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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (June 29, 1919)
"t r " THE OMAHA SUNDAY BEE: JUNE 29, 1919. 7 B MERCHANTS OF ENGLAND SEEK RUSSIAN TRADE ' . -: - i Scheme Devised by Board of Trade Based On Govern ment Insurance; Ask Fed- era! Aid. , - London, June 28. (Correspond ence..' of The Associated Press.) British merchants have devised a far-reaching scheme, based to a great extent on government insor- ance? for capturing the trade of non bolsEevtk Russia. They want to put their goods into "White Russia befora the Germans have a chance to do so but, apart from agricultural machinery on which the United States already hat the call, England, by this plan, could be far ahead of any other nation. The department of overseas trade of the board of trade which is a gov ernment institution with a cabinet member at the head, has prepared bill for submission to Parliament set wide a found of $125,000,000 to finance the insurance on the trans? portation of British goods into Rus sia.; Sir Arthur Steel-Maitland, head of the overseas trade board, has f beeiT selected to pilot the . bill through the Commons, The bill provides that merchants halt be furnished with commercial Information regarding Russia; that regular sailings shall be arranged; that goods shall be insured and that banks shall be enabled to make ordi nary., advances to, traders. Banks . could also issue warrants, against collateral security of insured goods and the warrants would be valid for purchase of British goods. They would have a fixed value in British Sponsors of the scheme point out thatJthe government probably would make a profit as was done through the war risk insurance scheme. That netted the government $85,000,000 profit. ' Big Apple and Pear Crop. North Adams, Mass. Farmers in this section predict an unusually heavy -yield of apples and pears this year ty, "v.v- ts , , . , , . V'-y " ' - f" - " iliiliiliiiipliisilliiii illll:lllfiflllllilpii The above view shows the activity that is taking place at Twelfth and 'Douglas streets.; , ;";;v t-i - Ct ambers-O'Neill, wrecking eon tractors "i, for the Skinner Pack ing company, are nearing the end of their work in wrecking the old Metropolitan hotel and the building formerly occupied by the Skinner frodiic department, as siowa r . . .i . - zr7&s - - -- , - r M;--r? " v 'I w- ?t v' .yg 1 5 Last Vestige of' Kearney's Boom Days Vanishes With Wrecking of Cotton Mill j ....... Dream of Eastern. Financiers to Make "Half Way City" Manufacturing Metropo lis Nearly Forgotten as Landmark is Replaced by Corn Fields Tourists-Will Miss Pleasing Rambles Through Show Place of Lincoln Highway. By BESS FURMAN. Every tourist, who, feeling the lure of the road a,id the call of Col orado's cooling breezes, has follow ed the Lincoln Highway westward, remembers the old cotton mill, two miles west of Kearney. Every coast-to-coast wanderer has wondered at the huge, dilapidated factory, oddly incongruous in its surrounding corn and alfalfa fields, and has carefully stored its decrepit lineaments in kodak book or memory archives as a momento of the Half-Way-Place, 1,733 miles from Boston, 1,733 miles from Frisco. Weary tourists will no longer dine in the sha'de of the old cotton mill, no longer climb its rotting staircases to its queer old tower to view the surrounding landscape, no longer explore its donjon depths. The old mill is being wrecked for salvage, and when it is tourist time again, -not vestige of it will remain to tell the story of its final succumb ing tovthe long-encroaching corn fields. Long Dead Dream. To nocturnal travelers the old ci'tton mill is a thing of (enchant ment, a thing of cavernous openings aud gloomy shadow, ghostly looking in the summer moonlight' which flickers in reflection from a tiny window pane here and there (mira culously preserved from sling-shooting small boys) like a phosphorous glow from the face of a Hallowe'en goblin. And indeed, the long-abandoned building is a ghost, the ghost of a dream long dead, yet preserving in its huge outlines the dignity of that dream. Some 30 years ago, a group of men saw a vision. Easterners all, they would build an eastern metropolis on she plains of Nebraska. That vision, insofar as it ever materializ ed, was known as the Kearney boom, a never-to-be-forgotten experiment in Jiigh finance, when hearts beat 51 above. The architects of the build ing are H. C Christensen company, Chicago, '-III," and Harry Lawrie, Omaha, Neb. The ground is 99x132 and is all enclosed in a most convenient way to protect the public during the con struction of the new Skinner Prod uce building, which will be nine floors, the building covering, the en tire ground area. This product building- will fco 22 The old cotton mill as it appeared during the time it was in operation. ' high with enthusiasm at the near realization" of the dream. Huge business enterprises were launched daily, and many of them carried to completion. Paper mills, oatmeal mills, factories, civic build ings, public utilities of every sort, even to a street railway system, were in operation in an incredibly short time. Real estate changed hands hourly at fabulous prices. And the most stupendous and long est enduring of all the boom day en terprises was the cotton mill. Some idea of. the size of this ad venture in high finance may be gained from the fact that over 4.000, 000 brick were used in ' its con struction, not to mention 100 car loads of stone. And the floor space amounted to 89,587 square feet. s The Cumnocks Arrive. It was a gala day in boom times. There were many such. The crowds which thronged the sidewalks were in a furore of excitement. A jubi lant procession, bearing a banner triumphantly