I.O.O.F.--AMERICAN LODGE NO. 170. The officers and members are hereby notified that the Lodge will open at 7:15 o'clock, precisely, TUESDAY EVENING, December 14, for work, after which the degree of Rebekah. By order of the Lodge.
"Notices," Cincinnati Commercial, December 14, 1869, page 5


    To the Editor of the Examiner--SIR: Max Pracht has made another contribution to the literature of the anti-monopoly campaign, and his last effort is equal to his first production, which we reviewed some time ago. We want him to keep up his lick, for the letters he writes are good arguments on our side of the house. They show how a merchant, when bound hand and foot by a special contract with the monopoly, can lose sight of the interest and welfare of the state in which he lives, and which protects him in the enjoyment of his life and his property. What matters it to him that every industry of our state is crushed beneath the wheels of the Central Pacific juggernaut? He has a "special contract," by which he is enabled to import his twines over the Southern Pacific at one-third of what it would cost anyone else to bring them here by rail without special contract, and he is ready to throw up his hat and cry, "Great is the Central and Southern Pacific, and Stubbs is its prophet." This letter of Mr. Pracht's reveals the whole deformity and corrupting influence of the infamous "special contract" system--a system which destroys every vestige of brotherly love and human sympathy and builds up a favored class on the ruins of an entire community. This letter shows how a man can slavishly worship the enemies of our prosperity and look calmly on at the ruin of our industries when he has got a "good thing" in the shape of reduced and special rates. Mr. Pracht says he doesn't know Mr. Stubbs. This is really unfortunate for both parties. From the tone of Mr. Pracht's first communication we had supposed the most intimate friendly relations existed between the two parties--that they were high-joints, so to speak. Mr. Stubbs' private organ, the Railroad Union (circulation 2,572 copies) patted Mr. Pracht most encouragingly on the back on the appearance of his maiden effort, and really referred to him in such a manner as to make a man up a tree think that Mr. Pracht was one of the happy family located at the corner of Fourth and Townsend streets. But if it be the fact, and we cannot dispute it in the face of Mr. Pracht's assertions, that those two great and noble minds have never yet commingled, we would offer a suggestion tending towards bringing them together. As Mr. Pracht holds a special contract, by the terms of which he is not to ship goods by sea to San Francisco without incurring the displeasure and reproof of the railroad company, just let him buy a few bags of twine at New York City and send them to San Francisco by clipper. He can bet his existence that Mr. Stubbs will find it out before the shores of Sandy Hook have sunk behind the vessel's wake, for the Central Pacific has its spies on every wharf in New York to find out what merchants are violating the "special contracts," and that Mr. Stubbs will soon be around at Mr. Pracht's bag-depot wanting an explanation. This would give Mr. Pracht the long-desired opportunity to make the acquaintsnce of the mighty and puissant railroad official. We throw the suggestion out for what it is worth. We can imagine their meeting.
    Says Mr. Stubbs to Mr. Pracht:
    "We'd like to know if 'tis a fact
    That you have shipped some goods by sea?"
    Says Mr. Pracht to Mr. Stubbs:
    "Your question me severely rubs,
    But confess; have mercy, Stubbs, on me."
    Mr. Pracht says Mr. Stubbs has carefully guarded "the interests of his patrons." Now, here's richness, indeed. Stubbs' guarding care reminds us of the Apaches and old Pegleg Smith. Smith had a cattle ranch in the Apache country in Arizona, in a locality where Indian raids were of almost daily occurrence. The Apaches, however, never cleaned him out entirely. They would raid and carry off some animals but always left enough to stock the ranch, knowing that Pegleg would stick to the business as long as he had a hoof to breed from. The Apaches kept off other Indian tribes and effectually showed their guarding care for Pegleg. Mr. Stubbs throws the same kind of mantle around his special rate patrons. He leaves them something, but woe to the man who hasn't got a special contract. The railroad figures up what profit the unfortunate shipper expects to make, and coolly takes that profit by adding it to the freight charges, until the shipper is in the position of the Arizona miner who shipped some rich ore to a capitalist in San Francisco with a request that the ore be treated and the net results returned to him. The capitalist sent back the empty ore sacks!
    We hope Mr. Pracht will let us hear from him again. If he don't feel inclined to write anymore, we shall miss him from the columns of your paper, and if he retires into seclusion and bags his head in one of his pet San Quentin sacks, we will bow to the inevitable and write his epitaph as follows:
    Beneath this pile of moldering sacks
    Lies, cold and dead, the form of Max.
    He grew too fat on Stubbs' freights;
    Alas, he died of "special rates."
San Francisco, August 18, 1882.
San Francisco Examiner, August 20, 1882, page 5


    List of passengers per Cunard Line steamship Servia, from New York to Liverpool, sailed November 8th: . . . Max Pracht.
"Maritime," American Register, London, England, November 25, 1882, page 1


    SAN FRANCISCO, April 20.--Articles of incorporation for the Alaska Salmon Packing and Fur Company were filed with the county clerk this afternoon. The objects of the corporation are catching, canning, salting, smoking and otherwise preparing fish for market, trading in hides, furs, provisions and dry goods, dealing in lumber and merchandise at Naha Lake and harbor, Alaska, and generally engaging in commercial business. The capital stock is $1,000,000, divided into 50,000 shares of $20 each. The trustees, who subscribed for 100 shares of stock each, are as follows: David Wilder, Jas. Green, Max Pracht, I. H. Hopkins, and F. Baehr.
"California," Daily Colonist, Victoria, British Columbia, April 22, 1883, page 4


    Max Pracht, the well-known Alaska trader, has blossomed out into a real estate agent in Ashland, Or.
"Pickings," Puget Sound Weekly Argus, Port Townsen, Washington, January 31, 1889, page 1


    Max Pracht, of this city, who spent a number of years in Alaska as manager of a fishing and canning establishment, has been appointed U.S. collector of customs at Sitka, and we shall miss for a time at least his familiar and successful efforts at booming real estate and selling town lots in Ashland. Max went to Washington after that office, and "it's hisn." He was acquainted with the fact that in these degenerate days the offices don't go about the country seeking the man who hides in his rural retreat to escape it. Max advertised Ashland and himself in the inaugural procession and otherwise, and didn't try to dodge the appointment by any means. He is well informed in regard to affairs in Alaska, and the appointment is a good one. His Ashland friends congratulate him on his success.
"Personal," Ashland Tidings, April 19, 1889, page 3


    Max Pracht, of Ashland, O., recently appointed collector of customs for the district of Alaska, is in San Francisco. He states that he called on nearly all the leading cannery men of San Francisco having interests in Alaska and conferred with them in regard to enforcement of the new law concerning the barricading of Alaskan rivers for the purpose of taking salmon. They all promised Pracht that the obstructions would be taken down immediately and not replaced.
"Condensed Dispatches," Daily Colonist, Victoria, British Columbia, April 27, 1889, page 4


    Max Pracht, the newly appointed Collector of Customs for Alaska, went North on the Ancon Tuesday night. He appointed Edward H. Brown, of Port Townsend, special deputy at Sitka, and J. Crit Tolman, of Ashland, Or., deputy at Kodiak.
"Territorial Happenings," Washington Standard, Olympia, Washington, May 17, 1889, page 3


    Crit. Tolman has departed for Alaska, to assume the office of deputy collector at Kodiak under Collector Pracht. Mrs. Tolman will follow her husband in a short time.
"Local Notes," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, May 30, 1889, page 3


    Max Pracht, Alaska's new Collector of Customs, has arrived from Ashland, Oregon. He took the oath of office on May 24 and immediately appointed Edward H. Brown his deputy. Brown served in that capacity here from 1881 until 1887 and has recently been a special deputy Collector at Port Townsend, Washington Territory. Pracht is no stranger to Alaska and for some years was associated with the fishery establishment at Loring on Naha Bay.
Robert N. DeArmond, "News Notes from Sitka's Past" (from the Sitka Alaskan of May and June 1889), Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, February 23, 1989, page 5


    Reporter: You are, no doubt, aware that these recommendations have been made to the Departments before. How is it that they resulted in nothing?
    Collector [Pracht]: As a rule such recommendations are not always acted upon
at Washington unless followed up by Congressional action. . . . It is my purpose to do my best to have the money voted . . . .
"100 Years Ago" (from the Sitka Alaskan of June 1889), Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, June 14, 1989, page 11


    On Monday Collector of Customs Max Pracht entered Otto Nelson's saloon and found several bottles containing whiskey and wine. They were seized. Pracht then asked Nelson to open a locked door. Nelson refused. Pracht got a search warrant, swore in John and Ed Haley and Pete Trierschield as deputy Collectors, and forced
the door. In the room behind the door he found some 40 gallons of whiskey and brandy and this was also seized and is now in the seizure room at the Custom House.
Robert N. DeArmond, "News Notes from Sitka's Past" (from the Sitka Alaskan of September 1889), Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, March 16, 1989, page 4


    PORT TOWNSEND, W., Oct. 1 .--Four miners have arrived from Forty-Mile Creek, Yukon River, Alaska, via St. Michael's Island and Ounalaska, and report that 800 miners on upper Yukon, 1600 miles from any settlement, are in a destitute condition, without available means of relieving their wants. The newly built steamer Arctic, which was laden with supplies for them, was wrecked a few hours after leaving St. Michaels.
    The old steamer Yukon was dispatched with 20 tons of provisions, all she could carry, but it is very doubtful if she can reach the miners in time.
    Advices from other parts of Alaska say the new customs officials are beginning to make it very lively for the contraband liquor trade. All importation of liquors from any place in the United States or from foreign countries is prohibited, except under certain definite regulations prescribed by the President, but these regulations have been ignored, and it is the easiest thing in the world to get a custom home permit. Besides that, hundreds of gallons of the oiliest whiskey in the world were smuggled in by steamers and otherwise.
    The new collector of customs, Max Pracht, has begun a lively war against smugglers of liquors. He suspected that about $500 worth of liquors had been
landed from the steamer three weeks ago, and that they were concealed in a bedroom belonging to a saloon keeper. Under the act of Congress of April 24,
1882, he made written complaint to the United States District Judge, John H. Keatley, and asked for a search warrant. The owners of the building fell back on their asserted rights as American citizens and the Declaration of Independence etc., but the collector of customs burst the door open and found about $1000 worth of whiskey that had been landed without a permit. It is now in the courts on its way to legal confiscation, but this is the smallest part of the affair.
    It has made a flutter all over Alaska, because it indicates that a new era has begun, and that the white people of Alaska are not to be exposed to the perils of illegitimate selling of intoxicating liquors to the Indians--barbarians and beasts when under its influence. The action of the collector of customs had the previous sanction of the Secretary of the Treasury and of the solicitor of that department. The collector has the courage to carry out the new policy and is supported in it by nine-tenths of the white people of the territory.
Boston Daily Globe, October 1, 1889, page 8


    The irrepressible Max Pracht is enforcing the laws governing Alaska with a vim and briskness that is refreshing. The prospects are that Pracht will make it a "dry" territory or his instructions will be revoked. The following particulars are taken from the Sitka Alaskan:
    "On Monday afternoon, September 2nd, at Sitka, Alaska, Collector Max Pracht, armed with a search warrant issued by Judge Keatley, accompanied by his deputy, entered Otto Nelson's saloon, on the south side of Lincoln Street, and made an examination of the premises. Finding a number of bottles of whiskey and wine behind the bar, he took possession of them. The collector, having reason to believe that an additional quantity of liquors was stored somewhere in the house, demanded of Mr. Nelson that he open the door of an adjoining room on the south side of the building. The request being refused and the collector believing that resistance was likely, [he] at once swore in four bystanders--Ed. J. Haley, John Haley, W. B. Pracht and Peter Triershelt--as inspectors of customs on temporary duty. The collector then forced the door and found inside the room forty gallons of whiskey in kegs and a large lot of brandy. The whole of the liquors were immediately taken possession of and removed to the seizure room of the custom house, where they now are. Their wholesale value is about $500.
    The seizure was made in strict conformity with the instructions from the treasury department and in accordance with the organic act and the executive orders relating thereto.
    While, naturally, the determined attitude assumed by the collector has created much discussion, this being the first seizure of this character since the year 1881, the community in general commend his action. For many years past, the law has been openly defied and the customs department has shown little or no inclination to insist upon an enforcement of the prohibitory enactment.
Valley Record, Ashland, October 3, 1889, page 2


