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About The Red Cloud chief. (Red Cloud, Webster Co., Neb.) 1873-1923 | View Entire Issue (Nov. 5, 1914)
RED CLOUD, NEBRASKA, CHIEF k 8 V VIED CAREER OF JOHN A. HILL Live American Who, Through Many Vicissitudes, Won Greai Success. HE GIVES TEACHER CREDIT Barefoot 8hepherd Lad, Printer, Ma chinist, Miner, Railroader, Editor and Now Owner of a Big Publishing Concern. By RICHARD 8PILLANE. (Copyright, McClure Ncwipaper Syndicate.) It Is one of tho vanities of a fair number of successful men to rather emphaslzo tho fact that they had llttlo schooling In their youth. Maybo they picked up more In the days of the stone bruise and the blue-back speller than they realized. Maybe they are of tho class who learn In flight and to whom the schoolroom drill means lit tle. Because John A. Is so much llko Johnny, John A. Hill always has been Johnny Hill. He was born near the top of tho Oreen mountains In Ver mont on Washington's birthday, In' 1868. His father was a wheelwright. They make pretty good wagons In that part of America and the average wheelwright is likely to bo a pretty good mechanic. In 18C3 the Hills went out to Wisconsin and a year later the family moved to Iowa. When John A. Hill was eight years old he went to work. As a barefoot boy with only a shirt and a pair of trousers he shepherded a flock of 300 sheep. There is a city now on the land those sheep browsed over. It is not very big, but everybody in Floyd coun ty and various other counties of Iowa knows it. It Is called Charles City. Tho lad got no schooling then. There were no schools near by. Tho nearest neighbor was threo miles away. In all Iowa there vwere not as many people as there are now In one' county. The boy's mother died before he was eight years old and late In 18GG his father took him back to Wisconsin. There he got a little schooling. He worked In the summer and In the winter for five terms he trudged through the snow and tho sleet and tho cold to a country echoolhouso and, to the despair of his teachers, showed little or no Interest in his studies. It was not that his mind was not bright. Vfi had picked up reading, writing and arithmetic in a rush. But he could not tolerate the monotony of tho school room. He was eager to read and was most inattentive on that account. Tho stuff he read was not what a school teacher would approve. The dime novel was tho most absorbing of liter ature to this boy. When he did not have one of those things to read he 'tried to follow the teacher's directions, but his mind strayed to other subjects. One Teacher Understood Him. Of the various teachers he had, only one, a Mrs. Mann, sympathized with him or understood the lad. She caught him one day reading a dime novel. He was eleven years old at the time. He had been ordered not to read such trash, but hod wilfully dis obeyed the Injunction. Mrs. Mann looked at the lurid bit of literature, then she looked at the boy. "Finish it," she eald, "and when school is dismissed at four o'clock, you are to stay in." It was the rule then to neither spare the rod nor spare tho boy, and Johnny Hill and all the other pupils expected Johnny Hill was going to get a rousing good licking. Instead of whipping that child, Mrs. Mann sat down alongside of him and told him she wauted him to tell her the story that was In that novel. Ho blundered through the first chapters of the tale as best ho could in his agitation. The story was about In dians. She stopped him there and wanted to know what tribe of Indians. He didn't know. She made him look it up and then she told him a lot about the tribe. There was a marvelous es cape of a white man from tho Indians because the white man had rubbed his horse with phosphorus and the In dians thought it was something super natural. The school teacher explained what phosphorus was and then mado Johnny Hill proceed. Taught Him How to Read. The boy, reassured, went along with his tale with a little more spirit. When ho finished tho woman told him that he had done pretty well. Thero wero a lot of things In tho book that ho did not understand, however, and which he was skimming over. She advlbed him never to read In that way, but al ways to ascertain what the meaning