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MISSOURI News Nuggets
LATE STATE EVENTS CONDENSED FOR THE BUSY READER
Bids have been received in Jefferson City on twenty-one highway construction projects in sixteen counties, aggregating sixty miles, to cost, according to estimates, approximately $750,000. There will be about 100 bidders on this work, which will be for five miles of concrete, five miles of chat construction, twenty-eight miles of graveled road and the remainder graded earth. The counties in which the projects are located are: Putnam, Sullivan, Chariton, Scotland, Platte, Cooper, Morgan, Crawford, Perry, St. Charles, Cedar, Dade, Carter, Bollinger, Wayne and Mississippi. The largest job is 4.713 miles of concrete on the Parkville Highway in Platte County, south of Parkville, and for five miles of chat construction east of Stockton.
Sheriff Gretlein, Cole County, will have to pay approximately three hundred dollars in expenses incurred in preparation for a hanging, which did not take place, unless the next legislature passes a relief appropriation for him. The money was expended in constructing a gallows in Jefferson City for the execution May 2 of John Lee, negro convict in the state penitentiary, sentenced to death for the murder of a cell mate. Thirty minutes before the time set for the execution, Gov. Hyde commuted the sentence to life imprisonment. Attorney General Barrett issued an opinion that the sheriff had no legal claim against either the state or Cole County. The opinion, written by Assistant Attorney-General Crowder, points out the sheriff may receive $125 for executing a death warrant, but can collect nothing when the warrant was not carried out. Among the bills incurred by Gretlein were the expenses of M. H. Hanna, of Epworth, Ill., who was brought here to assist in the execution. Hanna stated he already had officiated at 42 executions.
Fearing a run on the bank from many rumors that came to the ears of the bank officials, the Farmers and Merchants' Bank of Nelson was given into the hands of the state bank examiner. Howard E. Smith, president of the bank, said the institution is entirely solvent. It is expected it will be reopened shortly. Nelson has been greatly agitated the last few weeks over a proposed school consolidation. Opposition has been bitter. The election was held. It was then that the bank's officers heard rumors that a run and many withdrawals were being planned. The officers decided to take no chances and turned the bank over to the state bank examiner and the doors were closed. Smith said he favored the consolidated school, but he had taken no part in the campaign.
Competition in Jefferson City for the $3,600,000 of Missouri soldier bonus bonds advertised recently for sale was keen and spirited and practically all of the leading banking houses and bond houses in the large cities of the East, as well as Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City, were represented in the eleven syndicates that bid for the issue. All of the bids received by the State Board of Fund Commissioners were far beyond par and the successful bid was in excess of one and one-half per cent above par.
The Elks' Lodge of Excelsior Springs, which has had in its possession plans and specifications for a new lodgeroom and clubhouse for some months, has just voted unanimously to promote the financing and construction of the building. The project involves an investment between $30,000 and $35,000.
Arthur Young of Utica has established an orchard of 100 acres on the Grand River bottoms, east of Utica, which he is setting to apple trees, including the following varieties: Jonathans, Willow Twigs, Maiden Blush and King David. Young is manager of the Central Orchard Company which now has 500 acres of land in orchards and plans to make this section the center of a large apple industry.
Men who served as field clerks in the United States army during the World War are entitled to a bonus under the Missouri bonus measure, the Supreme Court en banc held. The question of whether field clerks who came from Missouri and who, if they had been in other branches of service, would have been entitled to a Missouri bonus, were eligible to receive the bonus, was raised in the spring of 1922 when the first bonus payments were made.
It is expected that work will be started soon on the courthouse that is to be erected in Caruthersville. The structure will be strictly modern and will cost $150,000.
Ground has been broken in Richland for the erection of a modern high school that is to cost $50,000. The structure will be of brick, will have twenty rooms, together with an auditorium and will accommodate 600 pupils.
The Thomas-Eggers Bank of Lamar, Barton County, with total resources of $191,363.53, was closed by the State Finance Department, according to an announcement by the department. Deputy State Finance Commissioner Walter E. Todd, is in charge of the institution.
