1 nMVY
MACJA.IXK SK(JT!().V.
LAKKVIBW. OREGON. THURSDAY DECKMIIKK 2. i)0i
PAGES 1 TO 4.
III
lv ii n II
MRS. SANTA CLAUS.
4
VNCLB SAM'S ItB AD LETTER EX
VERT GUIDES STRAY CHRIST
MAS GREETINGS.
Sends out Many Presents to Children
Has a Remarkable Memory and
Knowledge. and Decipher the moat
Putsllng Addresses.
Tucked away In a llltle corner of
too PoMtofflce Iepartmnt at Washing
ton behind a desk which ha hold a
thousand IntcreMtlng stories alia a
charming white halml woman who la
known the length and hn-adth of the
land aa "Mrs. Knntn Clans."
The woman to whom thl suggestive
ly dear name has been given la Mra.
Intelligible. Among; the hundred of
auch which she received the other day
waa one addressed to "Ygnac I-eh,
Combryja Co, brot nlryt no 803,
Bzanony ran."
How many, or rather how few, peo
pl would have known how to go about
locating thla person. Thn letter was
postmarked Florence, Mra. Col I Inn'
own store of Information told her that
the Cambria Iron Work a of Johns
town, l'a., was employing a largo num.
ber of HallanB and alio sent the letter
on. Hure enough Mr. "Vanao lych"
waa there and received the letter
which, without Mra. Colllna' asilst
ance would never have fallen Into hla
hand.
A facetloua atudent at the Unlveralty
of Virginia wrote to a young, society
girl in Washington and addressed the
envelope entirely In Greek. It take
greater obstacles than that to balk
Mra. Collins and the young woman re
reived her letter aa promptly aa If
It had been addressed In tbe moat
leglblo Kngllsh hand. The list of auch
letters Is almost unlimited In length.
A Spaniard sent a letter to "Sr. Fer-
nndo Maya, Fuerte galen Colo" and It
was promptly forwarded to Mr. Maya
at "Fort Garland, Colorado."
Mra. Colllna U a charming woman
and occtipl 'a a tiny apartment In one
of Washington's fashionable apartment
houses.
Senator Harris Hulked.
Henry Clay Evans, late consul fun
eral at lindon, wna once In Congress
POLITICAL TAXATION.
LEGISLA TION UKEl Y REQUIRING
I'VULICATIOS OF ALL LARGE
CONTRIBUTIONS.
Such a Bill, Introduced Last Year,
waa Looked upon aa a Crank Mcn-ure-WIII
be on a Different Baals
This Session.
Ejposure of tbe practice of tbe
great Hfo Insurance coniimrilc and
other cor jtorut. oris, of milking conlil
buttons to political campaign funds
and of devoting large amounts of
money to Influence legislation will
bring iM-fore" the next session of
congress the question of the passage
of a bill sliullur to that Introduced at
the last session by Ilepresentatlve
ltourke Cock run, or New York, and
familiarly known aa tbe "Corrupt
Practice" Mil. It may not le that
this Mil will he taken up and given
the serious consideration which it
was dcnlfd at the btst session, but
that a bill containing provisions of
the same general description as those
of the Cock run Mil will be introduced
and pressed to a vote is a moral certainty.
The Cockrnn bill proviaea mat
every contribution of more than f.00
to a national campaign I una suouia
be rciKirtrd to the cieik of the dis
trict court of the United Stales,
to the republican committees in the
last three presidential rampnlgns,
and John A. McCnll, president of the
.New York Life Iiisurnnc. Company
ndinltti-d that he had contributed
1.V,K)0 of the company's funds to
the same committees. In fart the
big companies have frequently b;en
contributors to both political parties.
Public May Demand Legislation.
There nre two questions Involved
In any fair consideration of these dls
clOHtircM. The 11 rut Is the desirability
of corporations taking such an active
and influential part in political cam
paigns and the second Is the moral
ity of corporation officers making
contributions on their own Initiative
out of funds that are really trust
funds.
