Arizona state miner. [volume], October 24, 1919, Image 7

About Arizona state miner. [volume] (Wickenburg, Ariz.) 1919-1927

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¥ MUON AL¥
CAPITAL AITAIBS
American Is Head of the New Republic of Russia
WASHINGTON. —This is a queer world nowadays. Did you ever hear of
Uhro-Rusinia and its acting governor, Gregory I. Zsatkovitch? Os course
not. Well, Uhro-Rusinia is one of the smallest of the new self-governing
republics in Europe and Gregory I.
J, . . Zsatkovich is an American citizen. He
GOVERNOR ' / haS USt heen here after his wlfe an<3
of UHRO-f I chiJ dren and is on his way back to re
o I sume is duties. His official
title is “^ of the Directorate
Vr o of Autonomous Rusinia.”
*1 i-V ( >' American Russians are settled in
( To large numbers in about 150 cities of
Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, Con
necticut, New Jersey and Illinois, and
smaller numbers are to be found scat
tered all over the country. They are
represented by the American National council of Uhro-Rusins. This council
worked so energetically that in 1918 at the convention of the Mid-European
union in Philadelphia the Rusins were recognized as a self-governing unit of
the Czecho-Slovak republic. This was ratified by an American plebiscite.
Uhro-Rusinia has a population of about one million. Its capital is Uzhorod.
Set in the Carpathian mountains, Rusinia is noted for its picturesqueness
D. A. R. Exchange Stars and Stripes With Congress
IN THE house the other day Representative Mondell of AVyoming, the
majority leader, called attention to a beautiful new flag suspended back of
the speaker’s desk. He read a letter from Mrs. George Thacher Guernsey,
president general of the D. A. R., pre
senting the flag as a substitute for the
chapters of the society. He offered a
resolution accepting the flag, which
was unanimously passed by a rising
vote. He then offered the following
preamble and resolution and asked A\
unanimous consent for its immediate
consideration:
“Whereas the flag which was dis- **
played in the hall of the house of rep-
resentatives from the year 1901 until
displaced by the flag presented to the house by the National Society of the
Daughters of the American Revolution, and this day accepted by the house, a
period of time covering the first 19 years of the twentieth century, during
which the house of representatives participated in the events preliminary to
and in the enactment of legislation for the prosecution of the war with the
Imperial German government and with the royal Austro-Hungarian government,
and during which time also many other historic and important acts originated,
were perfected, or consummated herein; therefore, be it
“Resolved, That because of the association of said flag with the legisla
tive history of the United States during the period aforesaid, and in token of
the house’s appreciation of the patriotism of the members of said society and
of the women of the United States, the clerk of the house of representatives
is hereby authorized and directed to deliver said flag to the board of manage
ment of the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, to
be displayed and carefully preserved in the archives of said society, together
with a copy of this preamble and resolution,”
Congress Apparently in Favor of Budget System
CONGRESS is apparently taking the national budget system movement
quite seriously. The Illinois plan of control of public expenditures through
a budget system was explained to the house appropriations committee the
other day by Governor Lowden of Eli
nois, who suggested that machinery
similar to the Illinois plan be set up
rf '*■•"**i < v***LK) * n * e deral government, with the
\ f? secretary of the treasury exercising
\ rt A the exclusive authority and responsi
/J' 0 h F hllity for appropriations analogous
yl § with the position held by Omar EL
VjCPjoj ( v y COMCftESS Wright, Illinois’ state director of
J finance. The treasury department
should be made the exclusive depart
ment for national finance, the governor
said, and the administration of the
publie health service and other subsidiary bureaus should be removed from
the treasury department. In other words, said the governor, while all the
other departments are working to secure Increased appropriations, there
should be one central bureau whose sole duty it should be to keep expenses
down.
“It cannot be emphasized too strongly that somebody outside the influences
of the departments should receive the estimates and make up a budget for
which he would be responsible and who should answer to the president alone,”
Governor Lowden declared.
“If we require the president to submit a budget, saying what expenditures
he believes to be necessary for the proper running of the government, then the
country will know that the president asks only that amount, and no more.”