    Edward H. Brown, Special Deputy Collector of Customs under Max Pracht at Sitka, Alaska, has been dismissed from service and found delinquent in his accounts.
Montezuma Reporter, Montezuma, Indiana, November 1, 1889, page 4




    A procession of Hicks' heaviest trucks have been passing through the street hauling the rough granite from Reeser's quarry on Granite Street to the top of Laurel Hill, where the Tidings' special reporter found Hon. Max Pracht with coat off busily superintending the laying of the foundation for his new dwelling house.
Ashland Tidings, October 2, 1891, as reported in "Twenty-Five Years Ago in Ashland," Ashland Tidings, October 2, 1916, page 2


    The King's Daughters of this city have arranged a series of lectures called "Monday evening talks" for the winter months. They are to be delivered once a month by some local people on topics with which they are familiar. The first was on Monday evening at Granite Hall and was entitled "Alaska." The Hon. Max Pracht was the orator. The lecture lasted three-quarters of an hour, during which time Mr. Pracht unloaded trainloads of information upon the subject of that territory that cast a ray of light to the listener that could not be brightened short of a tour to the country itself. It can be truthfully said that no speaker has ever had closer attention and interest paid by an audience to a lecture than that taken by the people at Granite Hall Monday evening.
Valley Record, Ashland, October 22, 1891, page 3


    Max Pracht seems to be the most ubiquitous cuss in town. Who is building and improving that fine property? Who is running The Oregon now? Who is doing this or that? The answer comes Max Pracht. Today a fellow asked who was going to run for mayor next month. The answer was the same.
"Brevity Basket," Valley Record, Ashland, November 12, 1891, page 3


    Pursuant to a call signed by several citizens inviting everybody to a mass convention at Granite Hall Wednesday at 2 p.m., a large crowd assembled there. Max Pracht called the convention to order. A. P. Hammond and W. P. Squire were chosen chairman and secretary.
    The two candidates for mayor were Max Pracht and W. H. Atkinson, who had their forces there.
    The first bomb was thrown by the Atkinson people into the Pracht camp by Secretary Squire reading and moving the adoption of the following resolution:
    "Resolved, That all who participate in the citizen mass convention bind themselves to vote for and work for the nominees of said convention irrespective of party."
    The Atkinson men had the majority and before proceeding to ballot wanted to bind Pracht's minority. Pracht asked if the word party meant Republican Party. Squire answered that he did not understand it that way, and while Pracht was trying to pin him and several others down to what party it was to be gagged by resolution, Atkinson took the floor. Right here the long-pent-up venom these two distinguished gentlemen have for each other was touched off. But wasn't it rich. Great balls of smoke and fire were poured out that would do credit to Mt. Vesuvius in eruption.
    Atkinson recited the conversation in the post office Monday when he asked Pracht to come into the convention, and if Pracht was nominated he (Atkinson) would support him; and if Atkinson was nominated asking Pracht to support him. Mr. Atkinson said Pracht refused to come into the convention, etc., etc.
    Pracht jumped up and in a Daniel Webster tone of voice and a Shakespearean dramatic attitude said: "It is false!!! and no one knows its falsity better than Mr. Atkinson himself." Pracht took the floor and besides pronouncing Mr. Atkinson a falsifier (this is according to local parliamentary usage, the word liar as used in Arizona) made a statement of how he had been inveigled against his wishes by the Progressive Party leaders into agreeing to stand for mayor, and how the same leaders within the last week had come around and asked him to withdraw because certain churchmen and preachers were opposed to him because he had, three years ago, circulated a petition asking the legislature to tax all property, including church property. Mr. Pracht said he would not be bulldozed by any church.
    Mr. Atkinson, who is a very composed man, even got warmed up to the extent of fish-shaking declamation and oratory. He wanted to find out who was a liar, saying several citizens heard that conversation, and in a self-confident way said, "Mr. Leeds, [editor of the Valley Record,] come up here and testify what it was."
    The acquaintances of the celebrated Jackson County fence-straddler and policy man thought Mr. Leeds was in such close range between the devil and the deep blue sea that he was sure to go to limbo if he escaped hell. Mr. Leeds threw that classical little bump at the end of the spinal column over on his left shoulder and cocked his keen eyes, which have the appearance of popping out of one hole. Mr. Leeds said what Atkinson said Pracht said was what the post office said. He didn't know, but thought that what Pracht said Atkinson said was like something else. Mr. Leeds occupied considerable time telling what he thought was said. (At any rate, what Mr. Leeds said Pracht-Atkinson said must have been all right, because after the convention Atkinson thought he had proved Pracht the greatest prevaricator since the days of Ananias; while we heard Pracht declare "I proved Mr. Atkinson a liar before the convention by Mr. Leeds, his own witness." Mr. Leeds should have his "explanations" patented. They work both ways.)
    The friction between the leaders now turned to a discussion of the gag resolution, W. N. Luckey denouncing it vigorously , as did Pracht. Col. Norris and others favored it. Leeds declared it no gag rule. He didn't want men to come to his convention (for he called it, it seems), put up a man and then attempt to beat him. Mr. Leeds prated considerably about the dishonesty of such a procedure, forgetting the convention of 1889, when he, Atkinson, Carter et al. participated in the mass convention that nominated "Daddy" Hill for mayor against D. R. Mills.
    (This same old ring gag wanted yesterday's convention to be bound and gagged "to do the honorable thing," as they called it. This was a notice that when the odious old "boodle" element went into the 1889 mass convention and nominated the Mills-Walters ticket they did the DIS-honorable thing, because they weren't bound and gagged "to do the honorable thing." However, the 1889 election took care of the Mills-Walters gang by defeating them overwhelmingly. Although Hon. D. R. Mills was elected the previous year by the overwhelming majority of 245, certain things concerning the expenditure of that $50,000 water works looked so "shady" (to use a mild term) that the same people who expressed so great a confidence in Mr. Mills and his gang in one lost that confidence so that he was completely snowed under out of sight by the ancient and venerable "Daddy" Hill. This was one of the humiliating things the "boodle" gang would have avoided had they of been as wise, in their day and generation, as they were yesterday, and bound and gagged themselves "to do the honorable thing.")
    The resolution was adopted, 17 to 21. Mr. Pracht then refused to have his name come before the convention.
    E. D. Briggs in a flowery speech (in which he said his candidate was the candidate to "heal the dissensions") nominated W. H. Atkinson. Col. James Norris in seconding this nomination warmly eulogized Mr. Atkinson.
    The vote for Atkinson stood 92. There being no other candidates, the chairman asked those opposed to him to hold up their hands. The chair declared Atkinson the nominee.
    For street commissioner Wm. Nelson received 55 and John B. Million 40.
    The ward convention nominees were endorsed.
    Milton Berry received the nomination for city recorder, and E. V. Carter for city treasurer. The convention, in its feverish excitement, failed to nominate a city surveyor.
    For city marshal S. F. Morine and John Strait were placed in nomination, the former receiving 83, latter 25.
Valley Record, Ashland, December 10, 1891, page 3


    Max Pracht of Hotel Oregon is ever designing some clever scheme of tickling the palate of man or catching his fanciful notions through the eye or ear without wearying the structure "fearfully and wonderfully made" with carloads of tracts or ponderous columns of dry statistics and long-winded verbiage. The latest thing out is a postage stamp case, a great convenience that will keep with a fellow more persistently than an unpaid newspaper subscription bill. On it he has the "exclusively first-class" trademark of his hotel with the words, "A healthful and restful resort--'The Peachblow Paradise,'--2000 feet elevation." The Peachblow Paradise is a catchy alliteration more refined but as strong as "keep your eye on Pasco," and better than that of "the land of the skies," which caught Vanderbilt and other millionaires to invest their pin money in Asheville, N.C., with less picturesque scenery and poorer climate than Ashland. The Peachblow Paradise describes Ashland nearer than any other alliteration yet coined.
Valley Record, Ashland, March 3, 1892, page 3


    Peachblow Paradise Pracht received a letter from his eldest son, Wm. B., dated Cincinnati, April 17th, announcing his safe arrival there from Freiberg via Hamburg and New York. After a few weeks to be spent in visiting relatives in Cincinnati and Chicago and a short stop in San Francisco, Willie (who has now grown a lovely mustache, as all the young ladies say who have seen his photos) will make his reappearance in Ashland. His father says that to keep him out of mischief and matrimony, he has secured him a job breaking rock for Supt. Wilson at the Ashland mine, and expects to drive him over from the station to the mine direct. In this case however, the Record is of opinion that Max will not connect--the Ashland girls have decided to have a dance at the Oregon [Hotel] first.
Valley Record, Ashland, April 28, 1892, page 1


    This trouble, arising as it did from the unlicensed and uncontrolled methods of fishing employed by white canning men, who have located upon streams previously fished in by the natives, could have been prevented if Congress had provided the means for carrying out the provisions of its own act. I am sure that had a special agent, now tardily provided for in the Senate amendment to the sundry civil service bill, been on the ground to enforce the provisions of the act relating to the barricading and obstructing of the salmon streams in Alaska, he could, and no doubt would, by removing such causes for bad feeling, have prevented bloodshed. The absorption of every available stream carrying salmon by the cannery men is sure to lead to more disturbances unless immediate preventive measures are adopted.
Seattle Post-Intelligencer, July 20, 1892, page 1


    Hon. Max Pracht is still in Washington. He can hardly be expected to turn out and stump Indiana for Harrison. One would as soon expect to hear of 'Lish Applegate joining the Methodist Church.
"Local Notes," Democratic Times, Jacksonville, July 22, 1892, page 3


    The following Washington dispatches explain what the Hon. Max Pracht has been doing in Washington the past three months. Max is the best single-handed political rustler it the country today. Hurrah for Pracht.
    One of the amendments to the sundry civil bill, which has just been agreed to in conference, is of some importance as affecting the Alaska salmon interests. An appropriation of $5000 is made, to be expended under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, to stop the barricading of the salmon streams of Alaska, and an agent of the Treasury Department is to be sent there to carry out the instructions. Max Pracht, of Ashland, Or., has already been selected as the special agent, and his appointment will shortly be made. Pracht was collector of customs of Alaska during the early part of the administration, but was removed on account of the charges that were brought against him. These charges have now all been cleared up, and the department is ready to employ him again.
    The Secretary of the Treasury today appointed Max Pracht, of Ashland, Or., special agent in charge of the Alaska salmon fisheries. Pracht will have a clerk for the first three months of his service. Pracht is thus made a disbursing officer, and now comes the question of securing bonds, which he must do before he gets away. He will try and find sureties here, but, if he fails, he will have to delay until he can go to Oregon. Pracht has been here for several months working up this matter, and he will be disappointed if he cannot go at once to Alaska.
Valley Record, Ashland, August 11, 1892, page 3


    People who are fortunate enough to obtain peaches from the "Peachblow Paradise Orchards" of Max Pracht this year will be fully apprised of the celestial character of the fruit, no matter in how distant a clime it may be unpacked and eaten. Mr. Pracht has just had nearly 100,000 peach wrappers printed, each bearing in blue ink on white paper his orchard trademark designed by himself. It advertises the climate of Southern Oregon, the city of Ashland and the orchard business of Mr. Pracht, and there will he no danger of retail dealers in Oregon, Washington, Montana or elsewhere selling his peaches as "California fruit." Neither will there be any likelihood of any scrubby peaches being shipped in these wrappers.
    Mr. Pracht's method of paying the strictest attention to the details of selection, packing and marketing, proves its value from the fact that he is able to ask and receive for his peaches 25 percent above the market price. The farmers of the state should have their attention called to this fact, and much good to Oregon would undoubtedly result if his example were to be generally followed. One of the most striking instances of the injustice he seeks to correct by advertising is the fact that Rogue River apples, pronounced by connoisseurs the finest by long odds on the Coast, are shipped to Eastern markets branded "California fruit."
Oregonian, Portland, August 13, 1893, page 4