Of course a law can be made pro
hibiting campaign contributions by
Insurance companies or other corpo
rations. This may correct tbe abuse
or it may not. Uw are not always
olieyed or enforced. There, for exam
ple are the laws of Moses. The world
has been violating them for thou
sands of years. It might be consid
ered fair if the directors of every In
surance company, savings bank, trust
company or other corporation hand
ling the poople'a money, would adopt
a rule forbidding absolutely all such
contributions and holding every offi
cer financially and morally respon
sible for its observance. Second, po
litical candidates and ' commltt""
could announce that they wonld
neither solicit nor receive contritiu-
tloPH.
Public sentiment is rapidly crystal-
KB W WNTOOX BRIDGES.
Collapsible Boats of Canta Which
Can Carried by On Man.
Tbe soldiers of the United States En
gineers' Corps seem to have solved one
of the greatest problems which has
confronted generals in command of an
army when on the march. Small un
fordable streams are often encountered
by the army and these must be crossed
in the shortest time possible. In fact
large rivers often confront an army
when about to glie battle to the enemy,
and it would take weeks, if not months,
to construct even temporary bridges
to allow the men with their heavy
armaments to cross. The pontoon
boat, of course, is well known to every
reader of history, for this most useful
WHITE HOUSE XMAS DINNER.
TUB ROOSEVELT FAMILY CELE
BRATES IS TUB GOOD OLD
FASHIONED WAY.
Always Have Huge Rhode Island Tur
key Which Is not Spoiled by French
Cooks. President Himself Doea
the Carving.
Old fashioned cooks and old fash
loned cookery hold the fort in tha
White House kitchen at Christmas
tide. When the President and Mrs.
Roosevelt give one of their great state'
dinners to eighty or one hundred
guests, they usually entrust all the
preparations to professional caterers,
but when it comes to the dinner which
saw tiisi.i aeaUsa; inrae i
MltS. "SANTA CLACK "
Pattl Lyle Collins, bend of the "Open
Ing and I'nmailablo UlvUlun" of the
I'oaLonVe Department.
Each holiday scuson brings to her
deik thousands and thousands, of
"Hants Clans" letters and were she of
tbe ordinary type of clerk, thinking
only of the salary she draws twice a
month, theso letters might go Into
Uncle Sam's waste basket without so
much as a thought for the writers.
Not so with Mrs. Co; II m. Through
her generous heart, her love for chil
dren and, possibly, with a memory or
two of her own when she, too, believed
in the real existence of tlio children's
patron saint, thla lovable woman at
tends first to her dullcH of returning
tbe lettera to their writers if this li
possible and then she plays "Mrs.
Santa Claua" to her army of Utile
friends.
Christmas Presents to the Children
When such a thing Is possible Mrs.
Collins findi out tho addresses of these
children, sends them somo little thing
they have asked for and gets her
friends interested In them until she
has now earned the title which came
to her so long ago merely through her
associations with this part of Uncle
Sam's poitofllco.
This Is rather tho sentimental side
of Mrs. Collins' work, but there is an
other and scientific phase of it which
has made her invaluable to the Gov
ernment. She Is the ofllcial chiro
graphlcal expert of the Department
and through her efforts each year
ninety per cent, of mall matter bear
ing manifestly Indecipherable ad
dresses finds Its way to the person to
whom it Is addressed.
Mrs. Collins Is a linguist and a deep
student. Added to this she hat stored
away In her brain a fund of general
awHM
v 1
knowledge which enables her to solve
problems which would puzzle a hun
dred other huads. Her knowledgo of
streets in various cities of Hurope led
to her compilation of a street directory
of Its countries.
The value of Mra. Collins' work in
ferreting out addrejses is all the more
notable when it is considered that each
postofllce in all the large cities has a
division especially set apart for de
ciphering illegible and otherwise puz
zling addresses. So after this has been
done letters which are still unclaimed
are sent to the postofllce at Washing
ton. Knows All Languages.
Mrs. Collins has made such a study
of this rather psychological work that
ahe knows Just, what section of the
country, even to the cities, In which
various nationaltleB have settled. She
can put ber finger on the Japanese,
the Chinese, Greek, Spaniards, Italians
and all the rest of them.
