Cayton's Weekly

Cayton's Weekly SEATTLE, WASHINGTON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1920. PRICE FIVE CENTS CAYTON'S WEEKLY Published every Saturday at Seattle, Washington, U. S. A. Subscription $2 per year in advance. HORACE ROSCOE CAYTON..Editor and Publisher Entred as second class matter, August 18, 1916, at the post office at Seattle, Wash., under the Act of March 3rd, 1916. TELEPHONE: BEACON 3579 Office 317 22nd Ave. South RE-ELECT FITZGERALD There is no doubt as to where Mayor Fitzgerald stands on the municipal ownership of the street railway system and its his ambition to make of it a gigantic success. If he is re-elected he will continue to keep men at the head of the system, who will be just as enthusiastic of its success as is the mayor. Mayor Fitzgerald favors the municipal ownership of public utilities and has proven his worth along those lines, the years he has served the city as councilman and mayor. The voters know exactly where he stands on the subject and are taking no chances in voting for his re-election. Speaking further concerning the street railway system, as has been previously pointed out in these columns, the City of Seattle still enjoys a five cent fare while other cities are charging from six to eight cents fare. Let's grant for the sake of argument that the street car system of Seattle is losing $4,000 per month which amounts to $48,000 per year. Now, to offset that loss the street car patrons save in the course of a year in the neighborhood of two million dollars by paying a five cent instead of a six or seven cent fare. To invest $48,000 and make a million dollars from the investment seems to us to be a magnificent business proposition. With C. B. Fitzgerald continued as mayor of Seattle this million dollar saving will be of an annual occurrence to the street car patrons. But no figures have as yet been submitted proving that the system is losing $48,000 or any dollars per year, yea, not only not losing, but the system is making more than $10,000 per year after every item of expense has been counted off. And again, do not overlook the fact that the street car employees of Seattle are being paid the highest wages of any street car employees of any city in the United States and perhaps the entire world. Suppose you beat Mr. Fitzgerald for the nomination, then you will of course have for your next mayor Hugh M. Caldwell, who is not quite certain of what course he will persue with the street railway system. He may place a man at its head who will begin at once to systematically disrupt it and soon have it in about the same condition as did Superintendent Arms have the city electric light plant, and to save it from total destruction Mayor Gill was recalled and Geo. Dilling elected, who immediately removed Arms and appointed Ross, who has perfected the plant and made of it a financial success. Seattle does not want to be forced to recall Hugh Caldwell to save the street car system from being financially wrecked and therefore you and each of you, who are qualified voters, should vote for the re-election of C. B. Fitzgerald for mayor of Seattle. During the present municipal campaign Hugh M. Caldwell has attacked about every person of any public prominence, who is supporting Fitzgerald for mayor, which reminds us of the poisonous snakes of the South, that go blind every year from the first to the eighth of August, and in that blind condition they strike at every movement that comes near them. Now it appears to us that Major Caldwell has gone blind on the subject of being mayor of Seattle and is striking at every body, who does not believe, as he does, as to his fitness for the place. EDITORIAL PARAGRAPHS While Hoover, like Barkus, is willing, but he feels too big to be either one. When you think you know the political game then you are just beginning to learn it. Even the Democrats give evidence of having too much Woodrow Wilson. May perhaps man descended from monkeys, but if he did he has not gotten very far from his point of beginning. Caldwell says, "Duncan is Red," but when he said it he was on the other side of the barn door. Despite the bickering of capital and labor, yet they are pulling together, and as a consumer, "don't I know it"? That Kentueky colored prisoner may have gotten his swift, but his would-be lynchers got their's far more so. "Charity begins at home," is an old adage, but now it is to begin at the Republican Club meetings. Woodrow Wilson didn't keep us out of war, but he did keep us out of sugar and almost every other necessity of life. Bill Kaiser has been frequently reported dead, but he seems to be still sawing wood, the reports to the contrary notwithstanding. A page from the bloody days of tyrany common to the middle ages would be no more gruesome than Graham's sedition bill. As to the coming national election, a great many voters are