Image provided by: Monmouth Public Library; Monmouth, OR
About The Monmouth herald. (Monmouth, Or.) 1908-1969 | View Entire Issue (March 28, 1924)
Retires Years Veteran Captain of Liner Tell of Hit Many Adven ture on the Deep. New Vrk. Wlu'ti u mutt Iiiih sailed the WWII wuii fur 50 year! and deildei I.) lettlo down, It In UlllWult (or him In Occlil.) whut hn would like to d. That Is the problem confronting Cap luln Ailrlim Zeeder; lie luiii Juxt hand ed over the helm of the Manchuria to younger bunds, und tin need no longer rise ut two U'Ui to go on deck und in' what the weather I (liilnu. If 0110 did not liuvo the eaptnln'i own word for It, one would iuspcct Unit till m-uiiihii of the old school win In the grip of the wandurluit. He Milled the other day for Knglund and will go from there to the South African home, where he wai horn. Then he li coming buck uguln, und after thut well, in the cuptulli Hi)!, something inny turn up. l or one thing, he Impel to mnke an exiumlon through the Mediterranean In nil hlit 50 yeurs of rlrcuinnnvtgnt- lug the globe lie hui visited almost nil port und himli except those border ing on the blue atrip of water between Africa mul ICurope. "I never happened Hint way," ho laid. "A inun wouldn't you know, miles he wn on one of the regular run to lmllii or cut through from the KiiM. I never Hilled ttuit way; hint missed tho Mediterranean you might suy. I'.ut I Itues! I hove Hi-en all the other em between the two tiolea. "Knlpwrecked? No, 1 never wa ihlp- w recked, either. Hut I ve been mighty clone to It many times. Once we were down In Cook's utrnttn. between the two iHlnndi of New Zealand, and It dm blowing like the J, I mean It was blowing almighty hard. The weather was thick, too, and I never saw the sea tow n ship about the way It did our that tiny ; first we were up, It Deemed a thousand feet, and then down two thouwind, and with every heave I thought we should break In half. Somehow our old timber! held together, and we mudo port, we were mighty thnnkful, I can tell you. On Sailor' Luck. "We bud luck Unit buy. No man should go to hcii unless lie la lucky. It tiikca a lot of luck to get ulong. If It ln't on your aide you ure aoou flound ered. Why, I have icen n thouaund time thut I'd have gone down ure without the luck. Somehow It nlwnyi turned my wuy, and here I am, feelln na good aa new. Hut I've mndo my lust cruise; 50 yean la enough. I'v lived In ships alnce I win a boy I knee breeched; now I want to go HHhore for a while and ice how the people live on dry land." The philosopher! isny that men ore ruled by opposite. That rule would feem to bold gnod with Onptalu Zee der. Ill Men of o comfortable life la to sit In a big armchair at one of those spacious club window! such as you w-e In Fifth avenue, with nothing to do but w atch the crowd go by, He hns always been a cluhnuin when he could be. In nil parts of tho world, belong ing to dozens of nodal organizations, und every trip to sea has ended In a vision of getting buck to the club for a quiet-hour In a big, stuffed chair. . (if course, the Captain doesn't tell you rill Hint. One reads It between the lines. Hut he does talk entertainingly nbnut the sea, which he knows as nome of us know our street. And when lip gets Into the swing of a yarn be takes his visitor along. Still he says Hint he cannot see why anybody should be Interested In him, Just n plain sallormnn. "No, the sen Is not ns It used to be," he snlil. "Mighty different from the days when I was a boy. The sailor of today lives In a blonmln' boudoir and bus somebody to wnlt upon him. I didn't start out like thut. No, sir, In my day before the mnst !t was mighty 1 different. And we had sailors then, yon can lay your last n'td ; men who could take a ship through a gale that would tear the heart cut of some. , Nowadays " and the Captain wnved Ms hand expressively. Heard the Call Early. "I first got the smell of the sen In my nose when I was Just n shaver," he said. "Wo lived about four miles out side Cape Town, and I would sneak away to go and look at the ships. Most of my school days were spent sotne whero else than In school, I couldn't boar the sight of a spoiling book. Sort of weht to my hend and made me long to run away. By the time I was nine or ten I knew the coasting and ship ping cruft that put Into Cnpe