American Legion Post Opposes Reclamation Bill
SENATOR FLETCHER of Florida read into the Congressional Record the
other day resolutions adopted by Tampa post, No. 5, American Legion,
which are substantially as follows: “Whereas various measures have been
introduced in the congress of the Unit
ed States for the aid of the discharged
soldier, sailor and marine, veterans of THIS iSTHEOnF)
the late war; and, whereas, among WE WANT J
such measures is H. R. 487, referred fO*M J— y
to as the Mondell bill, otherwise the V 1
national soldier settlement act; and,
whereas, such a measure will not bene- AM
fit all soldiers, sailors and marines.
and even under the most favorable 7
circumstances it is limited to approxi- Jf 0
mately 80,000 out of 4,800,000: and, r
whereas, under the terms of said bill
an initial capital of not less than $1,200 is required of each soldier, sailor and
marine; and, whereas, said bill is not confined to the public lands of the
United States, but provides for ‘projects’ to be purchased in the several states,
thus opening the way for fraud, reckless expenditures of public funds, and
real estate grafting of all natures and kinds; and, whereas, a certain measure
has been introduced in the congress of the United States providing for loans
for the purpose of securing to the discharged soldier, sailor and marine,
veterans of the late war, city or country homes, and in the sum of from SI,OOO
to $5,000 at 4 per cent interest and payable over 40 years of time; and,
whereas, this in the judgment of this post of the American Legion is the
fairest and most equitable of all such measures, both to the soldier and to
the United States; therefore, be it
“Resolved, That we condemn and oppose H. R. 487, known as the national
soldier settlement act, and that we favor and acclaim this loan measure.”
ARIZONA STATE MINER
-"CUP
§ & •• "V -
||i Robert H. f
K W 'X s Moulton ¥ Wj*^
I
EARCHING for a small,
thin, rose-tinted, almost
■ white caterpillar in 10,-
000 acres of Texas cot
ton land; confronted with
M the necessity of making
jcertain that in all that
r ~ area no single caterpillar
made good its conceal
ment in boll or stalk or
leaves or grass or trash; forced to
sweep every inch of the 10,000 acres
as closely as a scrupulous housewife
sweeps the kitchen floor and to sift
every pint of the sweepings as care
fully as a miser would sift dirt with
gold nuggets in it —there is a task be
side which the. one of searching for a
needle in a haystack appears simple
and as requiring no patience worth
mentioning.
But that is exactly what the United
States department of agriculture, w r ith
the help of the state authorities of
Texas did in the campaign for the
elimination of the pink bollworm of
cotton. It was done so successfully
that not a single egg, larva, or moth
of the pink bollworm appeared in 1918,
a result that appears to justify the
characterization of the job as the big
gest successful entomological experi
ment of its kind in history.
When it was first found that the
pink bollworm of cotton had gained
a footing upon the soil of the United
States, the consternation that resulted
was hardly less than it would have
been if the discovery had been made
that German gunboats were coming up
the Mississippi river. But the con
sternation was among agricultural
scientists. The general public did not
know the desperate danger. The scien
tists knew, how T ever, that, unless
checked, the little bollworm meant an
annual loss of not less than $50,000,-
000, if, indeed, it did not threaten the
existence of the cotton industry, and
their alarm was not materially less
ened because the infested area was
limited to small areas around Trinity
Bay, Beaumont, and Hearne, Texas.
For the pink bollworm spreads, not
by yards or acres, but by hundreds of
miles at a leap. The chief agent of
dissemination being man with his rail
road trains, the distance from Texas
to Georgia or North Carolina is no
great jump, and it probably would not
be a direct jump. The larva would
be loaded into a car of cotton at Beau
mont, say, shipped to New Bedford,
Mass., and left in the litter at the
bottom of the car, which would then
go to Brockton for a load of shoes
consigned to Atlanta, and would final
lv get swept out on some siding in the
Georgia cotton fields.
And there it would begin anew the
devastation that it has wrought in
Egypt, India, Japan, the Philippines,
Ceylon, the Straits Settlements, the
Hawaiian Islands, Brazil, Mexico, and
practically every cotton-growing coun
try on the globe except the United
States. It is the most destructive of
all enemies of cotton, often reducing
the yield of lint by 30 per cent and
sometimes by more than 50 per cent,
and greatly lessening the quantity of
oil produced from the seed. In the
Hawaiian Islands the cotton industry
has been practically abandoned be
cause of it, and wherever it has gone
the industry has suffered terribly.
That is why the department of agri
culture, when the worm appeared in
Texas, thought it worth while to un
dertake a campaign out of all propor
tion to the area infested.
CSB!
The danger from the pink bollworm
had long been recognized, and regula
tions were made by the government
requiring the fumigation of all cotton
from foreign countries before it could
be landed in the United States. Ev
ery possible precautionary measure
was taken, but there came one thing
against which even the government
could not guard. The great storm
that ravaged the Gulf country in 1915
washed ashore around Trinity Bay,
and possibly elsewhere on the Texas
coast, great quantities of cotton lint
and cotton seed.