    A RICH COMPLIMENT.--The Journal editor is just in receipt of a box of peaches from the Peachblow Paradise orchard of Max Pracht, the peach king of Southern Oregon. They are of the early Crawford variety, ripe, rich and juicy, average ten inches in circumference and have the high flavor peculiar to that locality. Mr. Pracht is the first grower in the state to adopt the low pruning system, which secures the highest state of perfection, and permits the fruit to be picked while standing on the ground. Damon Bros., at the Blue Front Grocery, have the exclusive sale of these peaches, and must find them very acceptable to their trade. Thanks, Mr. Pracht.
Capital Journal, Salem, August 30, 1893, page 4


    The ninth annual meeting of the state horticultural society was called to order Tuesday morning of this week by president Cardwell at the A.O.U.W. temple in Portland. . . . Max Pracht, of Ashland whose peaches "beat the world" at the world's fair, read an interesting and practical paper on the subject of "Horticulture for Profit; or, Fancy Fruit, Fancy Packages, Fancy Prices," showing from his experience the advantage it was to the fruit growers to establish a reputation by sorting his fruit, being honest with the commission merchants with whom he
deals and then making elaborate use of printer's ink. By packing choice fruit in fancy boxes a fancy price could be commanded. Such boxes were expensive but the appearance of fruit wrapped in white paper and packed in them, ornamented with blue labels, were such a temptation to housekeepers that they could not resist purchasing them.
"State Horticulturists," Corvallis Gazette, January 12, 1894, page 1


    Mr. Max Pracht, former citizen of Cincinnati, now one of the progressive horticulturists of Oregon, was rounded up yesterday at the Hotel Emery by the Commercial Gazette. Mr. Pracht was once connected with Putnam, Hooker & Co. He left Cincinnati for the then boundless West in the early '70s, was in business in San Francisco up to '85, drifted up to Alaska, and engaged in the salmon packing business until [in] '89 he was appointed Collector of Customs for that district. It goes without saying that he is not in office now, for he is a Republican of the old-fashioned stalwart type.
    Speaking of his present visit to his old home, he says the great railway strike is at the bottom of it, for, as delegate to the Denver Convention of Republican League Clubs, he found it impossible to return to his home at Ashland, usually called the "Peachblow Paradise," and he started to "go West" by coming East, hoping to reach the Pacific Coast via Cape Horn, as did the gold hunters of '49.
    "Cincinnati has grown much since I saw her last," he said. "Solid and substantial,
steady and reliable as always, but oh! the forests of telegraph poles, the network of trolley wires which shut out the sun and imprison the smoke, and the multitudinous signs of every kind and condition which project out from your buildings into the street! Why, even in San Francisco we no longer permit such things. They are not only nuisances, but elements of danger, and all of them--the poles, wires and signs--should be taken in off the streets, so that the breezes might blow through and tear an occasional rift into the smoke cloud. But business--well, that you have as usual. I have made a hurried circuit of the wholesale district, and none of my old friends have any complaint to make on that score.
    "Oh, yes. I am entirely out of business, except that of raising fancy fruit--peaches principally--but our coast markets absorb all the Oregon product. Denver is as far east as we come, and in that market the leading brands of Oregon peaches fetch fully 25 percent, more than does the California fruit. You see our fruit is raised without irrigation, and altogether on high land, the numerous mountain ranges which divide Oregon into a great checkerboard of valleys of all areas, one of them, the Willamette Valley; having as much agricultural land as the entire state of Ohio, furnish on the mountain slopes the fruit belts which have made Oregon famous and which enabled her to walk off with the chief prizes for both apples and peaches at the World's Columbian Exposition.
    There are many Ohioans in Oregon and room for more, and it was the Ohio blood in the delegation at Denver which prevailed, for without Oregon's eighteen votes in the Convention Cleveland would have failed to secure the selection as the meeting place for '95, and all of her vote went for that great exponent of protection, Major McKinley, as preferential candidate for the Presidency in '96. If given a opportunity Oregon will cast as big a vote for McKinley as she did against that prince of mountebanks, Pennoyer--16,000 majority for Oregon is more Republicanism to the square mile than 80,000 of a majority is for Ohio. However, you may do better next time. Pattern after Oregon. She is a safe state to follow.
    "By the way, I have spent about a week looking over some so-called orchards in Hamilton County, and you may say for me that when it comes to careful and scientific horticulture, Ohio is not in it with Oregon. What I have seen goes far to convince me that you neither know how to set out, cultivate or even prune an orchard. Dear me, I have not seen any peach trees that did not resemble shade
more than fruit trees;and your apple trees--well, you do cut out an occasional branch, but only after it has broken off. Why, my orchard is eight years old, and there is not a peach tree in it but from which I can pick off the topmost peach by standing on the ground. How do we do it? By systematic cutting back and pruning; forcing the limbs out low down, quite close to the ground; building out the tree until it looks like an inverted umbrella, leaving it hollow in the center and so cutting out the old growth has to practically renew the bearing branches every three years. You know a peach grows next year on this year's new wood, never on old wood, and by our system of pruning we force the new twigs out just where we want them; consequently we may be said to place the peach to grow where it will do the best.
    "Do we never miss a crop? No, never; crops of all kinds are sure in Oregon. Our principal agricultural products are wheat, hops, barley, oats, corn, cattle, hogs and wool. Our wool crop sold at six to eight cents on the ranch this year. Two years ago we got fourteen to eighteen cents for the same grades.
    "Are we in favor of protection? You bet your life we are, and for a fair deal all around besides. Although Oregon is a large producer of gold, the Rogue River Valley being especially noted for its mines, Ashland having several, yet the sentiment of true bimetallism--gold and silver each equal and interconvertible--is the leading one today, and Oregon will go into the next National Republican Convention with the dual motto, Protection and Bimetallism, not one, but both. I leave for New York tomorrow, via Washington. Politics before pleasure, you
know."
Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, July 24, 1894, page 10

    Washington, D.C., July 28.--(Special to the Statesman.)--Max Pracht, a well-known citizen of Oregon, of enthusiastic Republican proclivities, struck town yesterday simultaneously with the torrid wave. Mr. Pracht was chairman of the delegation from his state to the recent Denver convention of Republican League clubs, and he had a good deal to say about the silver plank adopted at that meeting, and the adverse criticism thereon by the Minneapolis Journal, a criticism which was the basis of an editorial in yesterday's issue of the Washington Post.
    "That plank," said Mr. Pracht, "was an eighteen-carat gem. I felt particularly good over its adoption, and the success Oregon scored as a level-headed mediator between the factions of the extreme East and the Pacific Coast. The fact is the Republicans representing the extreme ideas came together on a middle ground at the Mississippi River, so to speak, and we there built a boat which will carry us all to victory.
    "The slogan of the convention was 'protection and bimetallism; not one, but both,' and that is really the battle cry of the Republican Party today. These are the issues, and they are going to win, to use the homely old comparison, just as easy as falling off a log. Lately, by the good grace of the strikers, I had plenty of time to look thoroughly into the Colorado silver question. What do we find? The Comstock as a silver producer played out; Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah in a silver decline, and all of them showing a marked increase in the output of gold; California coming to the front again as a gold state, and Oregon opening up new quartz mines in nearly every range of mountains; phenomenal finds in South Africa and the development of new fields in Australia. On top of all this I herewith assume the role of prophet and declare that by the time we have inaugurated our next Republican President, March 4, 1897, the apparent discrepancy between the world's visible supply of gold and silver will have so nearly disappeared that the resumption of silver coinage will come of itself, the metals will be on a parity as to their coinage values and likely to stay so for a long time.
    "People have no idea of the enormous amount of silver now being used in the arts, and the consumption is always on the increase. An official of one of the big sliver smelters of Colorado told me lately that he had orders for silver on hand largely in excess of the capacity of his plant from America silver plating works. Everybody buys plated ware now, and the old single plate has given sway to triple and quadruple. All this goes to show that bimetallism is a thing of the near future, and the Republican Party is the only party that can bring it about, the only party that has the courage to grasp and the ability to handle great questions.
    "The pops, did you say? Ah, judge! Have you forgotten here in Washington how Oregon laid the populists to eternal sleep on the 4th of last June?"
Statesman Journal, Salem, August 4, 1894, page 3


    Max Pracht is cutting a big figure in eastern Republican political circles. A late issue of the Wheeling, West Virginia, Intelligencer under scare heads worded thus--"After statistics. Max Pracht, the tariff expert, arrives in Wheeling to study our local interests. A secretary of the American Protective Tariff League on a tour for information. An interesting talk regarding his work. Some official figures on the tin plate industries. His views on the Denver silver plank."--tells in a long article and interview how Max is keeping up both the head and tail ends of the country at the same time. Max had just come from Pittsburgh, Pa., where he had been for two weeks. He is traveling in the manufacturing cities securing statistics for the campaign firsthand.
Valley Record, Ashland, October 25, 1894, page 3


Evening News Review, East Liverpool, Ohio, October 31, 1894, page 1


State Rights Democrat, Albany, Oregon, November 2, 1894, page 7


    HARTFORD, Conn., Jan. 5.--(To the Editor.)--I enclose a clipping from today's
Hartford Courant. "Scouring Wool by Naphtha," which should be of interest to our Oregon wool growers.
    To my mind, the saving of oil by this process ought to stimulate the business of wool-scouring in Oregon, utilizing the oil and saving on the scoured wool in freights being in itself a profit.
    General Dwight, a veteran in the wool business, tells me that he has had considerable Oregon wool, and could handle more. He says that the New England manufacturers are already tired of free wool, and the sentiment, as I find it, is
that there will be no organized effort to defeat a duty on wool by the manufacturers, should the Republican administration of 1887 proceed, as they certainly will, to re-enact the wool clause of the McKinley bill, with some such modifications regarding carpet wools as our experience with that elusive article may call for.
Morning Oregonian, Portland, January 11, 1895, page 4



    PRACHT, MAX, of Ashland, was born in the Palatinate, Germany, in 1846, and two years later his father fled from the persecution that also drove Schurz, Hecker, Sigel and Rosecrans to the land of liberty, and brought his family to America. He served in the navy during the Rebellion, and is a comrade of Burnside Post, No. 23, G.A.R. He is the proprietor of the famous Peachblow Paradise orchards, at Ashland, and is still waiting for the Cleveland administration to raise enough revenue or sell enough bonds to buy him the gold medal he won as the first prize against all comers at the World's Fair. He is a Republican of irrepressible enthusiasm. It was born and bred in him. Much of his time the past two years has been spent traveling in the interest of the American Protective Tariff League, of which he is financial secretary. During the last Republican administration he was Collector of Customs and special commissioner in charge of the salmon fisheries of Alaska, and his Republicanism was so offensive that, as soon as Cleveland was inaugurated, the telegraph and a special steamer were used to inform him that he was removed from office. In 1894 Mr. Pracht was chairman of the Oregon delegation at the National League convention, at Denver, and was made vice-president for Oregon for the ensuing year. Wherever he goes, whether at home or abroad, his voice and pen are used to acquaint the world with the beauties and resources of Oregon, inducing both immigration and the investment of capital.
Republican League Register, Portland, 1896, page 260