This particular talent has enabled
Mrs Colllna to decipher many a letter
which would have been otherwise un-
BaSBBBWBSSaSSSSBlsBBBSBBTlfcfc-Sie
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I ml - j;J 9
gabtj'a giv&t (Christmas.
long, lung ago the Wine Men, we arc told,
laden with Mfrrh and frankincense and gold,
journeyed afar, and round the Shepherd'a fbld
On tbe firat Cbrintmaa Day,
And now both young and old, with ahining eyes
Gather to watch their Baby 'a glad surprise,
Hie eeataaiee, bit joy, bie gleeful cries,
On bie fit at Chriatmaa day.
Ob Baby, Baby, may thy life be tweet;
May Cod-aent angela guide thy little feet;
May every day to come be aa complete
Aa tby first Chriatmaa day.
from Tennessee and knows all the emi
nent men of that State. He was tell
ing a good story tho other night of Col.
Sandford and Major Saunders, prom
inent business men of the Knoxville re-
ion. They were once on a Pullman com
ing this way. It was hot and they sat in
pajamas far into the night. An old
man came in, lighted a cigar, smoked
and said nothing. They did not recog
nize him, and kept on talking about
the miserably poor representation, their
State had in Congress, "it is a pity,"
said one of them "that a State like
ours should have such poor worthless
men at Washington. Our senators are
no good, old Harris is played out and
Joslah Patterson is the only man in
the House that amounts to anything."
At this remark the stranger arose and
In a tone of thunder began to hurl
Invective and abuse at the two men.
"It is about time I was taking part in
this conversation," he yelled and went
on to tell a few warm things to the
astonished narty of two. When he
had subsided a bit one of them asked,
but who are you to get so road about
it?" "Who am IT Well, I am Senator
Harris, ding you, and I have much
more to say to scoundrels like you."
Hoth men were amazed and they has
tened to apologize. They all became
friendly, and the old man orten iota
the story on himself.
Criminal penalties were provided for
violations of the law.
L Looked Upon a a Cockran Oddity.
The bill was treated with derision
last winter, both by the dully press
nud by gentlemen of ttie nouso of
Kepreseutatives, the Senate and
Third House. It was worth a laugh,
people said. There was very little
corruption, they averred. The idea
that corporations employed legisla
tive agents and disbursed huge Bums
of money for or ugalust certain bills
was moonshine doled out by sensa
tionalists to gratify tho morbid fancy
and the appetite for scaudul of a pe
culiar class of people.
Tho legislative inquiry into the af
fairs and conduct of the Equitable
Life and Mutual insurance companies
nt New York seems tc have placed
the matter of campaign contributions
and legislative disbursements
other than a humorous light. It mut
ters not whether the corporations
come forward voluntarily with their
contributions to cnnmtn, funds or
whether they are solicited and hound
ed by campaign collectors until they
contribute the result is the same.
Vice-president Gillette of the Mu
tual Life Insurance Company testi
fied that his company contributed
$J)2,oOO of the policy holders' money
izlng into the conviction that corpo
rate contributions should either be
made impossible or else required to
be made In such public fashion that
they -would be robbed of their bane
ful effect.
Foole'a Farrago.
Foote, the comedian, when a young
person of either sex applied for a po
sition, seldom refused outright, but
gravely handed them the following
lines, and asked them to commit and
repeat them to him correctly in ten
minutes. If repeated with no error,
he promptly took them for trial.
That there could be no collusion
with those who applied later, be fre
quently changed the order of the lines
and the proper names:
. Bo she went Into the garden to cut a
cabbage leaf to make an apple pie and
at thut time a great ahe-beur coming; up
the street pops it head into the shop.
What, no aoup? Bo he died and she very
Impudently married the barber: and there
were present the Plciiinnles. and the Job
lllles and the Qaryulles and the great
Panjandrum himself with the little round
button at the top.' and they fell to play
Inir the game or "catch as catch can.
till the Kunpowder ran out the heels of
their boots.