Town. I used to go down to the docks and sit there for hours, Just watching the bonis. Once I went aboard and thut ruined me. Since that moment I never have felt at home anywhere else. "1 couldn't have been more than nine or ten when I begc.n to go off with the fishing boats. You can Imagine how my mother felt about It. She used ,to cry o lot and Bay, Hint I shouldn't run awny to sea. I pronjlsed her thnt I wouldn't, and I didn't. Nevertheless I went when I was about eleven, and she consented. I was a mighty proud chap when I signed on the old Lord MnePiiff ns a sort of cabin boy nnd extra hnnd. We had a hard skipper, one of those Iron men you've read about In the books, but a fine snllor. He dipped his brend in his punch to soften It. And punch was needed to break It. . , "Put yourself In my place and you After 50 Sea Service 111 get some Ideii of how thut life went with mo ut Urst. I wa a sturdy youngster mid the feel of the sen made me happy. Hut I hud been raised In a good homo, where we had plenty of everything. And my first duyi on shipboard were leim belll.-d dayi. The 9 1 I . . . - ' umj iiikj not inuen or iu i Many ,, nlght-bcfor 1 learned how I o go hungry-1 buve tuken a piece of ard brend with the weevils In It anil gone to the greuse barrel, Intending to klm up a bit of the grease and swal low the whole business before I got a whiff of It, Hut I always imelled the grease llrst und never quite made It Modern Tan Have Mlds. Yes, those were bard days, but happy ones, too, the happiest of my life, think. When a fellow wui off watch ie could Ho In a sunny corner, bli head on a coll of rop, und watch the cloudi go by. Nothing to do uutU the Captain kicked you up for the next wutch. And whut a Joy It wai for a boy to lie there, heurtug the lap of the lea against the bow, with the roll of the Atlantic to rock you, like a baby, In her arms. Yes, those were the happy times: no responsibility, no thought of the future, Just a boy get ting his first scent of the aea. Of course, it wasn t so pleasant to be hungry, but one got uccustomcd to that after a while, and It was the rale to be empty rather than full. We tightened our belts a notch and thought what a devil that Captain was. He was a bard skipper, a mighty hard one but a fine sailor," The Captain smiled, as If being a fine aallor mudo up for all shortcom ings. Sometimes I hear people say that life at sea Is hard," he ruminated. "Well, they should have sailed In one of those old ships I knew 50 years ago. They would have learned aomethlng about life. The first time I landed In New York, back In '78, I was bRrefoot and bareheaded, like most aallon of the time. I walked up Rroadway In my miked feet and nobody puld any attention to me. "This was quite a city, even then. Heyond Madison Square the country was open fields, nnd most activities stopped at Union Square. The water front was a lively place then; a po- llceman would hardly dare show his head after dark when the men were lively. Matter at Twenty-Four. "Oh, yes, all hands drank when they came ushore, and they had a big time. And why shouldn't they? After a ship's company had' been months at son on hard tack, suit beef nnd tea, they needed something different Hut now adays all that has changed. Sailor men will soon need Indies' mnldg to wait on 'em nnd butlers to pour their bloomln' tea. No, the sea Isn't what It used to be, my lad, and you can lay a quid on that" Hut Captain Zeeder steers a courae learned on the ducks of 300-ton brigs. Captain Zeeder bad sailed In ships of many sorts nnd put Into many porta before the age when most boys are getting ready for college. A ship of 2,500 tons wai a good-sized craft for those days. He hns crossed the Atlan tic In a mere cockle-shell of 300 tons. Hefore twenty he was fourth ofllcer, hailing ou of London, and by degrees he worked hla way upward to a cap tain's certificate. He had his master's papers at twenty-four, but did not get a full comnmnd until some time Inter. For 28 years he sailed out of San Francisco. More recently he won dis tinction for transporting troops across the Atlantic. From Sail! to Oil. "I have seen the sea turn from sails to steam, and now they say all ships will be driven by oil," he said. "Well, I wouldn't be surprised. I can re member when bold prophets said that most ships would be run