aloft, marched down the city street, a banner announcing to the wildly cheering populace, "The Cumnocks Have Come." For weeks the metropolitan daily had been publishing the rather de pressing information, "The Cum nocks come not," but those eastern capitalists had actually arrived and were ridingf in state behind the banner-bearing citizens in a coach imp Illlliilliii tJ., n y In - " pushed to completion and will be the most modern and efficient that has ever been constructed. The produce department of the Skinner Packing company has been moved temporarily to ths old Kirschbraun creamery on Howard street, during the construction of this new project The first floor of this new building will house tht up-towo wholesale and four, if you please.fand the es tablishment of the cotton mill was assured. Within 90 days, the citizens of Kearney raised by poular subscrip tion the subsidy of $250,000 request ed by the company, a sum which represented the donation of a sum equal to $50 from every tman, wo man and child then residing in the city, this in spite of the fact that other enterprises were demanding subsidies.- But what did the towns people care for expenses? The boom was on I The Bubble Bursts. In a few years, the bubble burst, but in those few years the cotton mill phantasm had been wrought in brick and cast iron and heavy tim bers. And, perforce, it continued to operate. Strangely enough, when madness and suicide were stalking through the streets of the stricken city, in the gloomy days which fol lowed the collapse of the boom, the cotton mill was doing a prosperous business. Its 500 employes were producing a muslin equal in quality to "Lawrence Double L,'-or "Fruit of the Loom." Its entire product found a ready market in China. Had it not been for the labo situation the old cotton mill would in all probability be operating yet. As it was, it enjoyed ten halcyon years of usefulness. No doubt the mulatto girls from illl lit market of the Skinner Packing com ml pany and the offices of the produce department. The two top floors will be used in feeding poultry, picking poultry and candling eggs. . The intervening floors will be cold storage and the large basement will be used for dry cold storage and wifl contain the ice machines. The produce department of the Skinner Packing company was es- r Wallingford in Real Life Avenged Pal Murdered in Sinking of the Lusitania London, May 28. Behind the grim, .gray walls of the Ohio state penitentiary the correspondent last saw him, a convict skull cap partly covering his prematurely gray hair, cheap, prison steel-rimmed glasses shading his keen flashing brown eyes, and a gaudy prison gray jack et falling clumsily from his massive square shoulders. ' "One of the smoothest forgers and cleverest 'con' men in the world." That was his reputation among the convicts and penitentiary guards. "He's a college graduate," Bob Miles, penitentiary Bertillon expert, told me when I was making one of my daily rounds as penitentiary re porter for a Columbus (O.). news paper. "He's swung big deals that have often run up into five figures, and he can out-Wallingford J. Ru fus. himself." Gradually I learned to know him (Earl Wright we'll call him, because that Isn't his real name), but it was a long time before I could break through that barrier of reserve he built around hiself. He wouldn't talk shop. Outcrooked Two Crooks. One day, though, he let slip the name of a pat His face lighted up. "Hes. a real partner and pal," he said. "We've swung many a deal, he and I." Then he waxed reminiscent and smiled. "I have to laugh the way we turned the tables on a couple of crook Chicago lawyers who tried to trim us "two 'poor boobs' out of our 'western gold mine.'" Then he closed up. ' "Telf us about it." "Nope, nothing doing. I might want to use that stunt again with. Harry. That's my pal's name. It's never been worked before nor since, and you can bet we had it fixed so that the Chicago lawyers won't say any more about it. Boy, how we the cotton mills of the south, the French from the cotton mills of Canada and the lean Yankee mill workers wearing the baggy overalls, drooping moustaches and siff hats of the time, added a picturesque bit of color to the Nebraska landscape, as they stood in the doorway of the low company houses huddled close to the big mill. tablished less than one year ago and it has met with a phenomenal suc cess. It is hard for one to realize the great volume of business and monetary value that the produce business amounts to in this section. In this department alone the Skin ner Packing company will do a vol- lume of business of many million uuuis per innum m poultry, outter and eggs. -This building will contain over Mill'llil got to those babies for $25,000, I don't rnind telling you, but further than that I won't go." Again he laughed aloud. . "But that's, not as funny as the one Harry and I had all framed for kidding an Ohio county out of the land on which the court house was built. 