of a thing was. Therein lay the profit In reading. Then she told him that he was a strango boy, one not to be Judged as other boys were judged and that if ever he got an education It would come through bis inordinate desire for reading. "Reading is good for you, my boy," she said. "You've finished ono novel. I'm going to bring another one to you tomorrow." Thero was no novel reading at homo for Johnny Hill. His father did not permit it. But tho boy somehow man aged to put in hours a day with a book. Without his knowledge tho school teacher weaned him away from dtmo novels. She brought one thrlUIng Btory to him. It was a tale of the sea. After he read it she made him sit down and tell the whole story to her- PMWHglllS-g Sho was "t satisfied If he missed an essentia lt of detail. Sho would make him go back nnd read that over. Then sho spent hours explaining vari ous things about tho sea to htm, things that Just were touched upon in that sea story. That school teacher fed that boy on books until there was nothing in all tho neighborhood about that sho want ed him to read that sho had not bor rowed ror him. Became Expert Printer. When ho was fourteen ho got a job In a printing shop In Black Earth, Wis. Ho took naturally to types and presses. When ho had been in tho shop a year and a half or two years ho knew as much about the establish ment as tho people who owned It. When he was sixteen ho wont to Chi cago, commissioned to buy a complcto printing outfit for tho firm. When ho was seventeen ho was foreman. He stayed in the printing business until ho was nineteen. Then ho bought a half interest in a llttlo machine shop. Ho always had been Interested In me chanics. He loved to tinker about boilers and flywheels and engines, and ho could tako anything apart, whether It was a watch or a stationary engine, repair it and put It together again. That machlno shop was just to his liking and ho nnd his partner had a fair amount of business and excellent prospects. He hnd been In business for himself for about a year when ono day, In 1878, a friend who hnd gone to Leadvillo at the time of the first ex citement In that great camp, wrote him ono of those letters that make tho '.III mm n ' -Q wmf f ' -fill mWmwt iia jBJ j t fcHaBaVaVaflLVaVaHfilBw VpHB lwURRrM The Boy, Reassured, Went Along With His Tale. blood of adventure run riot in the veins of youth. The man in Leadvillo pictured what Hill could make in the mining camp as a machinist. It was fabulous. Nothing like it in the way of pay had been dreamed of by the or dinary machinist. Hill read the letter over just once. Within an hour ho had Bold out hie half Interest in that machine shop. That night nt nine o'clock he was on his way to Leadvllle. 8uccess and Failure. His friend had not overdrawn tho picture very much. Hill went to work putting up machinery In tho mines. He worked all sorts of hours Installing pumps, boilers, etc. He did tho work of two men and tho gold rolled in on him. It was glorious while It pasted. But after a year in Leadvillo ho had tho mining crazo as bad as anyone. He went off on an expedition across tho mountains into western Colorado pros pecting. Ho hunted for gold and ho hunted for silver. Ho did not get either, but he spent all tho money ho had earned In all those days of hard toil In Leadvillo. In tho fall when tho snow was in tho mountain passes and things wore look ing very bleak for him, ho drifted Into Pueblo and got a Job firing an cnglno on tho Denver & Rio Grando railroad. He was a fireman for a year and then ho was promoted to bo engineer. From tho latter part of 1880 until 1885 ho bandied an engine on tho Rio Grande. Thero hardly Is a turn in the Grand Canyon of tho Arkansas that Is not as familiar to him oe the fingers on his hand. The Double Headier. It is all very well to run a locomo tive in a scenic paradise, but it will not do for an ambitious man. Tho things Hill had read In tho books Mrs. Mann furnished to him had awak ened his soul and be wanted to give expression to some of the thoughts ho had in his mind. Most of these had to do with the affairs that wore imme diately beforo him tho railroad, tho locomotive, the men. Ho left tho Den ver & Rio Grande and started a little paper In Pueblo