by stenm, and people laughed at them. Hut I have seen that come nbout. Maybe the oil burner will do awny with coal before long, nnd a blessing that will be to the I ads in the stoke-hole. There never wns more agony on this earth than In the firing room of a ship. Oil would be a blessing to the men down there. I hear It snld that we may even have electric ships, or perhnps we shall do all our sailing by air. Who knows? Hut for my pnrt, I like to spread a sheet nnd run with the wind." Zeeder Is past sixty now, nnd looks forty-live. lie has a wind-burned nnd sun-burned face nnd his mouth clamps tight' at tho corners. Every Inch of H-H-H I I H-H- l"H"l i M i I I 1 ! Roads Must Use Control Devices 1 Washington. Virtually every large railroad in the country will be required before Febru ary, 1020, to equip substantial parts of . Its mileage with auto matic trutn control devices un der the terms of on Interstate commerce commission order Is sued here recently. The order wns addressed to 02 out of 108 class 1 railroads In the country, these controlling more thnn 00 per cent of the I total rail mileage In the United T States. , ; 1 1 III MI I 111 IN 1 I 1 III 1 I M bli six feet conveys power." Ami best of nil, bo walk as a sailor should, with a bit of a roll to stiirboHrd, then back again. Since big ships became the rule of the seas, levlathani that ride out tho roughest weather, we ere In danger of losing the seamanly roll thut onco marked the ruce of sailors. Jn this inechuiilcul age they walk like ordinary men, not ui deicendunll of the Vlktngi should. Fr Now for Adventure. The Captain cornel of old South Afrlcun Dutch stock, the race of men whom Conun Doyle once called "the most virile enemy Kngland ever crossed iwordi with." And one can not but wonder how ne n going iu , t. M -u,i htm P"" U'8 Cnt'rgy lhBt to the bridge. "I couldn't farm." he confldeo. "Didn't do much of It i a boy and I am too old now to learn. Ana i couldn't be a clerk, because I never was smart at figures. They would not let me lit around the eld home out In South Africa, and I am afraid I would be unable to staul It, anyhow, So I ihall have to find iome kind of a Job and keep myself msy. The listener more than half expects biro to say that he will knock around and see the world a bit, but It doesn't seem quite fulr to luggest It The look Is In the Captaln'i eye, even though he keepi the admission to him elf. It would not take much per suasion for him to go adventuring agnln, Just aa he did half a century ago In the old Lord MacDuff. "I never cared for the steady rum where nothing ever happened, ne confided. "I waa alwaya bent on going to new places and getting some fun out of my Job. People tell me that I am young. Well, I have made u a run not to let a day find me older than tne one before. And I haven't had a dull day In my life. Kvery day hai been full of Interest. I'd like to live them all over again. And I've never wor ried; alwaya kept my chin up ana taken the seal ai they came. I've had luck with me, though, lot! of luck. J man cannot get along unless he baa.' Telli of Early Dayi en Pacific. Captain Zeeder has iome reminis cence! of the Pacific. He got a cotn itiund there when trafllc with the Orient waa Just beginning to take on aomethlng like its present Importance. "Why, they are running ships acrosa the Pacific like trolley cars, he saia. "The trade Is getting heavier every week. Our old Puclflc Mall fleet wai one of the finest afloat I never saw shins run more beautifully ; Just beau tlful they were; everything organized and slipping along like a cloclt. I com manded several. They were wonderful ships. Hack In 1807 I was on the China, a craft of 3,500 tons, nnd we had a hard time to fill her up for the trip across. Now ships ten times mai size come In from the Orient loaaea to the decks. Then years ago the traffic was close to 100,000 tons a month; today It Is around a million and growing fast, and most of It car ried In foreign ships. Yes, the old days certainly have changed in tne Pacific, with ships clearing for every port on both aides almost as often as they do In the Atlantic." Captain Zeeder bad a large part In the recent war, but did not think much of the role he played. "I carried over thousands of troops nnd enough TNT to blow up all Germany," he said, "but other men did