1 I can't tell you about that either, but it fell through though not because of any fault of ours. "However, I will tell yob how Harry and I plucked a wealthy old village wise guy for $10,000 and got away with it. "He was the village Rockefeller, who oassed around the collection box on Sunday and spent the rest of the week foreclosing mortgages on widows and orphans and generally trimming the poor- under-dogs of the community. Showed "Tightwad" Something. "One of the most vaunted boasts of this gray-whiskered old porch climber was, 'None of them city slickers nor confidence men could ever put anything over on me.' "Our1 mouths watered when we heard of this bewhiskered village Croesus and Harry grinned, 'Boy, prepare the cleaners for this bird.' 1 "I wrapped adhesive tape tightly around the finger joints and elbow of my right hand and arm, and with a leather glove over the hand you'd have sworn it was an artificial arm. A few specks of gray rabbit fur sprinkled in my eyebrows and a change of glasses was all the dis guise I had. "As soon as' we blew into this small Ohio town I breezed around to the office of the izar' with an attractive real estate proposition in a nearby town and a spiel about paying all his expenses if he would meet me the next day in that town to look over the proposition. "When I said free expenses the old boy's eyes gleamed with visions of a good hotel and fine feeds for nothing,and he snapped at it. While handing him this line of gab I took careful lotice to see where he kept his check book. "That night we saw him from our hotel window hopping down to the railroad station for- his "appoint ment" with me. Next day about noon, when his stenographer was out at lunch, we jimmied our way two and three-fourths acres of floor space and the plant of the Skinner Packing company on the South Side contains over 11 acres of floor space. Both are owned by the Skinner Packing company, and it gives the company a great combination to do business efficiently and profitably and give superior service to the trade. Partridge-Thomson Company have into his office and I got to his check book. ' "Harry stayed in the office while I went over to the bank. There, in full view of the cashier, I endorsed the check very laboriously with my 'artificial arm.' x "The cashier looked at the size of the check and smiled an apology. There's no question but what this is all right, but we don't know you, and ' CaHs Up "Whiskers' " Office. "Oh, that's all right, I know you must be careful of all these forgers and crooks," I came back at him amiably. 'But just call uphis of fice. I know it's a large amount land one must be careful.' Again I M J J . 1. - 1, , l smuea, ana tne jong-oeaKea, lop eared cashier grinned with me as he politely excused himself to call up Old Whiskers' office. "Of course Harry answered the phone, and not only O. K.'d the check, but gave a complete descrip tion of me, laying particular em phasis on my artificial arm. "The cashier came back smiling and asked me how I wanted the money. Of course we had our get away fixed and blew with the money. I was, then about 25. For weeks af ter we saw and laughed over police advertisements for a forger, about 40, with gray hair and an artificial arm. . v. - "TJiey never got on to us on that, and nobody to this day knows the inside of it but you, Harry and my self." v . - Wright then told me of other stunts in many of which the money run up into five figures that he and his pal had worked. "Harry is out side working hard now to get me out," he said once. "He'd do any thing for me. He's a real partner and pal and I'd go through -hell for him.' He often dwelt on his great love and friendship for his pal. Then came the sinking of the Lus itania. That day on my rounds through the penitentiary I saw Wright in his cell, his head bowed, his eyes dim, and a newspaper crumpled in his hand. He pointed to the story, and in the bold face type list of dead was the name, of his pal. " "I'm going to France to kill Ger- the contract for the. excavating and will start at once. Work on the building will be pushed snd the building completed as soon as pos sible. Other -buildings going op in this section are as follows: Simon Bros., wholesale grocers, northeast corner Eleventh and Dcdge streets, 132x154 Gordon, Van & Storage, Ninth Worst Londitions in . Poor District Veiled, iueen Mary 1 ranks London. The queen's eoncern for the welfare of her people was exemplified in a striking manner when she summoned Lieut. Col. W. J. Lewis, mayor of Bethnal Green, to Buckingham palace to ob- -tain first-hand knowledge of the housing conditions in the poorer dis tricts of his borough. ,"-.'' - He told the queen that over, a long series of years the Bethnal Green authorities had been en deavoring to act.- He quoted the death rate in one part of the Bethnal p Green area as being three times higher than the average mortality for London, while as to the densitv ot oonuiatlon the ooroucrn had 41 v inhabitants to the acre, as against the acknowledged health standard 1 of 65. The London county council had v Green did not approve. The Brady . street area, as he had explained, was the worst, and the council's scheme did not deal with the worst part of it. The queen examined the plans carefully and with interest, and acu many tjucauuua uuuui luc properties and the people who have to live in them. At one point in the mayor's story her majesty ex claimed indignantly: "It is pretty clear to me - that when I have visited the poorer dis tricts I have been taken mainly to the highways and not to the by ways." The mayor described another set of properties known as "back-to-back" houses. Only the front of . each cottage was open to the air. mans as soon as I get out," he said. "I'm going to make good to Harry in this, so help me God. I'm going to avenge my pal. I'm going to kill Germans." That was four years ago. Today he came into my office here in London. "'I've made good to Harry," was his first greeting. .' And as proof of this there, shown i from his British sergeant major's tunic were the ribbons of the Pis- , tinguished Conduct Medal and the Military Medal two of Britain's highest military honors. and Davenport street four story -addition, 66x132. , Farrell & Co.; northwest corner . , uin,nA?od5? stor- " les, 00x132 for first n;t floors, 126x132, being erected for ' them by Gordon-Lawl New addition iust completed on ' the Gordon-Lawless building. ' Iten Biscuit company going to build s. story sddition, 132x3