    For some time past, says the San Francisco Examiner, it has been rumored in California that large beds of oysters had some months since been discovered in certain waters in Alaska. The location has not been stated, but it has been understood that the oysters were entirely different from any found hitherto on this coast, being much larger and as fine, or almost as fine, as the best eastern oysters.
    News is now received from Washington that these oysters are in the vicinity of Killisnoo. This special information under a Washington date was received recently, and is as follows:
    "United States Fish Commissioner McDonald has obtained the consent of the Treasury Department to avail himself of the services of Special Agent Max Pracht, having in view the investigation of certain oyster beds said to exist in the vicinity of Killisnoo, Alaska. Specimen shells from this locality, obtained from natives, were submitted to the ichthyologist of the commission during the recent visit of the special agent to this city, and pronounced by the ichthyologist to be of a superior variety. Proper appliances have been forwarded to Special Agent Pracht at Sitka with instructions to secure and pack some oysters for transshipment to the commissioner. If the report of the ichthyologist is favorable, steps will be taken to secure spat and young oysters for the purpose of transplanting to the waters of Chesapeake Bay."
    Hitherto it has been supposed that the waters of Alaska were too old for oysters, but old residents of Alaska nowhere point out that this is an error. They say that the Japan current strikes and influences greatly a portion of the waters of that great country, and that oysters can live and thrive there the same as anywhere else in the country.
Daily Public Ledger, Maysville, Kentucky, January 20, 1896, page 5


    The Oregonian's account of the state horticultural society meeting has the following:
    At this juncture the society was entertained by a talk from Max Pracht, of Peachblow Paradise orchard fame. Upon previous occasions at the meetings of the State Horticultural Society, Mr. Pracht has read essays upon his pet hobby (peaches), but at yesterday afternoon's meeting he was asked to say a few words about his trip to Europe, and, instead of talking horticulture made a speech on protection. It was a rouser, and pleased  his audience almost to a man. His leading thoughts were protection, patriotism and peaches, a home market for American produce, the payment of American wages to American workmen in America, the hopelessness of expecting good times while the public money was being sent abroad to pay wages to foreigners, and an appeal to stand by the American doctrine of protection, and nominate and elect McKinley next November as the representative protectionist, most disliked "on the other side." His effort closed amid great applause.
Valley Record, Ashland, January 23, 1896, page 1


    It is for Mr. McKinley to say whether we shall have a man for governor like Mr. Brady, who has lived among us and whose integrity and ability are unquestioned, or whether we shall be afflicted with a man like Max Pracht, who when he was appointed Collector here six years ago became so notorious that Prest. Harrison
had to dismiss him. . . . Send us a man with a clean record.
"100 Years Ago" (from the Sitka Alaskan of February 1896), Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, February 7, 1997, page 11


    The Medford Monitor refers to Max Peaches Pracht as "insufferable egotism."

    Max Pracht, of Ashland, is considerable of a politician. Sometimes he sidetracks himself from the main line and says some very clever and appreciated words for Southern Oregon, especially that part of it covered by Rogue River Valley. Our good friend Peter Applegate, of Central Point, has sent us a copy of the Salt Lake City Daily Tribune, of date April 17th, in which is printed an interview with Mr. Pracht upon Oregon. The greater part of the interview is political, but the paragraph printed below is where he sidetracks, and is good reading--for everybody:
    "Utah has much in common with Oregon," continued Mr. Pracht, "and it needs only closer communication by rail to materially benefit both. Some years ago a local corporation built a line from Jacksonville to the main line of the Southern Pacific, which runs almost due north from Sacramento to Portland, at Medford. From the latter point surveys have been made and right-of-ways secured to a point near the headwaters of Rogue River, and it is the intention of the incorporators, if times ever get back to the point where capital can be enlisted in such enterprise, to build over the Cascade Range by the way of the old Applegate survey to Klamath Falls, Lakeview and other points in the southernmost tier of counties, aiming for Kelton on the Great Salt Lake hoping to meet there a railway direct from Salt Lake City, via the west shore. I am informed that the maximum grade over the Cascades is only seventy-six feet per mile, and neither tunnels nor snowsheds will be required. The largest forest of sugar pine timber in the world is tapped by this survey, and Crater Lake, Oregon's greatest natural wonder, can be reached by the line. A direct line from Salt Lake to Medford would be the base of two acute angles, one having its apex at Sacramento, the other at Portland, and a vast stretch of rich country from which the great markets of the United States cannot now be reached, except in expensive and roundabout way, will be opened. There are great possibilities in store for Utah in this direction. Will she come to meet us?
Medford Mail, April 24, 1896, page 4


    There is a McKinley leader in town preparing to fire the first gun in the Canton man's campaign in Missouri.
    His name is Max Pracht, and he stands as near the throne and as near the barrel as any of Mark Hanna's henchmen.
    Mr. Pracht is a resident of Ashland, Ore., and is Financial Secretary of the American Protective Tariff League; at least that is what his card sets forth, but he hastens to explain that the printer made a mistake, and that he is in reality traveling secretary.
    There was a well-defined rumor Tuesday that he was getting ready to make a distribution from the Little Corporal's barrel.
    Mr. Pracht was in business in St. Louis 20 years ago, being then a member of the now-extinct firm of C. R. Williamson & Co., wholesale paper dealers. He said to a Post-Dispatch reporter:
    "I am here primarily to secure quarters for the Oregon delegation. Our state is a gold state, and will send a solid sound money delegation to St. Louis, instructed for McKinley, first, last and all the time. Oregon was at one time assumed to be a free sliver state because the majority of the state's representatives in Congress were for free silver. Since 1890 there has been a change, so that now the majority of the people of the state are for sound money. The firm stand taken on protection and finance has had a good effect along the coast.
    "I have no doubt that the Sacramento convention, which is being held today, will follow Oregon's lead, both as to the character and complexion of the delegation and in instructing for McKinley. The state of Washington can safely be claimed for protection and sound money.
    "So, you see, McKinley has captured the entire Pacific Slope.
    "I don't intend to make an active canvass for McKinley here, as 1 believe that no outside interference is required in Missouri."
    When asked what he thought of the local McKinley leaders, Mr. Pracht said:
    "I know your Mr. Kerens personally, and know that he is an enthusiastic worker for McKinley's cause."
    Then, as Mr. Pracht paused, he was asked how Mr. Filley stood as a McKinley supporter.
    "Filley? Filley?" he said, "let me see. Oh, yes; he's the man that wants to be delegate-at-large. Chauncey is his first name, isn't it? Well, as to Mr. Filley, you might say for me that he is an old acquaintance of mine and that I am glad to see him put to the front as a delegate-at-large. He is sure to do good work for the party."
    While here Mr. Pracht will visit prominent local members of the tariff league. He thinks the issue will be protection and sound money and that McKinley will be nominated on the first ballot.
    Though he thinks the combine against McKinley is very strong, he doesn't think it will prevail. He puts it: "Protection, reciprocity, sound money and the Monroe Doctrine are four aces in a hand that can't be beat."
    When not dallying with the Tariff League barrel Mr. Pracht raises fruit in the Oregon "peachblow paradise." He has not been in St. Louis for years and was much surprised at recent improvements. He spent ten months in Europe lately and says that while there he found nowhere a hotel so elegantly appointed or with such accommodations as can be found in St. Louis, which, he says, indicates in itself the progress of this city in the last ten years.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 5, 1896, page 2


Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 14, 1896, page 1


To the Editor Commercial Tribune:
    I have read and can easily understand your valuable "Primary Silver Lessons."
    They are the best and most coherently logical sermons upon this generally muddled topic I have seen in the daily prints, and I can hope for nothing better for the intellectual digestion of the people, or more timely.
    I would suggest that you put these "Lessons" into leaflet form for general distribution, and will see to it personally that my own state of Oregon, which has been made the dumping ground for the vagaries of populistic literature, and the stamping round for their roaring bulls of Bashan and all others suffering from a vacuum in the head and a breaking out at the mouth, for several years, is properly supplied. These lessons can be made of great help during the present campaign for protection and sound money.
    That Oregon was not lost to the Republican Party in June last is due entirely to the fact that it is a great wool-growing state and as such suffers greatly under the workings of the Wilson-Germandized tariff for deficit bill, and even the promise of sixteen (dollars) to one did not carry our farmers off their feet, but the free coinage propaganda is yet actively at work; it has capital to work with, and something should be done by the "sound" states to help us out in this campaign. Heretofore Oregon had never needed help from without her borders; we fought and won our own battles.
    Should you publish these "Lessons" as [a] campaign document, I suggest that you place them in the hands of Hon. M. C. George, Portland, Ore., as the best and surest means of having them get into the hands of the people most needing them. Very sincerely yours,
Cincinnati Commercial Tribune, July 11, 1896, page 4


    William M. Hahn, of Mansfield, ex-member of the National Committee from Ohio; Abner McKinley, of New York, a brother of the Republican Presidential nominee; Executive Committeeman Charles G. Dawes, of Chicago and Max Pracht, of Oregon, were among the callers today.
"McKinley's Callers," Philadelphia Inquirer, July 19, 1896, page 5


    Miss Charlotte Bronte Pracht, of Peachblow Paradise orchards, Ashland, arrived yesterday with her father, Hon. Max Pracht. They are registered at the Hotel Imperial. Miss Pracht, like her father, is an enthusiastic Republican, and will assist him in the American Protective Tariff League office work during the campaign in Oregon. Mr. Pracht will remain in Portland during the campaign as representative of the American Protective Tariff League.
"Personal Mention," Oregonian, Portland, August 25, 1896, page 5


    Max Pracht, of Ashland, went through on the train today, and the earth trembled.
"Personal," Capital Journal, Salem, September 26, 1896, page 4


    Max Pracht, of Portland, was on his way south Saturday via the Roseburg mail train, and among his thirty-three fellow passengers was a certain Populist presidential elector of this city. It was a case of "tow and fire" as soon as they realized each other's presence, and a red hot "monetary" argument was instantly under way. After a while it came to a matter of proof as to the prevailing popular sentiment and the burden of proof lay upon Mr. Pracht. He disposed of the question by polling the train in company with his opponent, with the result that thirty-two voted for the great son of Ohio and two for Bryan. Born of Nebraska and of this pitiful minority, the said Populist elector constituted one-half.--Salem Statesman.
    The above is pure fiction, reported by this Pracht, of Ashland. No vote was taken. No discussion was had. We never rode ten miles in our life with Pracht.
    Pracht is one of Mark Hanna's apostate Jews, distributing McKinley literature on a Southern Pacific free pass. He incidentally remarked that he was a German, when a traveling man remarked that he was no more a German than were Ickelheimer, Goldstein & Co., of the gold bond syndicate fame. A Jew who is ashamed of his race often tries to pass himself off on Americans as a German. That is what this man Pracht is doing.
Capital Journal, Salem, October 1, 1896, page 3


    Max Pracht, an Oregon politician, yesterday in this city ran up against a corporation manager with whom Mark Hanna's credentials would not go down. Captain James Morgan is manager of the Straits Steamship Company, which operates a line of steamers between Seattle and the Straits of Fuca. Pracht presented the credentials from Major McKinley's manager, requesting free transportation to Port Angeles and return, in which city it was proposed to organize a McKinley club.
    "It won't pass muster here," Captain Morgan answered, and Pracht rejoined, saying, "I've traveled over the country, and this is the first transportation company, either by water or rail, that has refused to honor these credentials and give me a pass."
    "Can't help it," Captain Morgan replied, "we are not 'deadheading' any of Hanna's politicians."--Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Salt Lake Herald, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 10, 1896, page 4