which he called tub Doublo Header. Tho title was a happy one. It took two engines to tako a train of a few cars up the ter rlflo grade of tho Grand Canyon, and It took two' engines, also, to hold tho train from running away when com ins down the hliL ep-jjtggjjcy .. . ,. -wwi ,..,., MJSSM Then, as he was to get out this pa per twice a week, it was a double header on that nccount. Tho engineer editor got out flvo or six Ibbuub of the Doublo Header nnd then ho tuniod II Into a dally under the name of the Pueblo Dally Press. It would be very pleasant to say that tho PucbloUaliy Press was a suc cess from tho start. But It was not. Hill worked on that paper tho beet he know how. Ho never was shy on any thing In a news senso and ho had a high reputation as an advertising so licitor. Yet tho Pueblo Dally Press was rather sickly. Hill ran It for ntno or ten months, then he sold out and went back 'on tho Denver & Rio Grando as an engineer. For nearly two years ho pulled tho throttlo over tho mountains. At tho end of the division ho usually sat down and did a bit of writing. Ho wroto mighty well and tho things ho wroto about he know thoroughly. Bought American Machinist. Ono day he got a 'letter from tho owners of tho American Machinist, which was published In New York. Many of tho articles ho hnd written had been Bent to this publication and tho owners had been Impressed so that they wanted to see htm. They had decided to start a railroad magazlno called Locomotive Engineering. After a conference with Hill, they asked him to be Its first editor. Ho accepted and assumed his duties on January 1, 1888. Ho mado the publication go. Ho was Its editor for threo years. Then ho made a proposition to Its owners for Its purchase. Ho had to tako la a partner to finance the deal, but after 1891 he was not only editor, but part owner. He worked like a Trojan. Locomo tive Engineering had steam up all the time. It made such speed financially that three years after ho bought it he and his partner were able to buy the American Machinist. Next year he and his partner separated, his partner tak ing Locomotive Engineering and ho taking the American Machinist. Since then he has gone it alone. In 1902 he bought Power, a monthly publication that was comparatively old, having been established in 1880 and having a very fine reputation. Ho paid $400, 000 for it. That was tho highest price over paid up to that tlmo for a trade Journal. Then ho bought tho Engineers' Re vlow of Cleveland and tho Engineer of Chicago, merged them with Power and mado Power a weekly. By this time ho had becomo a big flguro in tho mechanical and engineer ing world. But ho was only getting into his stride. In November, 190B, bo paid moro than $500,000 for tho En gineering and Mining Journal, which was older than Power, having been es tablished In 18C6. In 1911 he started Coal Age, taking the coal department out of Power. Tho same year he bought Engineering News, paying the highest prlco on record up to that tlmo for that publication $1,000,000. Growth of His Enterprises. With buying and merging great properties his field of expansion was not sufficient. In 1911 ho started an English concern for the printing of an English edition of tho American Ma chinist. In 1910 he started Maschlnon bau in Berlin, Maschinenbau Is the German edition of tho American Ma chinist. In 1909 ,the McGraw-Hill Book company watTformod. This was a consolidation of tbo book depart ment of tha McGraw Publishing com pany and tho Hill Publishing com pany. It publishes textbooks for col leges and universities and scientific books without number. Tho locomotive engineer who was a failure or pretty close to boing a failure as a newspaper editor in Pueblo is tho most successful editor and publisher la the engineering and manufacturing field In tho world. Thero has been no check to his prog ress from the day be went to New York. BOY IS KILLED II FIGHT JjTH SHARK Young Turk, a Fancy Swimmer, Makes a Heroic Struggle Against Aquatic Enemy. ALMOST WINS COMBAT Crowd at Lake Pontchartraln, La., Sees Death Struggle Between Youth and a Man-Eater, Rescuers Arrlv Ing Too Late. New Orleans, Ln. Peter Kontpou las, a 6oentecn-ycar-old Turk, n fancy swimmer of rcmarkablo abil