July 17, 1914

Change Bag. WHC # 999.376

On the front page, we read how technology has arrived at Ladd and Bush Bank:

ELECTRIC MACHINE FOR MAKING CHANGE!

Ladd & Bush Bank Has Machine That Makes Change In Any Amount by Merely Pressing a Button.

Newly invented, an electric change-maker has a permanent place at the Ladd & Bush bank. Late yesterday afternoon Henry Rohwer of Seattle, the inventor, deposited the handsome construction in cage No. 2, to be used in making change by Roy Burton, paying teller.

For four and one-half years the inventor worked to perfect this labor-saver. In the six months that the machine has known publicity invitations have come from England, Germany and France to the inventor to construct a massive machine which can be used in those countries to handle their coins. Now it is a distinctly American electric changer. A spectator stepped to the massive machine, pushed the current button, the 99-dollar button and the 99-cent button and instantly tho big gold coins, silver dollars, halves, quarters and dimes, fell into the waiting palm. The check for ninety-nine- dollars and ninety-nine cents was paid by electricity.

Dimes that are thin as tin pass through the machine without a slip. The machine is mechanically perfect. At the touch of a single button almost any combination in even money can be had by the operation of one key, while any sum of money from one cent to one hundred dollars can be produced with absolute accuracy by touching two keys.

The machine closely resembles a huge cash register and weighs 217 pounds. The current of an ordinary 15 candlepower electric lamp supplies the motive power. The machine can be operated by either direct or alternating current. Keyboards in various parts of the institution can he used independent of the machine, so that it is possible to construct a machine so that a keyboard operated in Salem could pay out money in Portland. One correction button remedies all errors. The machine, although now working perfectly, has still greater possibilities. Seattle has already adopted it in the payroll department of the city treasury. Henry Rowher’s the inventor of the marvelous machine.

In Baker City, the paper reports a lynching:

TWO TAKE PRISONER FROM OFFICER AND THEN HANG HIM
Hired Man Assaults Daughter of His Employer in Baker County
PENALTY FOLLOWS ON HEELS OF CRIME
“Mob” of Two Takes Him at Point of Gun from Officer; Deliberately Hang Him

Baker. Ore., July 17. Coroner West arrived at Whitney about noon today to hold aN inquest over the body of the unidentified man lynched Thursday by two masked men following an attempted criminal assault on Grace Hardman, the eight year old daughter of Bart Hardman, a rancher of Audrey.

The district attorney and two deputy sheriff’s were at Audrey today attempting to find a clue to the identity of the lynchers, but with slight chances of success. The settlers of the district are in sympathy with them, and will not divulge any information that might lead to their apprehension. It was learned today that Tom Tureman, another rancher, was with Hardman when the two masked men intercepted him on the highway and took possession of the prisoner, at the points of revolvers.

Baker, Ore., July 17. Little hope was entertained of apprehending the two masked men who seized an unidentified man, apparently a tramp, being brought to Baker by J. B. Hardman, after he had confessed that ho had attempted to criminally assault Hardman ‘s eight-year-old daughter, Grace, and hung him to a tree in a canyon between Whitney and Audrey, in the Upper Burnt river country.

So silently and methodically did the grim avengers work that not the least clue to their identity was left behind.

Hardman and his prisoner were riding on horseback toward Whitney late yesterday to entrain for Baker, when confronted by the masked men, similarly mounted. They secured possession of the prisoner despite Hardman’s pleadings that the law be allowed to take its course, and galloped away.

Silent But Swift Work

Reaching the lonely canyon, they placed a rope about the man’s neck, threw one end over the branch of a tall tree, tied his feet together so that he could not struggle, strung him up and then rode away.

It was believed the men who dispensed summary justice did so under the impression that the man had succeeded in his purpose. A rumor to this effect had spread through the countryside, where Hardman is a prominent and popular rancher.

The body was found by Deputy Sheriff Jackson and Charles Nibley of Whitney, but was left hanging until Coroner West arrives on the scene some time today. It was believed an examination of the man’s pockets would reveal his identity.

The man, a stranger in the vicinity, was employed by Hardman Wednesday morning. At noon he seized Hardman’s young daughter and ran into a thicket. Her cries brought assistance before she was was harmed, but the man escaped. He was later captured and confessed.

Baker City was also in the news for its efforts to insure high moral standards:

CITY CONDEMNS “RAG” DANCES

The “Texas Tommy,” “Angle Worm Wiggle,” “Bunny Hug” and “Turkey Trot” dances, to say nothing of the dreamy “Moonlight Dance” in a darkened room were officially recognized by the city today in the presentation of an ordinance by Mayor Palmer regulating the dances of the city and prohibiting all such dances. The ordinance also requires the payment of a license for all dances where admittance is charged with the sole exception of dances given by lodges or other organizations solely for a charitable or benevolent purpose.

The ordinance carries with it a provision imposing a fine of from $5 to $100 on those conducting the dances, but Commissioner Henry indicated that this might be ranged by making the dancer as well as punishable in the event he or she indulges in any of the prohibited dances which are designated as the “so called rag dances.” – The Baker Herald.

The paper reports two eruptions at Mount Lassen:

Redding, Cal, July 17. Mount Lassen burst into eruption again today for the nineteenth time. The outbreak was a violent one, though of a little less magnitude than Wednesday noon’s whopper.

The black smoke with which the eruption started soon shaded into gray and was drifting to the southwest for many miles.

The crater has greatly enlarged, in the pst few days, measuring at latest accounts, roughly 400 by 700 feet in an irregular oval. Near it are ashes in great quantities. Smaller particles of ash fell 20 miles from the volcano following Wednesday’s eruption.

Redding, Cal., July 17. Mount Lassen erupted for its twentieth time at noon today.

A column of inky smoke tho full size of the big crater’s diameter ascended to a height of 3000 feet, where it opened out like a fountain, raining ashes instead of water.

The eruption was not over at the end of an hour.

Not reported in the paper, events relating to the assassination and the probability of war include:

• Austria receives a report that Serbia is mobilizing 70,000 reservists . Austria moves forward delivery of the Austrian ultimatum is July 23rd.
• In Great Britain, Lloyd George gives a speech at showing little concern for any threat of warIn Constantinople, the Turks are informed by their Ambassador in Berlin that war is unavoidable.

Though not rising to the level of Edward Snowdon, the French accuse the United States, in effect, of spying while attempting to determine the appropriate tariff for imports:

FRANCE REFUSES TO STAND FOR SPYING
Recognizes America’s Right to Investigate Imports
But Draws the Line With Interference With Merchants.

Paris, July 17. High government officials here said today that Thursday ’s official, order to Henry Munroe and company, American bankers in Paris, not to send out of the country the documentary evidence demanded by the United States customs service in connection with charges of undervaluation of imports, marks a definite stand against the activity in France of American customs agents.

France fully recognizes, these officials explained, America’s right to charge such duties as it pleases, and to conduct, at American ports, whatever inquisitions it sees fit to enforce their collection. When it undertakes to pry, as they expressed it, into the affairs of French business concerns in their own country, however, they declared they considered it was going too far.

It was asserted that in some instances American customs agents have even gone to the extent of threatening French business men who did not furnish the information they sought, with injury to their American export trade, This would no longer be tolerated, it was stated emphatically.

The particular case in question at the moment was that of Miss Mary A.Dollan, a Brookline, Mass., dressmaker, accused by the customs authorities of importing French gowns at a declared value less than their real worth.