State Rights Democrat, Albany, Oregon, January 29, 1897, page 1




    From the Washington Post: "Kate Field made an excursion trip to Alaska; I think it was in the summer of '86," said ex-Consul Max Pracht of Oregon, to the Post reporter at the Hotel Johnson. "I was then running a salmon-curing concern at a place called Loring-on-Naha Bay, one of the most delightful spots imaginable, but somewhat off the main line of excursion travel. Miss Field had Margaretta Weppenens' description of its scenic beauties, and coaxed Capt. Hunter to bring his ship in. I was busy in the fish house up on the first rapids out of Lake Adorable (so named in honor of Mrs. Richardson Clover, when she was yet Miss Dora Miller), and did not know of the steamer's arrival in the lower bay until Capt. Hunter's gig, with Miss Field and a few friends,
landed below the fish house. Being dressed a la Siwash--in gum boots and
yellow oil slickers, wading around in the day's catch of salmon piled up on
the floor to a depth of two feet or more--I did not consider myself in proper
costume to meet the ladies, and was making my way over the hill through
the huckleberry bushes to the seclusion of the mess house, when the jolly captain saw and hailed me; like Davy Crockett's coon, I came down.
    "'I want you to take--oh, excuse me; this is Miss Kate Field of Washington--these ladies through the lake and up Naha River to the falls.'
    "'Certainly, captain, if the ladies will ride in the fish boats--and the ladies would, even though the latter had not yet been washed of the slime from the morning's fishing. So we filled two skiffs, and off up the lake we went, Miss Field in fresh ecstasies as each succeeding point passed opened up newer and more glorious vistas. She was so enthused that she stood up in the boat all the way, and kept me busy answering questions, and I think I rather did the honors right up to the handle.
    "Now, it so happened that a few days before a heavy rain up in the mountains filled the upper lakes, and, together with the fast-melting snow, created a freshet, which, rushing down the connecting reaches of river, carried with it thousands of salmon, already almost dead from the labor and distress of the spawning beds, and the freshet being higher than usual, filled the lower Naha River and overflowed the meadows near its mouth, so that the lower branches of the hemlock and spruce trees were covered, and the rapidly receding waters, as they found their way out into the bay over the rapids at low tide, left many of these discolored and emaciated salmon hanging over the limbs, a feast for the ravens. Miss Field saw and perhaps, also smelled them.
    "'Oh, Mr. Pracht, how do you account for those fish in the trees?'
    "'Those,' said I, 'Why, that is the way we raise salmon here.'
    "She gave me a look which not even the childlike and bland smile I assumed could dispel, then turned her back on me, and never asked me another other question during the trip. Now, what I want to know is, who was victim of the joke--Kate Field or Max Pracht?"
Galesburg Enterprise, Galesburg, Kansas, March 12, 1897, page 5


    Max Pracht, Ashland's greatest peach cultivator and authority on orchard pests, will be the governor of Alaska. It is Senator Mark Hanna's dictum. Thus saith a personal friend of Pracht's, not as an addition to his boom, but as confirmation to the report that the appointment had all been arranged and settled in the private councils of the powers that be, and are, months ago. The information comes from a man who has been in Alaska and knows the politics up there.
    It is said that Pracht was positively promised the place long ago by Senator Hanna, McKinley’s manager, and the announcement is expected at any time. Max himself has always had the greatest assurance that this plum would fall to Oregon.
    As governor of Alaska he will get about $4,000 a year, and then he will have a juicy little plum to hand out to one of his friends in the shape of a private secretaryship with an ordinary salary attached, but extraordinary perquisites that makes it worth scrambling for.
    The Alaska spoils will be pretty well divided in East Portland, if reports count for anything. Judge Hanna has his eyes on the United States district attorneyship, and there are others all scheduled for federal jobs. One advantage enjoyed by the East Portlanders is that they got in on the ground floor early, and more than that they are at Washington urging their claims and endorsements while the other candidates are doing their skirmishing at long distance.--Telegram.
Dalles Daily Chronicle, March 31, 1897, page 3.  J. G. Brady was named governor of Alaska Territory in 1897--not Max Pracht.


    It can be stated on pretty good authority that Max Pracht will not be appointed
governor of Alaska. Max was sure of the place. He saw his title as big as life, but it don't look quite so good now. It is possible that he may land in some place in one of the departments here in Washington, as it is known to be the wish of the President
to appoint him to a suitable position.--Oregonian
"Local Brevities," Dalles Weekly Chronicle, April 21, 1897, page 3


"Political Pointers," Corvallis Gazette, April 23, 1897, page 5


    . . . the fact may be noted that the largest apple, the largest pear and the largest cherries exhibited at the [1893] Columbian Exposition were grown in Oregon, and that a special gold medal was awarded to Max Pracht of Ashland for the largest and best-flavored peaches.
R. L. Fulton, "The Yamhill Country," Overland Monthly, May 1897, page 500


    The latest news from Washington is that not only has C. S. Johnson withdrawn from the contest for the governorship, but that Max Pracht has also withdrawn. Max is the man who said Mark Hanna had promised him the place, but Hanna sent for him the other day and told him to apply for something else, as it was advisable not to antagonize the Brady people as they were numerous and powerful.
"100 Years Ago" (from the Sitka Alaskan of May 1897), Daily Sitka Sentinel, Sitka, Alaska, May 23, 1997, page 11


    Washington, June 5.--Max Pracht gets an office. He was reinstated as special agent of the Treasury Department to get around the civil service law. He was transferred and made a special agent of the general land office, and Hermann will send him to Oregon. It is not governor of Alaska, but it is something.
Dalles Daily Chronicle, June 7, 1897, page 1


"The National Capital," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, June 15, 1897, page 1


    Max Pracht, the only original one, no substitute and bearing the maker's facsimile signature properly verified with every package, dropped into town Saturday from an absence of several months in Washington, D.C., where he and Hanna were directing the disposition of the spoils of victory. Max did not get the governorship of Alaska, which he wanted just long enough to "sit upon" some of his ancient enemies. But he was provided with a fat, salaried office, that will clean up more clear money.--Valley Record.
"The Week's Jottings," Rogue River Courier, Grants Pass, July 1, 1897, page 3


    President McKinley has made a poor start in Oregon in giving the first federal patronage to Max Pracht and Ivey--in a state, too, filled with good men.
"Misfits," State Rights Democrat, Albany, Oregon, July 2, 1897, page 3


    Max Pracht is in the hospital at Portland, recovering from a severe attack of
pleurisy.
"Local Brevities," Dalles Weekly Chronicle, September 22, 1897, page 3


    The Ashland district in Oregon attained quite a distinction this season from the fact that it was the only section in Oregon or Washington that gave a full crop of the late varieties of peaches. From a report we have at hand we learn that from Ashland Station there were shipped from July to October 34,500 boxes of peaches by freight and 36,100 by express. There are a number of other stations in that vicinity that also shipped heavily. This is the first year that Ashland peaches have entered the Eastern markets and the results were very pleasing to the growers, who found that their fancy product was very popular. One of the principal growers and shippers was Max Pracht, who, in answer to a query for a review of his experience for the season, said:
    "Ashland has again shown her remissness to her own best interests by her failure to provide herself with an up-to-date fruit cannery. If my orchard is a criterion, at least a ton of peaches per acre of trees went to waste, or at best were dried in all sorts of driers, which from lack of experience have turned out a product having a wide range of value, some of it when brought into open competition in the market possibly failing to pay wages, after freight and other charges have been satisfied. The unusual hot weather of August forced to maturity perhaps 50 percent of our Crawfords before they had attained a size justifying shipment. They were full flavored, however, and exquisitely colored and would have made a better canned peach than the extra large fruit we are accustomed to send to market. What Ashland needs most now is an up-to-date cannery. The success attending Ashland's first year's experience with refrigerator car accommodations is varied. A want of knowledge on the part of the shipper as to the proper degree of ripeness caused a loss. The fruit arriving in the East chilled, and not a bit riper than when it left here, and being required for immediate consumption, it was classified by the buyer as 'green' and the bids on such lots, as shown by the printed returns furnished by the Earl Fruit Company, ranged from 45 to 60 cents per box, as against 90 cents to $1.10 for ripe and properly graded fruit in the same car. What Ashland needed was one season's experience with refrigerators to teach us that fruit so shipped must be started from here much riper than when shipment is made in the ordinary boxcar or 'oven,' as heretofore. On the whole, the season must be accepted as fairly satisfactory. Considerable money was put into circulation and the net profits, though not as large as was expected, are a gain, while the advertising Ashland has received in the leading markets of the East is worth a great deal. Letters received from distributing merchants at various points all agree in saying that Ashland peaches are far superior to any heretofore received from California, and in several cases offers have already been made to purchase some of our leading brands f.o.b. in Ashland next year, an advance of 15 to 20 cents per box over same varieties of California peaches being offered--one concern in a Mississippi River city offering to take two carloads per week. A 'trademark' brand printed wrapper and an attractive box label, also 'registered,' are great helps in the sale of fruit when the latter is of itself fully up to the highest standard. Peaches offered under such a 'trademark,' one which has now been in use five years, invariably starting out at an initial auction bid considerably higher than offers made for peaches packed in the old way, the extra profit being more in every case than the extra cost of wrapping and labeling. Printer's ink pays, even with peaches.
    "What Ashland needs is a local fruit union, which, with a good manager, properly graded peaches and the use of distinctive labels and wrappers, will net to our orchardists a much better price. The buyer whose customers have had and demand a certain brand of peaches must pay the price, and is more certain of his own profit than if he handles 'wildcats.'
    "What Ashland needs is more confidence and real cooperation in her fruit business."
Ranch and Range, Yakima, Washington, November 11, 1897, page 6


Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, January 23, 1899, page 1


    Private Max Pracht, a relic of the Civil War, who has no other title, was in town during the week. He is special agent of the General Land Office for the district of New Mexico and has been making abstracts of scrip entries from the books of the local office before proceeding to Alamogordo on an investigating trip.--Dona Ana Republican.
"New Mexico," El Paso Daily Herald, February 20, 1899, page 3


    Max Pracht, who has been inspecting timber in the Sacramento Mountain region, left for his home in Santa Fe this morning. Mr. Pracht has not been in El Paso for eighteen years and he says that all El Paso needs to make it a first-class city is a union depot and a big hotel.
"Personals," El Paso Daily Herald, February 28, 1899, page 8




Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 2, 1899, page 4


    Special Agent Max Pracht of the federal building in Santa Fe the other day inserted an advertisement in The New Mexican, offering to buy ten horned toads. When he arrived at his office in the morning, he found an army of people lined up in the corridor, like the rush at Durango when the Ute lands were opened. The first ones in line seemed to have been there all night. Every grade of citizenship and servitude was represented. They had brought horned toads of all kinds, color, class and condition. Some were as small as a bedbug and others as large as a mud turtle. They were housed in cigar boxes, old hat boxes, handkerchiefs, shawls and satchels.
    All day long young and old, large and tall, clean and dirty people called, offering horned toads for sale, until everyone in the federal building had a creepy, crawly, clammy feeling, and Mr. Pracht had selected the finest specimens that ever found their way to a zoological garden. He is convinced by this time that there are more horned toads in and around Santa Fe than anything else. The rush became so great in the afternoon that the sign "No More Horned Toads Wanted" was put out. But still they came, and Mr. Pracht was compelled to seize his hat and coat and flee into the jungle not far from the federal building.--Santa Fe New Mexican.
Leavenworth Times, Leavenworth, Kansas, June 10, 1899, page 3


    Miss Amie Gulliford left for San Francisco per today's train. She is en route to Ashland, Ore., the peachblow paradise, where she will be the guest of Mrs. Max Pracht and Miss Pracht. Miss Charlotte Bronte Pracht is now in San Francisco awaiting the arrival of her brother, a soldier, from Manila, and Miss Gulliford will go on to Oregon with them. Miss Pracht is expected to return with Miss Gulliford for a visit in Santa Fe to Max Pracht, her father.
"Personal Mention," Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 10, 1899, page 4


    Max Pracht today received a telegram bringing the joyful tidings that his son had arrived safely at San Francisco with the 2nd regiment of Oregon volunteers, of which he is a member, and with which he had seen some exciting times at Manila.
"Minor City Topics," Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, July 13, 1899, page 4


    Special Agent Max Pracht this afternoon left for Las Cruces on official business.
"Personal Mention," Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, August 22, 1899, page 4


    Max. Pracht has received from his orchard at Ashland, Ore., a box of early Crawford peaches that for size, appearance and quality cannot be excelled. He has an orchard of fifteen acres. The fruit is packed and labeled in up-to-date manner, and sells for 2½ cents per pound.
"Minor City Topics," Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, September 12, 1899, page 4


    Max Pracht, the genial special land agent of Santa Fe, is sojourning in the county. He is one of those lively spirits that makes everyone feel happy and more contented with their lot.