ity, gavo a largo audlcnco at Lake Pontchartraln 20 minutes of unsched' uled thrill nnd horror when he wns fatally attacked by a mon-cntlng slinrk whllo doing his swimming stunts in tho lake. Kontpoulas had been doing his bwlmmlng tricks 100 ynrds out from tno throng-lined shoro for 15 minutes beforo tho excitement began. Suddenly, tho wntor about tho boy began to churn. Tho lad was seen to throw up his hands and then dlsapnea.1 Tho water became violently agitated, and tho knowing men In tho crowd which lined tho shoro yelled: "My God! A shark has attacked that youngster!" Clear-headed men in tho crowd ran up tho beach a quarter of a mllo to get a boat to go out to tho assistance of tho youth. The rest of tho crowd, helpless to aid tho struggling swim mer, watched tho death struggle of the nervy Turk In mute horror.i Out on tho lake, the expert swimmer was making a terrific fight for life. Tho shark first caught the man by the right foot. By beating tho water hard and by strenuous squirming, tho Turk freed himself temporarily from tho Jaws of the man-eater. Bravely he Btruck out for shoro. In another minute, tho shark, again on Its back, With the Right Arm of the Swimmer In Its Jaws. mado for tho boy. This time ho got a grip on tho right leg of the youth. Again the battle in the lake raged fast and furiously, tho boy and thd shark both churning the water like paddlo wheels. Again tho boy freed himself from the monster of tho deep. By this tlmo tho men who had gone for a boat were putting out for tho scene of battle. In another two minutes, tho specta tors saw tho shark mako another lunge for tho swimmer, but this time thoy saw tho Turk avoid tho on-rush-ing monster. When the shark passed tho youth, tho lad struck out again for shoro. Tho lad waB seen to swim at least fifteen yards with great speed. Again the white, ugly throat of tho sea bruto was seen to shoot out of the depths, this tlmo with tho right arm of tho swimmer In Its uncom promising JawB. Men in tho crowd yelled: "Merciful God! The shark's got n big taste of blood now. Ho'll novcr quit the fight. The boy Is done for!" Using his left arm and his legs to tho best of advantage, tho boy strug gled for fully two minutes underneath and on the surfaco of the water be foro he could wrest himself away from tho mountainous man-eater. Tho men in the boat wero pushing nearer and nearer, but wero still a consider able distance away from tho Bceno of battlo. Weakened, but with mag nificent Bplrit, tho boy wns seen to put again for tho beach. This tlmo ho swam longer than he had after previous attacks. Suddenly, however, tho lad was seen to rise bodily out of tho water. Tho shark had mado a swift flank attack und tho people on shoro could seo tho boy'B right side in tho Jaws of tho man-eater. With unbridled fury the boy attacked the shark, frcolng himself again' from the monster Again, ho tried to Btrlko out for shoro, but his strokeB wero weak. As tho rescuors in tho boat reached tho lad, ho was Just going down for tho second time. Ho was unconscious when hauled Into tho boat, dying from loss of blood and on overworked heart beforo tho craft reached shoro. 181115 I 1 m, ft fJBSJBJ Difference In War Declarations. Thero was a great difference in tho manner of commencing n wnr con tuses ngo to what thero In now. Now tho blow In frequently struck beforo tho word, and there Is no obligation to Issue a forinnl declaration at nil, tho act of war constituting tho declaration. Hut In medieval times no war ever be gan without n formal declaration by n humid, who, In a most leisurely man ner, breathed dcllunce on the pnrt of his royal master, exchanged innumer able bows with his onomles, and de parted In as dignified n manner as he came. Hard on Some People. "Americans must learn to use home grown tobacco," a trade Journal de clares. Thin will ko hard with thoso persons who haven't been In the habit of using any kind of tobacco at all. YotingHtoun (O.) Telegram. DyspppHln and pessimism have a lot In common. BHlflmnB ALCOHOL-3 PER CENT Avertable Preparation for As similating the Food and Regula ting the Stomachs and Dowels of Promotes Digcslion.Chcerful ncssandRcst.Contains neither Opium .Morphine nor Mineral Not .Narcotic KiptefoiHDrSAMvanrarsi