much more than that. I never lost a man, and I hope all of them got home agnln. We were going no the Channel on the Siberia when a ship Just ahead was torpedoed. We almost ran Into her funnels ns she sank. But we missed destruction that time. It came close to us again off Queenstown when a ship wns sunk alongside us. At another time, our ship missed a torpedo by twenty feet. Carried Troops to Manila. "Those were stirring days and kept a ninn thinking. How did I avoid the torpedoes? Oh, Just luck, I guess; and somehow or other 1 niways naa a ieei- lng beforehand when we were going to meet a U-boat. I could nlmost tell the day nnd hour. Afterward I would be go relieved thnt I felt like somebody else, with the snfety of those men as sured. Just plnln luck. No man could fight a wnr without luck, even when he did his fighting rrom a transport. The cnptnln had a hnnd in nn earlier wnr, carrying troops to Manila. And he almost became a flllbusterer In the 'fH)'s when two Guatemalan factions nouHod. a load of nrms out of isan Francisco. The captain ngreed to com mnnd the Bhlp and lnnd her enrgo. and everything was arrnnged ; then he cot orders to take over the Siberia nno hnd to let the revolution get along without him. "The mnn who backed thnt expedition lost his mind over It,' ho suld, "so maybe It wns Just ns wel for me thnt I didn't tnke 't on." Back In 1000 the captain ran hi; ship Into Hongkong wb le n typhoon wns blowing nnd while dozens of other ships were standing by, nfrald to take the risk. But the cnptnln Is not the sort of man who lets a typhoon stop him If there is nny wny nround or through. Thnt time he set nis tuier deud ahead and went Into the harbor ns fine as you please, with envying eyes of all those other snllor men trained on him. Since that glorious day he has been King Zeeder. The captain Is a bachelor. "I nevei had time to marry," he snld. "What business has a sailor with a wife, nny wny? Snllorlng Is a life apart, 1 guess." It. Is not hnrd to guess thnt his ship has been his true love. And he Is a man of sentiment, as proved by the four canaries that have helped keep cheerful his cabin on the Manchuria. But the captain Is through with cabins and ships and the rolling deep. At least he says thnt his snllorlng days are over. Nayarit Richest State in Mexico Inhabitants Can Raise Any Crop They Desire. Washington. Nayarit, mentioned as one of the Mexican west-coast states In which there have been revo lutionary disturbances, Is the lubject of a bulletin from the Washington headquarters of the National Geo graphic loclety, based on a communi cation to tho society from Herbert Corey. "The Twentieth century has been a bit late in reaching this state of Nayarit, of which Teplc Is the capi tal ; but It seems convincingly here at last," snys the bulletin. "The rail road has come, io that one may ride In pullman cars direct from the north ern border, If one prefers the rails to the Old Spanish road. Rich In Raw Materials. "Bolshevism has hnd Its play In Nayarit Mexico City intervened when a Bolshevist governor was elect ed, and ordered the seating of the conservative candidate In his place. "There Is no richer state In raw ma terials In the world, perhaps, than Nayarit. No one knows ho'.y rich It Is. In Its 10,000 square miles the 170, 000 Inhabitants can raise any crop de- aired. "The fanner bai but to vary the elevation to And the proper climate. Limes, lemons, oranges, wheat, corn. beans, bananas, palms, coconuts, cot ton, tobacco the list Is endless. There are even two grapevines and one ap ple tree In Nayarit, which are emi nently fruitful. No one seems to know why It has never occurred to anyone to plant others. Gold Bars by Handful. "Nor is irrigation needed, so well bnlanced Is the rainy season in the greater part of the state. In the mountains there ure proved mines by the score. One hears of little work ings here and then-, where two or three men are ehipVng away at a small vein and pulve-izing the ore in an old-fashloncd armstra, in which mules drag heavy weights over a itone floor. Now and then the men come Into town with a handful of gold bars. "The trouble In Nayarit for years was that the state was In the grip of the great landed Interests. There are almost no small land holdings and few of the larger ranches were properly worked. "One great Spanish house and one great German house the word honse Is used as more truly descriptive of these organizations than the modern terms of company or firm dominated the situation. They had the only money to lend In Nayarit. Men Held as Serfs. "They controlled the market They ruled the state as a feudal principal ity. When the Southern Pnclflc built Its lines Into Teplc. In 1022, its labor camps were searched twice a week by the majordomos of the great bouses. "'This man Is ours,' the majordo mos said. 