    Alexander Humboldt Pracht, the youngest son of Special Agent Max Pracht, of the general land office, was married October 18 to Miss Susie Martin, of Portland, Ore., where the wedding took place. The young people reside at Ashland, Ore., where Mr. Pracht is manager of the Southern Pacific railroad hotel.
"Social and Personal," Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, October 28, 1899, page 4


    Special Agent Max Pracht today received official notification of being detailed to investigate the project of making a national park of the Aztec ruins in San Juan County, New Mexico, and in southwestern Colorado, and will go there soon.
"Minor City Topics," Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, November 18, 1899, page 4


    Max Pracht, whom the people of Oregon were inclined to mourn as one who had mysteriously disappeared, has not gone to the undiscovered bourne that is the destination of many travelers. On the contrary, Max is alive and well, and seemingly as energetically employed as of old--not in proclaiming the beauties of a peachblow paradise, but in expatiating on the wonders to be unearthed from the ruins of cliff-dwellers and Aztecs in southwestern Colorado. He kindly sends to the Oregonian a copy of the Santa Fe New Mexican, from which it is learned that "Special Agent Pracht, of the land office, has been assigned the duty of examining the ruins in the Mancos Canyon, on the Mesa Verde, and other portions of Colorado, with a view of reporting upon the advisability of setting aside that part of the state as a national park, or reservation." Max may not know the difference between an Aztec and a Modoc, but it is safe to say that he will tackle anthropology [and] will live in the history of the Smithsonian Institution.
Valley Record, Ashland, November 30, 1899, page 1


Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, December 12, 1899, page 4


    Max Pracht, special agent of the general land office, returned this morning from an official visit of a week to Valencia County. In township 8N, range 5E in that county, a number of squatters had possession of government land as long as twenty years. They had the land surveyed, but never made entries on it. Mr. Pracht succeeded in persuading them into a promise to make homestead entries on the land to avoid difficulties with the government. In another township of the same county he also conferred with thirty settlers and smoothed over some technical difficulties that prevented them from making entries on their lands. Mr. Pracht reports plenty of snow in the mountains, and any amount of cold weather in Bernalillo and Valencia counties.
"Official Matters," Santa Fe New Mexican, January 13, 1900, page 4




    The Ashland (Ore.) papers publish a complete account of the wedding last week at Ashland of Sergt. William Bismarck Pracht, the eldest son of Max Pracht, of this city, special agent of the general land office, to Miss Nellie Patrick, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C. D. Patrick, formerly of La Junta, Colo. The wedding took place at the residence of Charles J. Brady at Ashland last Tuesday evening. Judge Milton Berry officiated, in the presence of a number of relatives and other invited guests The bride was charmingly attired in a wedding gown, sans trains, made of light-colored Persian silk, trimmed with white. She wore diamond and opal ornaments, and carried a bouquet of white lilacs. Mendelssohn's wedding march was played by the Misses Esther and Mary Silsbey as part of the ceremony. After the wedding the happy couple left for the home of Mr. Pracht in Peachblow Paradise, where a reception was tendered them and a sumptuous feast was served. The groom's former companions in the Philippine war tendered the wedding party two charivari serenades. The groom has been a resident of Ashland for fifteen years, and served with credit to himself and honor to his country in company B of the 2nd Oregon volunteers in the Philippines. He served as mining engineer at Sparta, Baker County, before the outbreak of the war. The charming and talented bride has been a great favorite in Ashland social circles during the past week, where her musical and dramatic talents have been much sought after at amateur theatrical entertainments.
Santa Fe New Mexican, April 17, 1900, page 1


    Mrs. Max Pracht and daughter Lottie have taken a cottage for the season.
"Tolman's," Valley Record, Ashland, June 14, 1900, page 3


"Montezuma Mesa," Santa Fe New Mexican, June 23, 1900, page 1


Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 26, 1900, page 1




    Max Pracht, formerly stationed in this city as special agent of the general land office, arrived in the city yesterday on a business visit.
"Personal Mention," Santa Fe New Mexican, Santa Fe, New Mexico, January 4, 1901, page 4


Oregonian, Portland, April 28, 1901, page 17


    Sunday's Oregonian published the following story from its Washington correspondent. Nobody is vouching for the truth of the story, which is left to the individual reader to decide.
    I heard a good story on the versatile Max Pracht the other day, or perhaps it was on the general land office. At least, it is worth repeating. A year or more ago there was considerable demand for information regarding the cliff dwellers' ruins in Arizona, and after looking the field over, it was decided that Max Pracht, then a special agent in the land office, should be sent on this mission. Those who know Max are thoroughly familiar with his self-confident and all-important manner. In due time he hied himself as far as Durango, Col. And that was as near the ruins as Max ever got. He fell in with the natives, gave them to understand that he was a special agent of the general land office, and from his manner many gathered the impression that he was pretty near the whole government at Washington. Max, soon after reaching Durango, happened to stumble over a museum on one of the main thoroughfares, where parts of the cliff dwellers' ruins were exhibited, and in he went, to enlighten himself. After listening to the explanation of the exhibitor, Max concluded he knew enough about the ruins without going further, and in the most comfortable quarters Durango could afford, he wrote out his report on the ruins of Arizona. This was duly submitted to the department at Washington, and with it the bill of expenses. The department, it may be added, learned more from the expense account than it did from the report, and was was given to understand that he was rather a luxury when next he came to Washington. He was not the least disturbed, but rather lay back and laughed most heartily to think that he had taken in the department, and that from Durango he could write up an instructive report on ruins in Arizona.
Valley Record, Ashland, May 2, 1901, page 3


    A. H. Pracht, who has been chief clerk at the Depot Hotel for many years, has purchased the same from J. A. Grass and will take charge on the 15th.
Valley Record, Ashland, August 8, 1901, page 3


    Special Agent Max Pracht, who signs himself "Of Oregon," jumped on ye editor yesterday because of the statement that Senator-elect Charles W. Fulton, of Oregon, was a lawyer, and insisting that in his case the word should have been spelled with a capital L. "Not only is he a Lawyer,” said Max, "but he stands 6 feet 2, weighs 220 pounds, and can lick his weight in wildcats, and Oregon has once more a blooded team in the senatorial harness. Mr. Fulton is one of the class of lawyers such as we had down in Jackson County when the Populists were rampant. They, you know, objected to sending lawyers to the legislature--they wanted farmers to represent farmers; but nevertheless they put a little fellow on their ticket who had a new sign with 'attorney at law' painted on it. Fault being found with them for such a departure from the faith, his Republican opponent excused them on the ground that 'he was not lawyer enough to hurt.'"
Democratic Times, Jacksonville, March 18, 1903, page 2


Mr. Max Pracht,
    Special Agent, G.L.O.,
        Pueblo, Colorado.
Sir:
    Your letter of August 18th has been received. If it is absolutely necessary to close up your business at the Pueblo office that you remain there until the thirty-first of this month you may do so, but you must be in Durango on the first of September.
    I note what you say about the success of your work in Pueblo, and respecting that will say that we judge the work of special agents from their official reports and results actually accomplished. I trust your reports will bear out your statement as to your success.
    I have seen several notices in the newspapers of what you said you were doing in the Pueblo district, and I want to caution you about giving out information for publication. As you know, the reports of special agents do not go into the public records and are not made public except in connection with a contest case, proceedings in court, or something of that character, and it must be left to this office to say when and what portions of such reports shall be made public. The protection of the public land from unlawful appropriation, and not newspaper notoriety, is the principal object sought to be obtained through the Special Service Division of this office. Another thing that special agents should bear in mind is that it is no part of their duties to attempt to exert an influence in politics, except insofar as the able, fearless and impartial performance of their duty shall redound to the credit of the administration. I mention this to you for the reason that while in Omaha recently, I learned that you had stated, when there last spring, that certain proposed prosecutions on account of alleged illegal homestead entries should not be pushed on account of the bad effect it would have politically. This statement is corroborated to my mind by the fact that you had a conference with Senator Millard which resulted in his telegraphing me that you would like to come to Washington to talk with me about matters in Nebraska. I was surprised to receive this communication, and I could not understand why you should be reporting to Senator Millard, but, desiring to know what you had to say and being about to make a trip to Minnesota, I wired you to meet me in Chicago but you did not do so and I learned subsequently that you had returned to Pueblo before the arrival of my telegram.
    You say, in the letter to which this is a reply, that there are matters in Nebraska which it was desired that you should talk with me about, which you thought ought not to be written. If these are official matters it is your duty to report them to this office, and if they are not official and are, as I suspect, political, I do not care to discuss them with you at all.
    As to your claim for promotion, I have made no announcements of any plan for promotions in the special service of this office, but if it should be deemed advisable to make different grades of special agents, those to be placed in the higher grades will be selected on account of their ability and efficiency as evidenced by their reports, and the actual results which have been obtained through their labors, and not through the endorsements which they may be able to obtain from their friends in political or civil life.
"Letter from William A. Richards Max Pracht." Theodore Roosevelt Papers. Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.


Mr. President:
    Under date of August 13th I submitted to the Secretary of the Interior a report relating to the alleged fraudulent disposition of a large area of valuable coal land in Colorado to which your attention had been called by articles which had appeared in some of the Colorado papers. With this report I submitted a copy of the report of N. A. Meyendorff, a special agent of this office now acting as superintendent of the special agents in Colorado.
    Subsequently in carrying out the recommendations of Mr. Meyendorff I transferred Special Agent Max Pracht from Pueblo to Durango, Colorado. Upon receipt of these instructions Mr. Pracht wrote me a letter, at the bottom of which he stated the letter was confidential, requested that I destroy it and said that he kept no copy. The letter was placed in the files of this office, in the proper division, and answered by a letter which I dictated.
    I am now in receipt of a communication from Mr. Pracht in which he appears to have been greatly offended by my letter and declares he is coming to Washington to place himself right, that he has consulted the delegation from Oregon, who are his political backers, that he will resign as a special agent and then proceed to do some terrible things which he only hints at.
    As it may be that he will attempt to carry his complaints to you, I enclose you a copy of the letter to which he takes such great exceptions, and I will be pleased to have  you read the same as it states my views upon two or three points which may be of interest to you.
The President,
    Oyster Bay, New York.
"Letter from William A. Richards to Theodore Roosevelt." Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.