Nobody gave any special thought to
the matter at the moment, but when
the next year the pink bollworm ap
peared all around the bay, it became
apparent that some of the washed-up
cotton must have come across the
Gulf from the Laguna district of Mex
ico, where the pest had gained a foot
ing some time earlier. That may not
have been the only source of infesta
tion, but it was the one that gave the
greater part of the trouble.
An oil mill at Hearne had received
some seed from Mexico in 1916, and
the bollworm appeared in a few fields
in the immediate neighborhood of the
mill. The infestation at this point
was entirely eliminated in short order,
however, by uprooting and burning all
growing cotton, collecting and burning
all scattered parts, the prompt milling
and destruction of the seed, and the
shipment to Europe of the harvested
lint.
A mill at Beaumont, too, had re
ceived seed from Mexico and had vio
lated its agreement to use it only for
milling. It developed that some of
this seed was sold to planters through
out a radms of 20 or 30 miles from
the mill. Each sale was traced and
the surrounding district included in
the clean-up operations.
But it was the washed-up cotton in
festation at Trinity Bay that developed
the really alarming situation, involving
more than 6,000 acres of cotton sur
rounding the bay, and it was there
that the really big operations were
undertaken.
A large force of experts and labor
ers —not less than SOO negroes—with
the voluntary assistance of any num
ber of farmers and members of their
families, was assembled, camps were
established, and the cleanup was be
gun on a thoroughly systematized plan
that involved every inch of surface,
to make sure that no lurking place was
left for a larva to winter. All the
cotton grown in this area was taken
to Galveston under supervision and
shipped to foreign countries. All seed
was milled under the direction of gov
ernment agents. The work ended
with the whole area as clean as the
top of a table.
The result, naturally, was awaited
with much anxiety. In the spring of
1918 the entire area was watched. The
planting of cotton was prohibited, of
course, and every stalk of volunteer
cotton was pulled up and destroyed as-
ter careful examination. At the end
of the season the reports of all the
investigators showed that absolutely
no evidence of the presence of the
bollworm could be found.
But the success of the campaign will
not be regarded as absolutely certain
until two other summers have passed.
In the meantime the quarantine will
be rigorously enforced.
Prior to the discovery of the actual
presence of the pink bollworm in Tex
as the state, taking precautions
against its presence not far away in
Mexico, had enacted legislation giving
authority to establish a zone free from
cotton culture on the border of Texas
adjacent to Mexico. Since that time,
quarantine and cotton-free zones have
be<en declared in three areas.
The normal planting of cotton in the
largest of these areas is about 50,000
acres and the inability to plant has,
of course, entailed hardship on the
planters. Individuals—l 37 to be ex
act —disregarded the law and planted
some cotton, a total of a few hundred
acres. Legal action was taken against
them and they have since signed an
agreement to bear all the cost of clean
ing up their farms, under the super
vision of government inspectors, and
to leave the disposal of the cotton
grown absolutely in the hands of the
authorities.
It is interesting to note that a con
siderable number of these so-called
outlaw cotton fields were discovered
by aerial observation. Much of the
country in the infested areas is heav
ily timbered. Roads are neither plen
tiful nor good in many places, and It
was possible for an outlaw planter to
tuck away a few acres of cotton in
some nook of the woods beyond prob
ability of discovery by ordinary means.
This gave the inspectors of the fed
eral horticultural board the idea of
using airplane observers to spy out the
hidden fields. The scheme worked ad
mirably, the first flight alone reveal
ing no less than seven outlaw cotton
fields which had escaped discovery by
all other means.
While a feeling of reasonable safety
is justifiable as to the elimination of
the bollworm from Texas, the danger
of new infestation remains so long
as the bollworm exists in Mexico, and,
therefore, extreme vigilance will not
be relaxed. All railway cars and oth
er vehicles coming across the line are
inspected, cleaned, and fumigated.
The disinfection of cars and freight
with gas from generators placed with
in the cars has been discarded as giv
ing no security against insects that
might be resting on the exterior of
cars. Disinfection houses have been
erected into which cars are run and
disinfected both internally and exter
nally.
The question is now raised: Has
the recent Gulf of Mexico hurricane
brought the pest again to the Texas
shore? The storm ravaged the Gulf
shore from Brownsville beyond to
Key West. If the storm of 1915
brought the pest to the American
shore from Mexico, why should not the
some conditions now obtain?