Missourians, according to estimates in Jefferson City, will pay a state income tax amounting to more than $3,000,000, while the the total amount paid in 1923 was $2,867,727. The State Tax Commission announced that up to May 1 income tax assessments in St. Louis and Kansas City—the two largest cities—totaled $2,614,489, which is nearly as large as the entire amount collected last year. The increase in the income tax is due, to a great extent, it was said, by the new system of "checking up," carried on by two agents of the commission, provided for by the last legislature. It was added that much better reports are coming in, as a result of the checking up system and that the increase also is probably due, in a measure, to better business conditions in the state.
Agents of the State Tax Commission have no authority to examine income tax returns held by county assessors, under an opinion handed down by the Supreme Court en banc in Jefferson City, in the case of the State Tax Commission vs. John M. Crawford, deceased, former county assessor of Buchanan County. The case started last year, when former Assessor Crawford of Buchanan County refused to surrender income tax assessments he had made as assessor of the county to an agent of the State Tax Commission. Crawford maintained that the commission could not compel him to permit its agents to examine the returns, stating that there was nothing in the Missouri statutes to make him do so.
Bonds totaling $106,000 have been furnished by the five officers of the closed Holland Bank of Springfield, indicted in twenty-three indictments returned by the grand jury, and their cases have been set for trial on Monday, June 2. In view of the fact that June 2 is only three weeks away, however, it is expected that all the cases will be continued until fall. E. L. Sanford, president of the institution, indicted four times for forgery, three times for accepting deposits in a failing bank, and once for embezzlement, furnished $40,000 bond, $5,000 on each charge.
Robbers, detected in the act of robbing the country store of Reed & Reed at Killwinning, four miles northeast of Downing, returned the pistol fire of Oscar Reed and shot Ray Staten, a neighbor of Reed, through the right lung, the bullet passing clear through the body. The robbers abandoned their plunder and fled in an automobile and have not been apprehended. Staten was taken to a hospital at Keokuk, Ia., and may recover.
Dan Griffin, 81 years old, spent his first dollar with a dentist in La Plata. He had his first tooth pulled, though he has smoked for the past sixty-five years. He has been a stock buyer in Macon County since 1863, and, being of remarkable physical and mental vigor, he can tell the price of every shipment made in the last twenty-five years.
Announcement was made in Jefferson City by Attorney General Jesse W. Barrett that he has detailed a special representative to aid Prosecuting Attorney C. E. Brummal of Chariton County in unraveling the murder of the 14-year-old girl, Daisy Ashby, whose body was found recently near Glasgow.
The Marceline Trust Company went into voluntary liquidation and its affairs were taken over by the First National Bank and the Marceline State Bank, leaving this town with two banking institutions. The trust company was insolvent, but depositors will lose nothing, the doors having been open all the time. Business depression is given as the reason for liquidation. State bank officials have been in Marceline and consummated the transfer.
The nurses at Research Hospital, having their hair bobbed, were reinhaving their hair bobed, were reinstated when sixty-five other nurses went on strike and refused to return to their bedsides until they had been reinstated.
The Missouri River has cut in at another point west of Harmony, near Glasgow, and the water is within a few inches of the C. & A. tracks at that point. The officers of the road are again very much alarmed and efforts are being made to force the channel away from the bank.
While Mr. and Mrs. John Meriwether were visiting in Eolla, Mo., recently, thieves looted their home in Whiteside of household provisions and stole 150 spring chickens and fifteen hens.
Damage estimated at $100,000 was done by fire in Gallatin that destroyed five buildings in the business section. The telephone exchange was damaged but the building saved.
Governor Hyde at Jefferson City has issued a requisition upon the Governor of Kansas for the return to St. Joseph of Merl Boyles, alias Clarence Boyles, wanted there on a charge of grand larceny. Boyles is under arrest at Topeka, Kan.
An election in La Plata for the issuance of bonds for a $25,000 addition to the present school building was carried by forty-four votes. A proposition for $50,000 was lost this spring.
The Farmers' State Bank of Fordland, which was closed a month ago on account of slow paper and frozen assets, has been reorganized and was opened for business recently, according to information received by bank examiners in Springfield. The capital of the bank is $10,000 and the personnel of officers is practically the same. When the bank was closed, J. A. G. Reynolds, State Bank Examiner, was placed in charge of the institution.
The Exchange Bank of Vandalia has increased its capital stock from $20,000 to $30,000. Combined capital and surplus will now be $40,000.