    ALEXANDER H. PRACHT. Conspicuous among the rising young business men of Jackson County is Alexander H. Pracht, who is well and favorably known to many of the patrons of the Southern Pacific Railway line as proprietor of the Depot Hotel at Ashland. Active, enterprising, genial and accommodating, he is an ideal host, and is meeting with excellent success in the management of his house, which is well patronized and very popular with the traveling public. A native of Missouri, he was born February 18, 1875, in St. Louis, a son of Max Pracht.
    Born and reared in Germany, Max Pracht came with his parents to America, and for a while lived in Ohio. During the Civil War he served as a soldier, being connected with the United States navy. He was subsequently commercial salesman for a St. Louis firm for a while, and then settled in San Francisco, Cal., where he traveled for Neville & Co. for a number of years, for about ten years being a member of the firm. Going thence to Alaska, he was engaged in salmon packing at Loring until 1887, when he came to Oregon, locating in Ashland, where he became identified with the Ashland Woolen Mills. Subsequently buying twenty-five acres of raw land, he improved it and set out a large number of fruit trees, establishing the now celebrated Peachblow Paradise orchard, which contains a choice variety of peach trees and other varieties of fruit. As head of the firm of Max Pracht & Sons, he is carrying on an extensive and remunerative fruit business, having his own packing house and shipping principally to Portland and the Sound cities. The products of the Peachblow orchard are widely and favorably known, having taken premiums and gold medals at several expositions, including the World's Fair, held at Chicago in 1893; the Pan American Exposition, held in Buffalo, N.Y., in 1901, and at Charleston, S.C. Under President Harrison Max Pracht served as collector of customs for the district of Alaska, being located in Sitka. He drafted and secured the passage of the bill establishing the Alaska Fish Commission, and was afterwards fish commissioner in Alaska. He married Mary Winings, a native of Ohio, and of their union three children were born, namely: W. B., of Ashland; Alexander H., the subject of this sketch; and Charlotte Bronte, wife of A. R. Wilkins, of Dunsmuir, Cal.
    Removing with his parents to San Francisco when quite young. Alexander H. Pracht attended the public schools of that city until 1888, when he came to Ashland, where he continued his studies, completing his education at the public schools. He subsequently assisted in the care of the home orchard until 1891, when he became clerk in the large hotel, The Oregon, which his father owned and managed from 1891 until 1892. Since that time Mr. Pracht has been in the hotel business more or less. Entering the employ of J. A. Gross in 1895, he became clerk at the Depot Hotel, with which he is now connected, and gradually worked his way up to manager of the house. In 1901 Mr. Pracht bought out Mr. Gross' interest in the house, which he has since conducted with good success, making it one of the leading hotels of Southern Oregon, being especially patronized by transient guests.
    In Portland, Ore., October 15, 1899, Mr. Pracht married Miss Susie Martin, who was born and bred in Chippewa Falls, Wis. In politics Mr. Pracht is a firm adherent of the Republican Party and has served as councilman one term, representing the first ward. Fraternally he is a member of Roseburg Lodge, No. 326, B.P.O.E.
Portrait and Biographical Record of Western Oregon, Chicago 1904, page 308


    On the evening of January 22, just after supper at the Commercial Hotel, Max Pracht, the special agent of the General Land Office, was sitting in the office, near the counter, reading. There was in the room also Miss Belle Seavy, daughter of the hotel proprietress, Mrs. Cora E. Seavy, who sat in the angle of the wall behind the stove, distant about ten feet. Mrs. Seavy came into the office with one Emmett Wirt and introduced him to Special Agent Pracht. Whatever was said when Mr. Pracht arose from his rocking chair and extended his hand towards Emmett Wirt was not overheard, but Mr. Pracht, who is physically a much smaller man and a much older man--being a veteran of the Civil War--was seen to fall back into his chair as if pushed down by a superior weight, while Emmett Wirt, with his right hand grasping the handle of his revolver on his right hip, stood before and over Special Agent Pracht making threatening motions with his left hand and roaring out his words in such a loud tone of voice as to attract the attention of passersby. Mrs. Seavy was seen to rush up to the foot of the stairway which leads up to the bedroom part of the hotel, evidently much frightened, but the young girl sat still, too much scared to move. Emmett Wirt was heard to say, among other things unprintable:
    "You made a report against my homestead at Lumberton which was a d----d lie and you did not have the decency to come to me and get my version, and two other special agents came after you--Mathews and Forrest McKinley--and they both threw you down and made favorable reports, and I have got the patent to my land."
    At this Special Agent Pracht spoke up and said: "Whatever they may have reported I don't know, but I do know that I reported according to the facts and the law, and if I had the same investigation [to do] over again I would make exactly the same report and recommendation."
    "Yes!" shrieked Emmett Wirt, "and you would repeat the same d----d lie--I know what you reported!"
    "That is impossible," said Agent Pracht, "for my report is in the secret archives of the department and you cannot see it."
    "Yes, I did see it!" roared Emmett Wirt: "Forrest McKinley had a copy of it--he showed it to me and I read it! And he sent for the witnesses you claimed to have seen--they came to my store and they all swore that they had not seen you or made any such statements to you."
    About this time Mrs. Seavy plucked up courage to return to the room and Emmett Wirt sat down in a chair before the stove, Mr. Pracht remaining seated in his rocking chair at the end of the counter, outside of it, Mrs. Seavy taking a vacant chair at the end of the counter, but inside of it, directly under the clock hanging on the wall. Emmett Wirt was evidently in a condition of suppressed excitement. Mr. Pracht appeared cool and collected. After a few minutes, during which Emmett Wirt tried to compose himself sufficiently to start a conversation with Mrs. Seavy in a high, piping, nervous voice, Mr. Pracht addressed him suddenly:
    "Do you mean to tell me, Mr. Wirt, that Special Agent Forrest McKinley did such an unofficerlike and unheard-of thing as to show you a copy of my report--a part of the secret archives of the General Land Office?"
    "Yes!" retorted Wirt, "he did, and I never paid him a dollar for doing it."
    "That is all," said Mr. Pracht, "I just wanted you to repeat this statement before witnesses."
    Wirt appeared to say something more which was inaudible to our reporter, but Pracht waved his hand towards him and said, "I will not discuss this matter with you any further," and took up his book and went on reading.
Oregonian, Portland, February 6, 1904, page 12


    Max Pracht, a well-known commercial traveler, was in the city yesterday.
"Personal Mention," Morning Astorian, Astoria, Oregon, May 8, 1904, page 8


Morning Oregonian, Portland, June 18, 1904, page 5


    The horrors of campaign poetry are now Upon us. Here is No. 1 from Max Pracht, the poet of Peachblow Paradise:
   
Oregonian, Portland, July 15, 1904, page 8


Morning Oregonian, Portland, July 29, 1904, page 10


    MOTH DAMAGES PEACH CROP.--Max Pracht, of Peachblow Paradise, on his return from a visit to his orchard in Ashland, reports that he has discovered the cause of the split pits in the earlier shipments of peaches this year, and attributes them to the action of the codlin moth, which infects the apple orchards, and it may be an offshoot or relative of that nuisance. This moth lays her eggs in the calyx of the earliest peaches; the hatched-out grub eats its way into the soft mass which is to form the future kernel and pit, matures and works its way out of the peach without causing it to leave the stem, and it is presumed goes into the ground to emerge as a moth the following spring. The injury to the pit causes its nonperfection; it forms wood, but the two halves do not unite, and as in the case of infected apples the fruit ripens quickly and has the tendency to cook on the side next to the sun, which has been noticed in this year's earlier fruit, which being very tender, turns dark where pressed or bruised. Peaches coming into the market now, at least those from the Ashland orchards, are free from defects, but rather smaller than usual, owing to overproduction. This, however, has been a boon to San Francisco, whose buyers are snatching up all the Ashland peaches they can get, as the California peach crop is a failure. Mr. Pracht says it's up to the Corvallis professors to capture and classify the moth, but for himself he does not intend to wait, but to go on and extirpate the pest, suggesting, first, the thorough cultivation and upturning of the soil under and about the tree during the winter, next spraying with the mixture used for the codlin moth on apple trees. This means more work for the orchardist, who is already at his wits' end to make a living profit.
Morning Oregonian, Portland, August 30, 1904, page 7


    "It's worth going a hundred miles to see the erstwhile snow-white locks of old veteran Wright, of Astoria, dyed a brilliant blue," says Max Pracht, who has told him it would be a great drawing card, and to change the color every week. This information comes to us in a note from Max Pracht himself, and its meaning was obscure until the thought of an election bet occurred.
"Note and Comment," Morning Oregonian, Portland, November 19, 1904, page 8


MAX PRACHT RESIGNS.
He Hopes to Get Position in Department of Commerce and Labor.
    OREGONIAN NEWS BUREAU, Washington, Dec. 16.--Max Pracht, of Oregon, has resigned as special agent of the General Land Office, to take effect January 1.
    Mr. Pracht displayed discretion in resigning. When Land Commissioner Richards was in Portland to testify in the land fraud cases he told Mr. Pracht the first thing he would do on his return would be to dismiss him for insubordination. For some time Pracht has been dictating to Richards how the Land Office should be run, and has repeatedly ignored instructions. His prompt resignation saved him from dismissal. Pracht is coming to Washington in the hope of getting a position in the Department of Commerce and Labor.
Morning Oregonian, Portland, December 17, 1904, page 5


    That bloviating ass Max Pracht, who has been busybody in chief in local land affairs and who has devoted much of his time to explaining to the gentlemen who run the government how much better he could do the job if they would only turn him loose, has the temerity to denounce the Journal for a "barefaced lie." The Journal made the announcement that he had resigned to forestall a dismissal and Pracht presents a mass of figures and alleged telegrams to demonstrate that the Interior Department was fairly clamoring for him to remain as the sheet anchor of the department's hopes. This is not precisely what the Washington correspondent of the Oregonian telegraphed that paper the morning after the news appeared in the Journal. After announcing the fact this is what he says: "Mr. Pracht displayed discretion in resigning. When Land Commissioner Richards was in Portland to testify in the land fraud cases he told Mr. Pracht the first thing he would do on his return would be to dismiss him for insubordination. For some time Pracht has been dictating to Richards how the Land Office should be run, and has repeatedly ignored instructions. His prompt resignation saved him from dismissal. Pracht is coming to Washington in the hope of getting a position in the Department of Commerce and Labor," All of this, too, he will doubtless characterize as "a barefaced lie," but we happen to know it is the truth.
Oregon Journal, Portland, December 18, 1904, page 4




ROGUE RIVER.
    ASHLAND, Or., Dec. 20.--(To the Editor.)--As to the origin of certain names of mountains and streams in Oregon, I believe I can set you right and correct an error as to the name of Rogue River. Long before settlers from the States came into what is now the Rogue River Valley, the Hudson's Bay Company trappers or voyageurs traded and hunted in this valley, and they named the stream "Riviere Rouge," that is, Red River*, because in its torrential periods it was discolored red by the wash of the red auriferous lands along its course, a condition even now existing in a modified sense after most of the river bank has been washed away by miners. However, the first Missourians who steered their caravans into the valley and seeing the name "Rouge" as on the map, naturally concluded, and in fact said, "Them fellers can't spell a little bit," and being from Missouri they proceeded to show 'em how, and corrected (?) the spelling to read Rogue by the transposition of two letters only. As for the roguish character of the Indians they found in the valley, they were neither better nor worse than average aborigines, and speaking from my experience with natives, especially those of Alaska, I am free to say that in many respects they were better and more honest people before they ever saw a white man than since.
    This is fanciful, purely so, though the "Rouge" story is old. There would have been reason for calling the Klamath River Rouge River, or Red River, for its waters are much discolored by the marshes of the lake basin which it drains. But Rogue River is one of the clearest of streams, and even in flood its waters are not red. An old French map has been mentioned--though no such map is known now to be in existence--whereon the Klamath and Rogue rivers are united and called Rouge-Clamet, or Red Klamath. But Rogue River, as an individual stream, has been known by its present name ever since white men first visited the country. Bishop Blanchet's account of the Catholic Church in Oregon says the French were first to call it by this name. The Indians there were a peculiarly troublesome lot, "hence," says Blanchet, "the name 'Les Coquins' (the Rogues) and 'La Riviere aux Coquins' (the Rogue River) was given to the country by the men of the brigade." So far then is it from the fact that Rogue River is a corruption or change from the alleged "Rogue River" of the French. The actual truth is that the French called it the Rogue River themselves. Everything is against the assumption that it once was "Rouge River"--changed by Missourians to Rogue River--on the theory that "them French couldn't spell."
Morning Oregonian, Portland, December 22, 1904, page 11.  *To be perfectly clear, the "Red River" story is demonstrably false. The reply above to Pracht's letter was written by the Oregonian editors.

