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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (Feb. 8, 1959)
f 14 MAIL TRIBUNE, Mtdfonl, Oregon, Sunday, Febru.ry 8, 1959 ! Youths Arrested for Taking Hubcaps Police said the pair admit ted in signed statements they attempted to remove hubcaps from a Chevrolet Corvette parked in the lot behind Rob inson Brothers clothing store, 114 East Main st. They were arrested on a charge of pet ty larceny after a Medford patrolman discovered them in the lot. News About Books From the Library TODAY In Oregon History (A Centennial Feature) Wayne Byron Goldschmidt, 18, of route 4, box 313, Med ford, was in Jackson county jail and a 17-year-old com panion was in the county ju venile detention home Friday after their arrest Thursday night in connection with stealing hubcaps, Medford po lice reported. t . : Buried Treasure Morse's Rifles Rejected; Extravagant, Dangerous In 1854, Samuel F. B. Morse demonstrated a maga zine rifle he had invented. The weapon, which used me tallic cartridges, would have assured quick victory to the first army to use it, but U. S. authorities rejected it as "ex travagant and dangerous." The stupidity of the au thorities had ample precedent, one of the more outstanding being that the U. S-, for gen erations after the superiority of the rifle over the smooth bore had been demonstrated, continued to arm its troops with smoothbores. I was reminded of this the other day when a friend showed me a U. S. Springfield musket that was produced in the famous arsenal in 1799, according to the date stamped on the butt plate. The weapon was a .69 cali bre flintlock with a 44-inch barrel, bound to the stock by three bands. On the forward end of the lockplate the word "Springfield" appeared, its letters forming a curved line. The slug fired by this weap on was big enough to kill an elephant, but to hit a tar get of even that size at 100 yards would be a problem. Though the accuracy of American riflemen contribut ed more to American victory in the Revolution than any other single fighting skill, the military minds of the infant United States were just as hidebound as those of any old er nation. The rifles of the revolution and a half century later were strictly the production of pri vate enterprise. The smooth bores which the government stupidly manufactured at its Springfield arsenal soon after its founding in 1777 were con tinued in production there well in the 1880's. Nonetheless, these smooth bore muskets have a value today. They are worth from $150 to $300 on the arms col lectors' market. 1870 STATE DEPT. STAMPS NOW COLLECTORS' ITEMS It isn't true of many things, but in. the case of some stamps it is a fact that the more of them you have,, the greater is their unit value. One example of this is the seven cent Department o f State stamp, one of a series created by Congress when it resolved to abolish the frank ing privileges of government departments. The stamp i s green in color. Its central or nament is a portrait bust, fac ing left, of Edwin McMasters Stanton, the famous Secretary of War in Lincoln's Cabinet. The name of the department Is given above the portrait and the denomination of the stamp below. The value of the individual stamp, either used or unused, is about $3. However, a block of four of these stamps, and unused, would be worth from $170 to $200. As for its value in used condition, it would probably be very much high er still. An aquaintance who ac quired a block of these some weeks ago was astonished to note that those in the block were of a soft, rather porous paper, while, a duplicate sing le stamp he had acquired earlier was on a thin, hard paper. His immediate thought was that one of the two types was a fake or at any rate a re-issue. In some cases such differ ences in paper are indicative of re-issues. Not so in this case. Stamps bearing the names of different govern ment departments were made by the Continental Bank Note Co. from' 1873 to 1879. They were produced on the thin paper. In 1879, the plates from which the stamps were print ed were turned over to anoth er firm which continued to print the stamps but used a softer, more porous paper. Since there are no water marks in either of these pap ers, and because the plates were the same, the feel of the paper is the easiest way to tell whether the stamp was pro duced by tle Continental or the American Bank Note Co. which got the contract in 1879. In any case, the value is the same. PRINT OF WASHINGTON RECALLS LAST' DAYS George Washington has probably been pictured more than any other man in his tory but reeently I saw one that was new to me. It was a print published by N. Currier in 1852, before formation of the famous firm of Currier & Ives. The picture shows Wash ' ington in a sort of slouch hat, sitting on a white horse talk .ing to two Negro farmhands, one standing, the other kneel ing to tie up a shock of wheat. There is nothing in the pic ture immediately suggestive of the Father of his Country. It is only after one notices the familiar outlines of Mt. Vernon in the extreme right background that one begins to feel he is looking at what might have been a camera study of the First President after his retirement from pub lic life. The faded title confirms it. It reads: "Washington at Mount Vernon 1797." Below that is a line quoted from one of Washington's speeches "Agriculture is the most healthy, the most useful and the most noble