saying, "I do not know, what in the hell to do." Because one can take away the bacon it does not necessarily follow that he can bring home the bacon, which difficulty Hoover may yet experience. If some plan is devised to prevent automobile drivers from running down and killing pedestrians then another step will be taken, to take all the joy out of life. When more persons take the trouble to thank others, who do them personal kindnesses, then will we be nearer the period of the promised millenium dawn. It is hoped by John Barleycorn that the next Congress will vote to wet this country, and if it does, it will have to be washed out in blood. If Poindexter can not use the Washington delegation to the National Republican Convention to any advantage then we suggest that he turn it over to Lowden of Illinois. We are not prepared to say, George Vandevere is an I. W. W., but he certainly seems to be double doubling the states attorney in the Centralia trial. Little Red School House may be an excellent antidote for the Russian Red, but hot lead works quicker and we have our suspicions just a bit more effective. VOL. IV., No. 35 CURRENT COMMENT. The authorities found it necessary to put the City of Lexington, Ky., under martial law in order preserve peace and order. An attempt was made to lynch a colored man, William Lockett, who confessed to the murder of a ten year old white girl, and troops were called out to protect the prisoner, but the enraged whites 4,000 strong were determined to inflict summary punishment on the man and refuse to heed the warning of the militia to fall back, which resulted in five of the mob being instantly killed and fifteen wounded, all of which so enraged the whites that a local uprising was threatened, hence the general order for martial law. According to the traffic report of Seattle seven persons were killed outrgiht from automobile accidents and 184 injured, all of which is an awful toll as a result of more or less wreckless and careless driving. The average person driving a machine seems to become go faster mad and they step on the gas until they almost fly through space and of course sooner or later they are in a serious smash up. Many persons have discussed the diamond holdup in Seattle one day this week and not one, so far as we have heard, has expressed any sympathy for the losers of the valuable jewels, not that they really wanted the owners to lose what they had paid their hard money for, but because they were parading such valuable jewelry at such an hour of the night and at a time when hold ups are as common as the fleas on a dogs back. Flashing costly jewels in the faces of those they come in contact with from time to time seems to be a weakness of many persons, and the wonder is that more of them are not held up. The man of the bunch, which was held up, is a hard head business man, and yet he was indiscrete enough to let the fact get out that he frequently took large sums of money at a late hour of the night to his home for safe keeping and it was but by a mere chance he did not do so on the night he was held up and his jewels taken. Do not be over anxious to let the world know of your wealth as it will find it out sooner or later. Eleven alleged leading business men of the Northwest have been indicted by a Federal grand jury, each charged with having defrauded the government. What a sad commentary on this civilization of ours, that a man is no sooner placed in positions of trust than he starts to stealing everything he thinks he can get away with. Perhaps none of these accused persons are actually guilty, but where there is so much smoke there is bound to be some fire. For the past two years it has been brushed about the streets that some mighty stealing was going on in high official circles. Whether acquired honestly or otherwise it is a fact that there are men in Seattle today rated as multimilonaires, who, prior to the war, were men of but moderate circumstances, and the most of them, according to Maddam Rumor, acquired their fortunes by bilking the government. It is hardly fair to try any ones case in the columns of the newspapers, but a grand jury would hardly have returned an indictment against a prominent man of any community on mere suspicion and heresay testimony. THE PASSING THRONG While Seattle has a great many more or less important female personages, yet, to my mind, none of them have reached that pinnacle of importance as did Mrs. Frank McDermott, who passed to the great beyond last Saturday. I have often heard it said of men, who attained great prominence in the affairs of the country, in which they lived, "he was a man among men," but of Mrs. McDermott it can be truly said, she was a woman, not only among women, but a woman among men. In the business world she reached the zenith, not by leaps and bounds, but step by step. When I first came to Seattle, some