will, as you state, he committed ihe crime of intimidation and coercion, and you can have him prosecuted under certain sections of the Penal Code by complalat to the ntarest magistrate, particularly If be has actually attempted to carry this threat into effect. Thert, is no law In this state compelling any persoB io be vaccinated agalncit his will and consent, and to attempt or to effect such forcible vaccination is a crime.
There is another very important point in your case that I want to cull to jour careful attention, aud that is your statement that your child was ^ .vaccinated six years ago; so that what the Health Board doctors now want you to do is to have your child re-vacclnated under their present theory thai vaccination is useless as a protection unless repeated every four years. Thl^, however. In mrre kuj'bk work on the part of these doctors, the fact being that the period of protection by vacclnatloa Is very vague and indeterniinate and by eome of the best puUibrltles is piacea at a very short period not ex¬ ceeding three or six months or a year.
Whatever tbe correct theory of the period of protection by vaccination may be, however, I now advise you that this point is entirely irrelevant la your case, and that the demand of any health offlclal or school official in thl.i town to have your child je-vacclnated at their dictation and upon their threat to otherwlBfi exclude her from her undoubted right to attend public school is Illegal; and furthermore, that such school official or health official is thereby committing a crime under tho Penal Code and that you should make a complaint against him immedialely before the nearest magistrate, aa before stated.
The school vaccination law In this state requires only one vaccination to admit a child to public tcbool; and the Attorney General of this state has given his legal opinion that cne vaccination (and this whether successful or uot) satisfies the vaccination law of the .state relating to public schools. Moreover, a court and jury in this state in the City of Rochester have decided, ns a mattei of Inw and fact, that a child once vaccinated (whether suo- j cessfully or not; is actually and legally vaccinated and Is legally eligible to e nter a public "ichool under the laws of this state. I therefore further advise , you that, in my Judgment, there is ground not only for a criminal prosecution, but aleo lor a fult fpr damagelTagalnst either our scbool or health offl*' (cials who wish to deprive you of your legal right to have your duly vaccinated child educated in the public schools because you will not submit to their Illegal and criminal dictation of requiring your child to be re-vacclnated at certain arbitrary periods of jears which th^y have in their own minds picked out as necessary, but for which there is no justification or authority in law whatever. They have, indeed,, as much right under the present law to require re-vacclnatlon ot our ^chool children every four years as they would have to require it every year or>'otx nionths or at morning, noon and nlgbt—that Is, no right whatever to require any of these arbitrary and Qangerous acts.
Now all this vaccination fanaticism of which our little school child en are made the fulTcrlng victims is done under the old medical ¦aperstitlOD^~ which, by the way. io very profitable to the vaccinating profession— that fr equent and general vaccinaiion is necessary to protect our children from the great alleged danger of Infection and death from smallpox; whereas. It is easily proved from Ihe ^ital statistics of this State, which are open and public every year, that tliere is regularly more danger of being struck by lightning than ol being killed by smallpox, and that this slight danger from smallpox is least of all in children of school age who are most naturally iran.nne to eniallpox and all other causes of death in general, and which actually- show only 5 per cent, of the total deaths from all causes although they constitute 25 per cent, of thc whole population!
On the other band, It can be readily proved from death certificates aud other data not jiublished, but now concealed by our Health Departments la this City and State (all dominated and controlled by vaccinating doctors) that there are actually more deaths caused every year in this City and State from Lockjaw and Septicemie In Vaccination Wounds than from natural smallpox and jjarUcularly in children— even two or three times more In some years! And I now again challenge our Health Departments In tbls City and State to deny or disprove this solemn, shocking and fearless statement of medical and statistical truth if they can or dare. And if they shall dare it I then challenK' them to allow a free and open.inspection of our death cer-- tificates and vital records by a thoroughly representative, able and dlstintrestod Commlttej' of Ciit.-.ens to establiflh tbe truth or error of my statement In a public manner.
lam, of course, not surprised that our Health Officials should act In the lawless manner here complained of with regard to vaccination or re-vaecl» ation, ns they have leen doing such acts for years past and are now doing them all over the Slate, although repeatedly rebuked wd restrained by tbe high¬ est courts In this state and in this City of Brooklyn in particular for acts of illegal vacclnnHon. But 1 am surprised that the men of various types of In telllgence and characted who form our Board of Education, supposed to be solectod frora representative cltlrcns ot all classes in this community, sbould lend themselves so readily end so supinely to this shameful violation of law a^d abuse of ofllrlal power with, regard to the illegal and dangerous scheme of periodic re-vaccinatlon In our Public Schools, which Is more dangerous to the health and life of our tcliool children than smallpox.
And If these intellifef nt men would only take the trouble to independently study thie great eub.lect of vaccination down to Its basic taete and op to present date and cease their blind acceptance of the fallaciea of so-called hIKh authorities they would not be so easily fooled by these musty old medical ;falsehoods commonly jcceptfd as to the necessity, fllciency and safety of vatcmatlon for public health.
I therefore with to P.gain appeal to the words of our greatest Mayor a^^d Civic Martyr, who iii)i>ointed most of the men now in the Board of Educa¬ tion—namely, our great Alayor Gaynor—who has been perhaps the greatest o^pon-mt of the rights of the cltlren unaer our laws and the greatest eaemy of the abuse of official power tbat we have ever had in our political history, a^d 1 ^ow ask our Board ot Education to give special attention to some ef his last words covering this very point, to be found on Page 88 of his "Lettei"" "^"d Speeches," and these words the Board of Education aad the Board of Health may now consider as applying directly to themselves In this case:— ,
"We must tee to It that those whom we elect to office do not go outside of the laws or iset themselves up anove the laws and do as they pl<:ape. It always has been the case throughout the world th^t the officials who did thin did It on the plea that the laws were not good enough—that they could do better than the lawa prescribed. Beware of all sucb officials. We do not want officials who have any lust of power. We want oflicials who are careful to exercise no power except that given to them by the people by their laws. Tbere la no no more dangerous man In a free country, In a democracy, than an official who thinks be is belter than the laws." ''
In conclusion, 1 vriah to say that I have liad so many complaints such et youre of this illegal re-vacclnatlon in our Public Schools aad this Illegal intimidation and coercion to vaccination against free will and consent by Health Board doctors and i urces and by School Officials tbat I have concluded ;to make this reply and advice to you an open and public letter, addressed no< only to you in prrson, tut to all cltliens, and to our Health and Sehool Of- flcials in particular, with the hope tbat such dangerous and illegal acts will be supprecsed at once and if not so suppressed that our eltlscns will ask for tbe dismissal of tho ofilclalH guilty of these oppressive, usurping and Illegal aeta. ^ '
CHAS. M. HIQQINS,
Treasorer Antl-Vaoclnat^a Leagne of Amartm.
271 NInU St., Brooklrn, N. T., JB&a U. 1914.
-^ ¦a»..afi»
NOTE. Tbe Tiece«slty ot answering a large correspondence that had accumulated from prenous press articles, and other unavoidable elreom-
stances, has delayed the continuance ot these articles and has also now suggested a change In the order of future subjects which will continue ia a taw days.
The whole pnrpose of these articles is to enlighten the public mind ss to the facts about vaccination, to refute old and dangerous medical fsls*- hoods and false statistics, and to leave all voluntary vaccination perfectly tree for every one who desires it or believes It to be good or necessair tor health, public or private, but to restrain and prohibit ail compulsory TacciaatioD In every shape and foim as Tlolative ot most sacred aad foadameBtal human rights and moat dangerous to public health aad humao life and proflUble only to vaccinating doctors and vaccine manafefturers. C. M. H.
Adr. m