'And this man, and that. What can this mnn do? He is a car penter? Very well; we will take him, too.' "The railroad could not fight back. Its best men were sometimes taken In spite of every effort to protect them. Men to whom the rond wns -glad to pay three pesos a day were returned to the houses for a wage of less than a peso. The men dared not resist. The whip has been used not so long ago on recalcitrant peons In Nayarit The houses had their own way of bringing pressure on the courts. "Until they saw that they could no longer resist tne pressure or mo dernity, the houses fought the coming of the railroad. Competition from out' aide was unwelcome to thera. The nearer one got to the railroad, before It reached Teplc, the less one paid for the sugar made at Teplc and freighted out by mule, "One understands thnt a ground fer tile for the growth of any unhealthy Ism had been prepared. Even after the revolution came and peons were presumably free, they were held In Visit of President ill l-hl WW. 3;h -If President Masaryk of Czechoslovakia visited Paris recently and was given I a warm reception. He Is here seen at the tomb of the Unknown Warrior at the Arc de Trlompho, where he laid a wreath. , ,w , ,, bondage. They were compelled to pay a tribute to the bouues In eggs, or chickens, or work. "It Is true one does not hear this from the peon that they were always fed, even when free men went hungry, and that there were alwaya roofi over their beads, and far better roofs than their free friends owned. But they turned rebel against their master! when they had the chance. "Some of the land waa distributed among the peons and many songs of liberty were sung, , Money for the Printing. "When the Bolshevists were In con trol they played precisely the same lort of hob with the financial lystera that most of the other leaders have played since Diaz fell. It seemed so easy to get money merely by printing it. It was a popular tenet that white folks and bankers were alike enemies of Mexico. "Between the revolntlonlstas and the bandldos and a few neighbors, al most all the live stock In the state was killed or stolen. "For months Teplc and Nayarit lived by a system of barter. Property values went down almost to nothing. The taxes were due and payable Just as If the owners bad been prosperous. "When the owners could not pay, the state offered the properties for sale for cash. There being almost no cash in the country, the properties did not selL Then they were offered at successive reductions, until the prices became absurd. These set the values for all the rest Aztec Rites Are Shown Ancient Rock Depicts New Year Ceremony. Mexico City. According to an arti cle In Mexico Clty'a "Universal," Dr. Ramon Mena, one of Mexlco'a archae ologists, has recently discovered dur ing some excavation work In the city slaughter house a large stone depicting In detail the New Year'a ceremony of the ancient Aztec race. Students of history know that one of the principal, If not the most Impor tant, ceremonies of that race w as what they called the regenerating burned on the entry of a new century The Aztecs believed In this fire as the essence of a new life and that Dy u the world recovered the energy neces sary to continue life, it being tneir conviction that without the ceremony the world would come to an end. According to the Aztec method of counting time, the monrh consisted of twenty days, with the result that the dreaded end of a -century occurred niww in every 52 years. The cere monies were performed In the month known as Panaultzallztll, which Is cal culated to have corresponded to No vember. Authenticity Unquestioned. Details of the stone, the authenticity of which la not questioned, are : From left to right ; extending across the en tire width. Is depicted the god of fire; then a atone