thirty years ago, Mrs. McDermott, who was then Mrs. Nordhoff, in conjunction with her husband was operating a baby Bon Marche in Belltown, a Seattle suburb, and they always had Saturday sales, and multiplied hundreds of persons with limited means would walk miles to get to those sales, and I followed the crowd. I would stand and watch Mrs. Nordhoff serve her customers, and I said to myself, that woman will make a fortune for herself, and husband," and she certainly did. It gave me much pain to read of her seemingly untimely death, not that I was so well acquainted with her, but because I had seen the establishment, in which her whole soul seemed to be wrapped, grow from an almost infinitismal nothing to the most gigantic dry goods emporium in the West. From a business stand point, I know her to have been a jewel not only to her husband, but to Greater Seattle, and, I repeat, it gave me much pain to hear of her demise. In the early history of the Bon Marche it was the only establishment that gave employment to many colored persons and that too may have had something to do with my sympathies for her. While the later day Bon Marche does not emply a single colored person, so far as I know, yet I do not believe it was the wish of Mrs. McDermott. Her remains were laid to rest last Tuesday and Seattle halted for a spell to drop a tear of regret at her bier. The meeting of the King County Colored Republican Club, must have been a special "special" one as some unusual things came before it. The first very remarkable thing to be acted upon by the Club, not in keeping with the call, was to name a committee to investigate the refusal of the school board to appoint a young colored lady to a position in the public schools. However, worthy the cause, it was in the right church, but the wrong pew. The committee was finally instructed to act in conjunction with the Seattle Branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, providing it decided to look into the matter and if meritorious espouse her cause. Prior to the conclusion of the meeting, P. S. Barnett rose to a question of person privilege and appealed to the members of the Club to financially assist the brass band, with which he is connected, and in order to kill two birds with one stone, he appealed to the members and their friends to subscribe for a local "weakly" paper, and the band and the paper would share the spoils. Which of the two most needed the hoped for contribution, he did not say, and I therefore surmise it was a case of "I tickle you and you tickle me." Nothing politically, however, was accomplished. I said to you last week that I had reached and passed my sixty-first mile stone—way on the shady side of life—and since that time I have occasionally thought of myself and likewise my fellowman. Though loaded to the GREAT NORTHERN POOL AND BILLIARD HALL Cigars, Tobacco and Soft Drinks. very guards with years of human life, yet my struggle for a mere existence is just as great and my concern for the necessities of life for the future is just as acute as it was forty years ago, and, as with me, so with an overwhelming majority of the men of this land of sun shine and plenty. Many, yes the most of us, are industrious and thrifty, and we try to husband our earnings but at that we make haste slowly, if at all. In that life beyond are we to become stronger personages on account of our life struggles in this world? is a question that comes to many of us, but without an answer. I, like other men, look at my family and see each of them lacking, not for the luxuries, but the necessities of life, and sometimes feel almost like saying, most of the human family has been cursed with poverty, but I soon recover from such a state of pessimism, and take up the cudgel of reaching the goal of gold with as much determination as I did the day after I had passed my twenty-first mile stone, and as I do so do the great majority of the human family. We live on hope. "Owing to the fact that I have colored blood in me, I find it utterly impossible to get office rooms in any of the prominent buildings of Seattle," and he was a well appearing man and at first glance would be taken for anything but a man of African descendants, all of which is more or less remarkable to me, and to my mind shows the inconsistency of the white man of this country, and the unreasonable extent he permits his antipathies to the colored folks of this country to take him. In one of the most prominent office buildings of Seattle, the owner of which says he is a Christian gentleman, which no one, who has had business dealings with him, believes for a minute, the owner turned a colored dentist out of offices he had occupied for a number of years, as soon as he acquired the property, this dentist was a returned soldier, and of official ranks. The owner of the building is worth ten million dollars, if