OCR Text |
Show f5SriHB other day wo nes ' f l ' iWWrf4 ! items appeared iu daily 1B i. U ' , 11 1 J:-1 'VdT7i ' 1 papers all over the Unit- '.J I I i u. '.V I JvJI ed States. This was one: 1 I ill I VVi Edinburgh. Pa., Sept. I J VI J I I ( J r 2S. Edward R. McDon- 1 . L f I Yg aid. sixty-six, who dashed jl N 1 I L .kifiKjf' through the valley on ft V L ' horseback to warn thou- J sands of residents of the Aftf approach of the flood that wiped out r i""" By ELMO SCOTT WATSOM -. ""T HW ot'ier ;1-v two nettS ! items appeared iu daily papers all over the United Unit-ed States. This was one: Edinburgh. Pa., Sept. f,,,,. 2S. Edward R. McDon- 'TkX'f ald- sixty-six, who dashed through the valley on ?VVjWl horseback to warn thousands thou-sands of residents of the approach of the flood thai wiped out Johnstown in 1SS9, died today. And this was the other: Skoplje, Yugo-Slavia, Sept. 2S. The death acre today of Milan Cigano-vitch Cigano-vitch took away the last of the conspirators con-spirators involved In the assassination of Francis Ferdinand at Sarajevo in 1914. which precipitated the World war. Citranovitch held a position on the Eosna frontier. He arranged for the entrance of the three assassins to Sarajevo by forcing passports, and supplier! them with bombs and revolvers. revol-vers. His name appeared in the Austrian Aus-trian ultimatum, which precipitated the war, as one of the conspirators whom Serbia was ordered to deliver to the Austrian authorities for execution. The three assassins who actually committed the murder died In jail in Sarajevo during the war, while a Serbian Ser-bian colonel nl o Involved In the pint was executed by the Sf-ibs in 1017 fir r.ih treason. t Johnstown nnd Sarajevo! F.vit hear those names before? I'mluibly F.ut you've almost forgotten what they Flam! for now, haven't yo:i? Thirty eight years r.:M the ne'.s;aoc:s didn't go in for his streamer h";'.dlin"s af mur-h as they do today, hut the name of Johnstown was on everybody's every-body's lips bpc.Tie there occurred one of the great disasters that have lived In Ann rican history. If, li'-fore June. IT'l-l, you had ashed the average American whore and what Sarajevo was. not one in a hundred could have told you. Hut a few months later he could, for It was the fissnssination of an Austrian nrohduhe there which proved to be just the necessary f-park to set off the greatest great-est conflagration in the history of the world. Important as were the names of Johnstown and Sarajevo once, they ere almost forgotten now. and It was ii curious coincidence that the names of both should be recalled for an In-Kant In-Kant on the fame day recently. It Illustrates also the curious fact of how small towns may become famou-overnlirht famou-overnlirht and almost as rapidly re-lap"e re-lap"e Into oh-curity. War and disasters seem to he the commonest agents for briritting one brief moment of fame to what had heretofore bem nut-of t he-way and obscure places. As Ioiik n"o as 1ir.fi a Utile town on the coast of F.tighind '.viines.ed n ballle which was to he a funiitig point in world allairs and the name of Mailings was added to the roll of historic places. Who ever heard of the town of Waterloo in I'.el , . .:;i before Napoleon's dream of he ;: i-ns another Alexander Ihe 'lri-:il was shattered at the gigantic balli" which look place there? It is iloubi f il If Ihe name of Thermopylae would ever have meant much to anyone ex epl Ihe ancient (;reel;s if II had mil be ii for Ihe battle which look place in the mountain pas' of that name in the year 4S0 B. C. And ten years later la-ter another great battle was raping near the ancient town of Marathon in Greece, a battle which was destined des-tined to give that name immortal fame. Cut when we moderns speak of a marathon (notice that we don't even capitalize It!) we're thinkin? of a foot race and not the name of a famous fa-mous town. T.ut to pet the thins nearer home before the Involution Saratoga in the province of New York was somewhat noted as a place where there were springs which, the Indians' told their white brothers, had health-sivins properlies. Then In the year 1777 i General Ilurpoyne, blunderins aions throuph the wilderne-s on an impossible impos-sible cemp.ii-n suf.'ored defeat after defeat and finally made what was destined to he his last Hand at