fmlii Suit' MxSnwa AMrUtSmb . Aniit Stiil ' tVpptrminl IfiCntivmUSfdtk' hirm SnJ ttiiiytm Flaor A ncrfccl Remedy forConslipn lion . Sour Stomach.Diarrhoea, Worms .Convulsions .Feverish ncss and LOSS OF SLEEP Facsimile Signature of The Centaur Company, NEW YORK. Guaranteed under the Foodani Exact Copy of Wrapper. Stork's Good Memory. Whllo visiting tho Horlln zoological gardens, says Lustlgo matter, llttlo Gretchen saw n great white bird standing on ono leg in a cage. Sho threw In a nleco of candy: tho bird gobbled It up eagerly, and thrust its head through tho wlro for moro. Presently Gretchen's mother came along. "Oh, mother, soo hero! Whnt kind of a bird is this?" The mother pointed to tho sign on tho cage, which read, "Tho Stork." "The stock!" cried tho llttlo girl enthusiastically. Oh, mamma, do you know, ho actually recognized me?" ITCHING BURNING ECZEMA R. F. D. No. 3, Caldwell, Ohio. "When our baby wob about two months old sho broke out over her body, faco and head with eczema. It waB bad, about as thick as It could be. It broke out In a kind of pimples. They wero red and sore. Sho was very cross nnd restless. Tho eczema would Itch and burn till oho couldn't sleep. It looked very badly nnd would peel off where tho places wero. Hor clothes would lrritato tho eruption. "Wo gavo her medicine, but it didn't do any good. Wo hnd heard about Cuticura Soap and Ointment so wo Bent for a samplo and It was not very long till sho was better. I bought somo moro Cuticura Soap and Oint ment which cured her completely." (Signed) H. E. Smith, Mar. 21, 1914. Cuticura Soap and Ointment sold throughout the world. Samplo of each frce.wlth 32-p. Skin nook. Address post card "Cuticura, Dept. L, Boston.' Adv. Tho hardest work somo peoplo do Is to flguro on gottlng money without working for It. Arm yourself with a dark lantern when looking for honor among thieves. To -y--;'u1Hr-'ieaw . tfyKjAUHpflk9H2pl You are nervous. You have "crying spells." You are dejected. You don't sleep well You have backache. You have lost ambition for your work. You are beginning to Wt 4-1.1 j-1 atMsl Afa .1 J feel old and look old. These symptoms, more than likely, are produced by some weaknet. derangement or Irregularity peculiar to the feminine organism. Dr. Pierce's Favorite Prescription (In Tablet or Liquid Form) , will aid you In regaining vouthful health and strength-Just as It has been doing for over forty years for women who have been In the same condition of health you now find yourself. It 8oothc and invigorates. It upbulldsand uplifts. Your medicine dealer will supply you In tablet or liquid form, or send 50 oneent stamps for trial box. Addiass Dr. R. V. Pierce. Buffalo. N. Y. Dr. Pierce's Heuut Pellets rejilite Stands, Lirer ud Bewels, Easy tt tab. Peruna Did Wonders For My Boy Mrs. Nsllls Courttr, 80 Franklin Ave Norwt Ik, Conn., writes: ''Peru na has dona wonders for my boy. lean 'not praise It enough. "I think It Is tho best medi cine on earth. Let me tell you why I think so. "My son has been afflicted with ca tarrh since he was a baby five months old, so that for years I had to watch him all night long, and keep his mouth open so he could breathe, a he could not breathe through his nose, "He baa always been very delicate. "Since he commenced taking tha Peruna I can go to bed and sleep al night" CASTORIA For Infants and Children. The Kind You Have Always Bought Bears the Signature of. In Use For Over Thirty Years CASTORIA Glory. Somo warriors, having been nt wa quite awhile, wero beginning to tlr of tho sport. "There's glory enough for all!" ex. claimed tho more ImpulBlvo among them. Hut others wero moro cautious VLet's keep on killing and desolating awhile longer nnd mnko sure!" urged these. It was tho counsel of prudence which prevailed, tho world being noti fied that tho conditions were not, a yet, qulto rlpo for peaco. Most of ub need tho money because that is what money Is for. Many a man's success, llko that of nn actor, 1b due to n good manager. 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Butr to Cr.vr or Faded Hk J wuiavuu mi wm AnufgUMb, W. N. U., LINCOLN, NO. 45-1914. the Woman Who mvk i AW fU 4f ft Realizes She Needs Help I i m dl w A m .4 IV' 1 "'.'J 'Iff. SMM v, m