employment of man." The size of the print is only a little over 12 by 8 inches, and so far as I have been able to learn, it was never brought out in any larger size. The owner paid $100 for it, a price that was about $20 higher than those listed for it in various catalogues and auc tion records. However, I think he was smart to get it. Inevi tably, as this charming pic ture becomes better known, its value will increase. The supply is not only forever limited, but is steadily shrink ing a combination of fac tors which, in the case of such an important subject, will in evitably mean an increase in value. (Released by McClure News paper Syndicate) The library's annual fund for the purchase of books must always be divided five ways! like a pie served for family dessert. One slice goes each year to replace standard, wanted old er books which have been lost or damaged. A substan tial slice is needed to nourish the library's reference collec tion of books upon which an increasing number of readers depend for factual informa tion. A third, and generous, por tion purchases books for jun ior readers, and this must in turn be . divided not only among a host of various sub jects but among the many reading age levels all the way from picture book and primer to the romance and adventure sought by teen-agers. A fourth part of -the book fund is devoted to the pur chase of duplicate copies of popular titles for the use of branch libraries in nine com munities of the county. The fifth slice of the fund, with perhaps a nibble or so from the second, is set apart to purchase the new titles list ed in these bi-monthly col umns. During the past two weeks it furnished the follow ing: Arts and Crafts: How to Build Modern Furniture, Dal Fabbro; How To Write and Sell Magazine Articles, Geh man; Claude Monet, Degand; Oil Painting for Everyone, Slater; Historic Churches of the United States, Broderick; Color Guide to Home Deco ration. Sports: Fifteenth Series of Famous American Athletes of Today, Whitmarsh; Modern Basketball, Colbeck. Travel and Adventure: The Privilege Was Mine, Schakov skoy; Main Street. U.S.S.R.. Levine; The Ashanti, Lystad; White Land of Adventure, Sullivan; Six Against Crime, Neal. Social Subjects: The Arco 1959 Income Tax Guide for Preparing Your 1958 Income Tax Returns, Lasser; A His tory of Sexual Customs, Lew insohn; The Communist World and Ours, Lippmann. Philosophy and Reliaion: The Dictionary of Philosophy, Runes: Archaeoloev and the Old Testament, Pritchard; Ev eryday Life in New Testa ment Times, Bouquet. Science and Technoloav: Applied Descriptive Geometry With Drafting - Room Prob lems, Warner; Course of Tech nical Information for Electri cian - Industrial Maintenance Apprentices, Oregon; Sky rocketing Into the Unknown. Coombs: Automobile Eneine Rebuilding and Maintenance, Glenn. Biography: The Big Bank roll, Katcher; I Always Want ed To Be Somebody, Gibson; Lucretia Mott, Cromwell; Green Grows Ivy, Priest; Beg gars of Life, Tully. History: Slightly Out of Fo cus, Capa; The American Fur Trade of the Far West, Chit tenden; Decisive Battles of the U.S.A., Fuller; America Goes to War, Catton; The Lines Are Drawn, Johnson; Oregon Blue Book, 1959-1960. Other Non-Fiction: The Li brary Trustees, Hall; A Col lection of Familiar Quota tions, Bartlett; Joyce Jack son's Guide to Winning Friends and Popularity, Jack son. Humor: Mrs. Bridge, Con nell; Sober as a Judge, Cecil; Pioneer, Go Home! Powell. Romance: Sold for Silver, Lim; Girl Executive, O'More; A Little Love, Gaddis. Serious Fiction: The Cap tive and the Free, Gary; Au bade, Martin; Two Adoles cents, Moravia; The Numbers of Our Days, Gwaltney; The Scientists, Lipsky; The Elbow of the Snake, Lockwood. Historical Romance: Walk With Peril, Jackson; Tender loin, Adams; The Thorn of Arimathea, Slaughter; The Elegant Witch, Neill. Adventure Stories: Star light Range, Germano; Ku brick the Outlaw, Harper; Stranger in Galah, Barrett; The Pistol, Jones; Tales of the Caribbean, Roark; No Leave for the Captain, Ras mussen. Mysteries: A Day in Monte Carlo, Albrand; The Galloway Case, Gaf ve; Be Careful How You Live, Lacy; The Delicate Darling, Webb. i FEBRUARY 8, 1873 A call was issued today asking friends of Woman Suffrage in Oregon and the Washington Territory to at tend a mass meeting to be held February 14 and IS al the Ore Fino Hall in Port land. It is intended that a permanent state organisa tion be set up at that time. "Now is the time for firm, persistent, energetic ac tion," the call said. Mrs. H. M. Shanahan is president of the Mullnomab County Woman Suffrage associa tion, which issued the call, and Mrs. Abigail J. Duni way is secretary. Other Fiction: The Angry Scar, Carter; The Waist-High Culture, Griffith; Cricket Smith, Linkletter; The Snows of December, Olivier; The Gray Flannel Shroud, Slesar; Ask My Brother, Wagner. Grants Pass Men Are Questioned by Police Steve Joseph Flores, Grants Pass, and a 16-year-old youth from the same address were questioned by Medford police Thursday in conection with distributing handbills adver tising palmistry readings on West Jackson st. Police said a "Madam Kate" in Grants Pass was advertised as answering life's problems seven days a week. Question ing revealed her to be the sister of the youth, police re- The plastic bakelite is form ed from a reaction of phenol and formaldehyde. ported. The pair was released after questioning. 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