a cent, and yet he did this on the grounds that, the presence of a colored man in the building jeopardized the success of his business, but this self same Christian patriot has scores of Japanese business men as his tenants, none of whom, in times of national trouble, would he trust as far as he could throw a ten year old bull by the tail, but he would be patting the colored man on the back telling him all about his 100 per cent Americanism. But the actions of the above Christian gentleman(? differs in no wise from the actions of the most of the Christian white men of Seattle, as they all bow and crutch to the Japanese in order to get his money. In other words, the white man is simply money mad. But the laugh of this whole situation is that every colored man running a barber shop for "white men only" bows and apes to the Japanese customer, but frowns and scowls at the colored customer. He, however, does not do this because he loves the colored man less, but because he knows it pleases the white man. What fools we mortals be. * * * County Commissioner Claude C. Ramsay returned to Seattle a few days ago, after a couple of months visit in the East. While away he visited with relatives in his native state, North Carolina, and he is well pleased with the outlook of the affairs of that state. While North Carolina is classed as a Democratic strong hold in national elections, yet he seems to be of the opinion now, that it will be in the Republican column next November. Mr. Ramsay said he was proud of the stand the state of Kentucky recently took in preventing a colored prisoner from being lynched and further said, Kentucky is but following in the wake of North Carolina and Tennessee, whose governors have gone on record as saying, lynchings in those states must stop. The Governor of every state in the South must eventually come to the same conclusion or God knows what will happen. Mr. Ramsay at once plunged into his accumulated work and during the past week has had but little time to greet his scores of friends. I heard Lou Cohen talk at a public meet- ing not long since and I was deeply interested in the brief speech he made, because he said more, at least from my view point, in a minute than all of the other candidates combined, and as I though in this so did the most of those to whom he was addressing. I want to see men elected to office, who stand firmly on the broad platform of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man without regard to race, color, condition or religious beliefs. I have no use for anyone who seeks to deery some one else because the other fellow in some way differs from himself. So far as I am personally concerned I mean to give Lou Cohen my vote for councilman and all because he is for the human race without any whys or wherefores. Editorial Warblings. CALDWELL'S FAREWELL ADDRESS I am the swell guy Hugh Caldwell, and represent the "golden bell", and to correctly cast your vote, hear ye well my royal note. I am a high-bred aristocrat and once a southern Democrat, and men like this are always wise as to the wants of working guys. I've figured out just what you need to keep Seattle in the lead, a first class Tenneseian gent, who to common people never bent; that has a wise and royal mind, the product of an old Virginia line; for two years more to be your mayor and keep the city all in gear. Policies I have none to tell, in ME you know that all is well. You need but hear that I'm the man, who wish the office of mayor to can and then you vote and vote like hell, for Seattle's swell guy Hugh Caldwell. So far as Fitzgerald is concerned, nothing has he got but what he earned, but he's of common working stock, and he to ME should be no block, because a horse of royal blood must always lead the common stud. Now men with wisdom just like me, you must always vote to be, the leaders of the surging throng, to which the poor men all belong. As to Duncan nothing yet have I to say, as I may need his working "hay". But listen folks you take the tip, I have Seattle on my hip, and me she surely will elect or she will get a rotten spect. I warn you well and warn you all in this my final farewell call, to vote the swell guy, Hugh Caldwell, or be prepared to go to hell. ROBERT B. HESKETH 9 Your support Solicited For Re-Election as COUNCILMAN (Three Year Term) Primary Feb.17 Service—Satisfaction Co-Operation (Paid Advertisement) Will Give a Plain, Fancy Dress and Masquerade Ball Celebrating Washington's Birthday Monday Eve., Feb. 23, 1920—All Night at Washington Hall, 14th and Fir Prizes for Ladies and Gentlemen COMMITTEE—James Titus Dial, Chairman; F. M. Gordon, Jerome Covington, W. Sanders, A. Purnell, T. Taylor; Leroy Bundy, Floor Manager. Music by Mrs. Smith's Full Orchestra Subscription 50c ATLAS POOL HALL Under New Management Wishes You a Happy New Year FELIX CRANE, Manager 1212 Main Street