The popularity of "Trilby" for a
time exceeded that of any novel pub
lished, with the possible exception of
"Uncle Tom's Cabin."
i f) i S ? - - ' , "u- J II lift
THE PRESIDENTS TURKEY
luxiliary came into great use during
the war of the Rebell.on. The pon
toon train, however, is a very cum
bersome affair when the ordinary flat
bottom boat with the necessary tim
bers and accessories are packed on to
what is known as the "pontoon train
The German army recently adopted a
sort of sectional pontoon boat which
allowed of greater mobility to the
train.
However, the soldiers of the United
States Engineer Battalion have been
drilling in the use of pontoon boats
made of heavy canvass stretched over
a wooden frame. These boats are water-tight
and when assembled are cap
able of supporting six or more men
A boat may he taken apart and packed
into a small bundle light enough to be
carried by one man. Upon arrival at
a small stream all that is necessary is
for each man to unstrap his bundle
quickly put the boat into shape, and
launch it into the water. The wagons
which must necessarily carry the tim
bering and flooring of the bridge to
be, can be sent forward with a much
smaller guard than is necessary when
the cumbersome pontoon train wagons
each carrying a boat or section, are in
motion.
One Good Use for Millionaires.
Regret has been often expressed re
garding the threatened extinction of
many species of wild animals.
Of late, however, some of the world's
millionaires have begun to devote their
attention to the task of preserving
them, and numbers of wealthy men
have established or endowed parks
and private zoological gardens, in
which buffaloes, antelopes, giraffes,
gnus, and other dwindling species are
carefully cherished. In some cases
herds of bison are kept, after the fash
ion of deer, on the estates of great
landowners.
Nor are Europe and Asia behind
hand. Large preserves of big game
are to be found in France and Ger
many, and in England the Duke of
Bedford has made a wonderful collec
tion of wild animals at Woburn Park.
It comprises many rare animals, In
cluding waterbuck, gnus, sable ante
lopes, and some almost extinct species
of deer.
Strong on Details.
" 'Rastus, where's that rake?"
"De rake's wid de hoe, Marster.
"Well, then, where's the hoe?"
"Marster, de hoe's wid de rake."
"Well. 'Rastus. confound It, where
are they both!"
"Dey's boff togedder, Marster. 'Pears
UL-a vnuaa nnw'ful tickler 'bout details
Hia mvnin'. You leave de regulatin
of all dat to me, Marster, and I'll look
out fo yo interests."
Time to More.
Oh that I were where I would be,
Then would I be where I am not.
For where I am, I would not be,
And where I could 1 cannot.
is pre-eminently the home meal of the
year the French chefs have to give
way to women who know just how to
prepare the generous wholesome
dishes that an American citizen looks
forward to finding on his dinner table
on the joyous holiday. President
Roosevelt also shows a fondness for
carving the turkey himself.
A good old fashioned Christmas din
ner, moreover, with all the essentials
from turkey to plum pudding is a reg
ular Institution at the White House
during the present administration.
Perhaps President Roosevelt, with
his assertive good health and his fam
ily of lively young folks, are partlcu
ly well qualified to appreciate a rous
ing yule-tide feast, but whatever be
the reason certain it is that during the
Roosevelt regime the Christmas re
past has become one of the most im
portant as well as one of the jolliest
meals of the year.
To Be Family Reunion.
President Roosevelt and his family
follow the general policy of all pre
vious occupants of the tVhite House in
observing Christmas r.s a family fes
tival. This year it will have especial
significance as a reunion, since of late
months the junior .embers of the
Roosevelt household have been scat
tered as never befcie, by reason of
their attendance at different schools
and colleges. The itoosevelt Christ
mas, while a family affair, is by no
means confined to the Immediate
household. The Rrosevelt children
have long been allowed to entertain
their numerous cousins on Christmas
and other relatives are likewise fn at-,
tendance, while the President and
Mrs. Roosevelt usually ask a few per
sonal friends to also join the party.
Christmas dinner at the White
House is served in the evening and the
President arouses an appetite for it by
(Continued on next page,)
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h SAMPLE BUPIIER
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A Sample Dinner
W.'MeCRAME COMPANY
1131-33 BROADWAY
Room ie New York, N. Y
i