surface representing the month Panqultzallztll ; next the male and female woods which the priests burned on the entry of the new cen tury for the continued propagation of the species. In the center there Is a very distinct representation of an open fireplace, bordered by heavy supports and approached by a series of stone steps, the , depiction here being four priests, with conical signs of the land's fertility attached to their heads and bearing the sacred symbols of Time. Surrounding the central scheme are a number of crosses. Below and extend' ins across the stone la depicted a pro- cession of priests bearing the symbols of the centuries, and on tne extreme Masaryk to Paris DIAMOND THIEF FREED r If ;-' 1 L , tiro J 'ho The only hen ever arrested and locked up all night In a cell, Is pic tured above with Patrolman Shuman T. Smalley, at the lockup In Boston. The chicken, a prize one at that, named "Lady Camllle," while at a poultry ihow pecked a $250 diamond from the setting of a ring belong ing to Oeorge A. Hennessey, who was strolling by. After a night in Jail the hen was released by a merciful Judge, who stated that one cannot blame a hen for anything she does. Charcoal Runs Autos Berlin. Gas generated from char coal la being used Instead of gas gen erated from benzine on Berlin motor buses. Experiments have been con ducted for a year with charcoal burn ers and they have been found economi cal and otherwise successfuL on Stone right a woman masked or veiled that she may not see the dreaded rites which precede the New Year's cere mony. Utemlli Destroyed. k The stone Is hard rock, compact and very heavy and In an almost perfect state of preservation. The Aztecs be came terror-stricken on the approach of a new century, unless certain that their priests had everything ready for burning the sacred fire. On the last .. day of the year, after the usual meals, all household utensils. Incense recep- ' tacles and other religious appurte nances were broken Into pieces, to be replaced by new material, provided the sacred fire had the desired effect This custom accounts for the many frag ments of such articles which have been found from time to tune in Mexican ruins. On the evening of the last day of the year the multitude, headed by the high priests, ascended the Ixtalapa moun tain, known as the "Hill of the Stars." The ceremony began in a primitive way, the priests rubbing together pieces of resinous wood until flames appeared. Once burning, other pieces of wood were lighted and handed to priests of an inferior rank, who ran at full speed from the mountain to the neighboring Tillages to bring them the new life. Sacrificial Stone. In the National museum of Mexico City is to be seen the formidable sacrl- ' ficlal stone of the Aztecs whereon, as the concluding act of the New Tear ceremonies, they cast the hearts ef enemy warriors who had been con quered In battle, afterward laying them on the altars of Hultzill-Ponchitl. Doctor Mena states, as a matter of his tory, that the Aztecs did not cut out the hearts of these warriors while In the possession of their faculties, as is generally believed, but did so after the administration of a herb which acted as an anesthetic. The placing of them on the altars of the war god was an other elaborate ritual. The days following the New Tear were of Intense activity, and after sa luting the sun, th fertile land and the Father of the Universe the sacred fires were taken to the main Aztec temple, and thence to the minor temples situ ated at the four cardinal points. H..H.,i...,il, 1 .i-i- l 1 I l l-M-l HA-H-h Jap Naval Loss .in Quake Heavy New Tork. According to the China Weekly Review, Japan's naval losses by the recent earth quake, though not officially pub lished, are known to have been extremely heavy, says the Liv ing Age. Besides the principal naval base at Tososuka, "two of the largest battleships, the Mikay shlma and the Tokushima, have been destroyed; likewise : the Mltsu, which was the subject of much argument at the Wash ington conference." ' . In addition, what, are de 1 scribed as "enormous subter ranean oil, , storage tanks" at , the Tokosuka yards, where the naval authorities have been nc- T cumulating fuel oil for seven I year were wrecked, entailing a t loss of some 50,000,000 barrels. H HUM H I I Ml "I-M "1"M I l-l-l- 1 ;,