Sara-tc.sa. Sara-tc.sa. When he finally v.as forced to surrender to General Gates and his i Continentals. Saratoga entered the select se-lect list of the "fifteen Poeisivo Hat-ties Hat-ties of the World." Incidental In the Ihirpotn" campaisn misht he men tinned the nata' of Ihe little New-York New-York town of Walloiunac la New-York, New-York, liver hear of It? Probably not. F.ver hear of Ih mill-ton, Vt.? "Sure." you s :i y. "That's where Gen. John Stark said lo his m- n, "There are the redcoats, boys. We beat them, or tonisht Moby Stark sp'op a widow.'" As a matter of fact Ihe "P.allle ot PonniiiL'ton" was foiiuht at Wallooin-sac. Wallooin-sac. but this particular em.'ascmenl pees under the name of "Ilatile of Ih ntiinpli.n" hecau-e that Vermont fown was Starlc'p headquarters. When Virpinla was a colony .lam'-s-town was much better known than Yorhiown. Put when Cornwallis was penned up In Ihe latter place by Washir.pton and Lafayette and virtually vir-tually ended the Involution by sur-it sur-it ndorlnp there, Yorhtown became u most Important place. Take the sleepy Utile Pennsylvania town of Gettysbnrp In the year IS!'.:!. No one who lived there then would have believed thai It was de-lined lo fame. Yet when the I.lue and the Gray became locked in despora'e com bat there rally In July, Gel tysliuip was very definitely "put on the m ip. And Iwo years later the liulc luwn in Virpinla will) the Indian name of Appamattox became almost as faniotiM. Twi nly yea's iil'o Americans know of Chateau Thierry only by rcadinp Ihe pui'leboohs. Then, In I ! 1 1 s a bunch of hard liphtlnp marines iiinde that place forever famous In American Ameri-can history, even Ihouph It Is on Krenoh soil. I'fi In l'.el;;iimi there was a little town named Ypres hare ly known outside the borders of Its own country. Put French poiln, who called it "Kep" and Tommy who called it "Wipers," made It famous overnight Disaster Is a high price to pay for brief fame, but such Is often the case. Johnstown, Pa., can testify to that fact, us can Lorain, Ohio; Murp1''3-boro. Murp1''3-boro. III.; Chatsworth, III. (P.emem-ber (P.emem-ber that old ballad with the line "The bridge was burned at Chatsworth; One hundred live? were lost"?) und a host of towns in Arkansas, Mississippi Missis-sippi imi Louisiana where the raping Mississippi put them In the headline--of the n-wspapers' but almost wiped them off of the map this year. Jason and the original argonaut-failed argonaut-failed to make any particular town famous, hut the latter-day arponaun have done that well enough. Thirty years ago Nome and Skagway and Dawson, away up In Alaska, were very much In the news. Then their fame faded until Iwo oars ago when Ihe name of Nome was revived again Put It wasn't another gold strike this time that did It. Peincmhcr Giinnar Kits-son's dog race to Nome with the antitoxin f"r the diphtheria-stricken populace? When Ihe Klondike exclle nient died down, some of the "sour doughs" began wandering again In F.l I or ado. They found It (or thought they did) in Nevada a few years- later and Gohlllehls and Tmm pah broke Into the headlines. Then their fame died and "Nevada" didn't, appear in the news so much until one day Weepnh ! Goldfields and Tonopah revived their languishing .fame for a brief time by staging certain cer-tain pugilistic enterprises. And once upon a time two heavyweights fought In Shelby. Mont. There are strikes and strike' gold strikes and labor troubles. The latter lat-ter made I loinslead, Pa., famous In l'-li-j, Pullman. III., well known In 1SDI, and In l'.U I Ludlow, Colo., was on newspaper front pages for weeks on end. Do these names- mean anything any-thing special lo you now? Cave City, Ky.. D.-nton. Trim., and Paul Smllhs, N. Y.? No? And yet It wasn't mi long ago thai you were thrilled over the attempts tu rescue Floyd Collins from Sand Cave, and you were readinu what I'.ryan and Darrow wen' saying In Ihe Scopes trial and wondering bow-many bow-many llsh President Coolidge caught yes I onlay. Ver Sur Mor Is a tiny French vll lape. Kollbiis, Germany, Isn't much larger. Along came some American nvialors. Couiinundvr Pyrd landed near Ver-Sur-Mer and Cliaiiiberlaln lauded near Kotlbus. So two mom (ow ns became "famous overnight. " And llieir lame died Just about hi quickly. "Sic Iran-It gloria mundl," Indeed I |