    Max Pracht, most jovial of men, hail fellow, well met, was an irate individual last Saturday over the publication of a dispatch in the Oregonian from the special correspondent of that paper in Washington. Mr. Pracht says that the wire was miles away from the truth, and that he had matters all arranged to take a position in [the] Department of Commerce and Labor last July and would have done so, had it not been for Mr. Cortelyou's retirement. The appointment of a new secretary made a change of plans necessary, and Mr. Pracht was compelled to wait for about six months. He told a Courier representative that the information contained in the dispatch came from the chief clerk in the General Land Office and called that gentleman several uncomplimentary names. Mr. Pracht says that he saw Commissioner Richards in the courtroom during the trial of the land fraud cases for only a few minutes and did not exchange six words with him. About two weeks ago the Special Agent secured a leave of absence until January 11, with permission to visit Washington City. When he arrives there, he will probably get a cinch on his new job, backed by the entire Oregon delegation.
    Max Pracht is a well-known character in Western Oregon, and for many years had been famed for his fruit farm in Jackson County. He was for several years in New Mexico, and was assigned to duty in Oregon City at his own request.
Oregon City Courier, December 23, 1904, page 1


    The following communication, lately received by the Portland Oregonian, is self-explanatory: "Max Pracht has completed the details and will apply for patent No. 4-11-44 on an invention which he calls 'Pracht's Patent Steam Tramp Eliminator.' Manager Calvin thinks it is great, and he may offer a million or more for the control of the patent. With this invention in use it will not be necessary for the engineer to dump his clinkers and live coals on the tracks at Oregon City, and then slowly pull the train over it, causing the tramps to lose their hold on the hog chains and drop off on the broiler, creating a bad smell. In short, Pracht's invention consists of a series of rotary diaphragms, similar to some in use on hose nozzles for watering lawns. These are attached to a pipe running along the underside of the coaches, baggage and express cars, coupled together at the ends, similar to the air-brake pipes, and connected with the boiler of the engine, so arranged that anyone of the train crew can, by operating a simple device in the coaches, etc., turn on the steam, thus causing the sputter mechanism under the train to revolve and scald off the clinging tramp, without causing an offensive smell; and also give the tramps the ever-needed bath. What Oregon City may do with the derelicts after the bath is an open question, but there are those in Falls City who seem to prefer the tramps to the railroad."
Daily Herald, Biloxi, Mississippi, February 16, 1905, page 2

"Two Oregon Men Appointed," Morning Oregonian, Portland, February 18, 1905, page 1


    OREGONIAN NEWS BUREAU, Washington, Feb. 21.--Senator Mitchell is not at all satisfied with District Attorney Heney's plan to commence the trial of the land fraud cases in June. When told of this arrangement, the Senator today declared that he would not consent to such delay if he could help it, but would insist upon being given a trial in April.
    He said he would be in Portland about March 12 and intended immediately to see Judge Bellinger and ascertain whether or not it will be necessary to postpone the trials until June. He does not believe there is any good and sufficient reason for delay and, unless ample reason is furnished, he will oppose the present plan.
    Senator Mitchell says that Mr. Heney some weeks ago publicly declared that he (Mitchell) should have a speedy trial, that there would be no unnecessary delay. If Mr. Heney declines to allow the case to be brought into court in April, Senator Mitchell says he will be breaking that promise. It is the Senator's opinion that Judge Bellinger will consent to give his case an early hearing. He has no idea how long the trial will continue, but is apparently very confident that a verdict will be rendered in his favor.
    Harry C. Robertson, Senator Mitchell's private secretary, whose testimony before the grand jury and before Judge Bellinger in Portland was anything but favorable to Senator Mitchell, has not lost his position, as was anticipated, but has resumed his duties at the Capitol. Senator Mitchell declines to say whether or not he intends to dismiss Mr. Robertson, but it appears that for the present nothing will be done.
    In connection with Mitchell's letter to Tanner, it develops that Max Pracht, who delivered the letter to Robertson, turned a sharp trick to his own advantage. Pracht recently resigned as special agent of the Land Office and came to Washington seeking an appointment in some other department, but his closest friends, Mitchell and Hermann, were indicted and could not help him. When Mitchell decided to write Tanner, he did not trust Robertson either to write or to knowingly carry any word to his law partner, and had Pracht hand the fatal letter to Robertson to throw him off the scent. Pracht was shrewd enough to surmise that the letter was important, and on the quiet he informed the Secret Service people of the Treasury that Robertson was carrying an important paper to Tanner. Pracht's tip led to the capture of this very important document in the government's case, and a few days later Pracht was appointed special agent in the Treasury Department.
Oregonian, Portland, February 22, 1905, page 2


    Max Pracht takes the trouble to deny that he was prostrated by the sun's heat in Washington and explains that a street car knocked him out. Lucky Max. He couldn't have brought a damage suit against the ruler of the universe.
Morning Oregonian, Portland, August 11, 1905, page 8


    Oregon Journal: What is probably the largest peach ever grown is on exhibition at the Agricultural Building at the Fair. It grew in the orchard of Max Pracht of Ashland, whose peaches were the finest shown at the Chicago Fair in [1893] which fact is proved by the medals in his possession. The prize peach at Chicago weighed 23 ounces, while the peach on display weighs 26. Ordinary peaches run 60 to 80 to a box, but it takes only ten of the Jackson County wonders to fill a crate. Washington and California horticulturists are proud, not without reason, of their articles, but they doff their hats to Oregon in viewing the Jackson County show.
"Local Lore," Corvallis Times, September 16, 1905, page 5


    Mr. Max Pracht, of the Treasury Department, has received word from Portland,
Oreg., that the display of peaches from his farm at Ashland, Oreg., is attracting as much attention from exposition visitors and rival exhibitors as the peaches with which he carried off the gold medal at the Chicago Fair in 1893. Ten of the peaches sent to Portland filled an ordinary peach box, and the largest weighed twenty-six ounces. Some of the others were only slightly inferior in size. The display occasioned something of a sensation in the horticultural department, and leading growers from the states of California and Washington agreed that they must take off their hats to Oregon peaches. The superintendent of the department posted a notice under the monarch peach that "this is the largest peach ever grown." Mr. Pracht's sons are in charge of the farm at Ashland, where the peaches were grown.
    In addition to the sweepstakes gold medal which Mr. Pracht's peaches secured in Chicago, he also was awarded gold medals at the Pan-American at Buffalo, the Trans-Mississippi at Omaha, and the great fair at Savannah, the latter, much to his surprise, having the local Georgia peaches to contend with.
Washington Post, September 24, 1905, page B2


    Manuel was the last of the Alabamas to remain in the cypress swamps. He made himself useful to the white skins, built dugouts or pirogues, shot deer or bear when in the mood, and was an oracle generally. One night from over across the Tensas there came a sound--a sound to me, a fourteen-year-old boy, novel, strange, and goosefleshy. It began as the wail of an infant in pain, swelled to a piercing crescendo of colic, quavered restlessly, and died away, leaving an atmosphere surcharged with unseen terrors, the chickens in their secure house crowding each other off their perches, squawking helplessly as they bumped onto the floor, the hogs in the pens squealed in fright as each tried to root under the terrified mass in the far corner, and even Bruno, the watch dog, fearless of anything during the day, and carrying courage with his master when hunting at night, slunk under the house
set up from the ground on cedar posts and whined piteously. Secure in the loft, I stuck my head out of the gable window and asked Manuel, who stood in the moonlight, rifle in hand, "What is it, Manuel?" "It ees a paintah! couchs toi encore!" And back to bed I went.
    The next day Manuel organized five of us neighborhood boys into a hunter's squad, and crossing over to the island, stationed us at certain runways opening out of the canebrake in whose fastnesses the panther had its lair, while he, with the dogs, went to the upper end to work the beauty cat out into the open so that one of us could get a shot at it.
    I was placed on a smooth drift log which the floods had placed crosswise of a coulee, which had about a foot of soft alluvial and an inch or so of muddy water down its course. Mam'selle, my little pet rabbit chaser, had a seat beside me,  feeling as important as myself. Across my lap lay an old French fusee or shotgun, both barrels with an extra heavy charge of buckshot, and both hammers at full cock, and with growing misgivings I awaited the turn of events. Directly I heard the dogs giving tongue on the far side of the canebrake, and Mam'selle, all aquiver, could only be kept still by snips on the ears. Now I heard the noise of the chase coming nearer. The dogs were in the densest part of the brake and coming toward me. My heart beat faster and faster. I took the gun and tremblingly sighted it point
blank at the dark tunnel or runway, my fingers on the triggers of both barrels. The cry came nearer. I could hear the crush and frou-frou of the canes as the dogs crowded through, the tops swaying, and surely the game was near. Mam'selle gave a yelp and ran off the end of the log toward dry land. My eyes were fixed on the sights of my gun and the barrels were pointed true to the opening. There! There! it came. I saw its glaring eyeballs, its brownish gray head and ears, and both barrels barked as the double charges of buckshot were hurtled at the beast. The recoil of the gun kicked me off the log. I fell backward into the muddy bottom of the coulee so deep I could not turn, yet not deep enough to cover my mouth, with which I began to
screech and howl for help, fearful that I might have missed the panther, and that my days were numbered and the numbers run out, with Mam'selle howling in concert, till old Manuel, crushing through the jungle, lifted me out of the mud, sat me on the bank, and, running to the trail, picked up the animal I had slain by the ears, and held it at full arm's length. And behold, it was a rabbit! A cotton tail, long of ears, hunched of hindquarters, and dead as Julius Caesar!
    And that is how I killed my first panther.
Washington Post, February 18, 1906, page 40




    OREGONIAN NEWS BUREAU, Washington, Aug. 7.--Max Pracht, of Oregon (and there's only one Max Pracht in the world), dearly loves to see his name in print. The time was when it appeared frequently--in the days when Max was a special agent of the Land Office and kept himself in hot water because of friction with headquarters in Washington. But lately Max has been holding down an inconspicuous desk in the Treasury Department, and his work is not such as to bring him in the limelight. A year ago Max tired of the simple life, so he tried to lift a Washington street car off the track, with disastrous results--for Max. Then he got a little notoriety and a black eye.
    But a year is about as long as Max can remain in seclusion. His year was up last week, so he bethought him to take a trolley ride out to one of Washington's famous suburbs. The ride furnished him with the wherewithal to break into print, and he availed himself of the opportunity. The day following the ride Max hied himself to the sanctum of the Washington Post with his tale of woe, and this is the way that paper dished him up. It reads as if Max had written it himself:
    Flying insects, beating against the back of his neck as he sat in the front seat of a suburban street car, resulted in a mild case of blood poisoning to Max Pracht.
    Mr. Pracht recently spent the evening at an upriver resort. and when returning home was obliged to sit on the first seat inside the car, facing the rear. The road runs for quite a distance through a dense wood, and the speed of the car caused a current of air to enter through the open window in front, driving the insects violently against his neck.
    The following morning Mr. Pracht found his neck raw and blistered, and his physician promptly told him it had the effects of blood poisoning. After continuous treatment for several days the infected spot became better and is now almost well.
    Mr. Pracht said last night: "With the car making spurts of 40 miles an hour, the insects pelted my neck and kept me busy brushing them off. They were dead as a rule, the impact being so great as to kill them outright.
    "I am convinced it is dangerous to ride on the inside front seat facing the rear. To close the front windows of the car to protect the passengers situated as I was is impracticable--the passengers further aft would rebel.
    "I think that fine wire screens that would sift out the mosquitoes, gallinippers, alligators and mock turtles might be put in. In default of that plan, a bottle of Listerine or some other remedy might be hung up in some convenient spot, where passengers with insect-burned skins could apply it."
Oregonian, Portland, August 10, 1906, page 5



Ashland Commercial Club, Ashland, Oregon.
    Gentlemen:--The receipt of two beautifully gotten up and artistically printed booklets from your secretary has made me homesick, and I cannot help letting you know how much I appreciated your efforts in advertising our unapproachable climate and unique little city. When in December, 1887, I arrived in Ashland to help celebrate the driving of the last spike as one of Mr. Crocker's guests to the ceremonies which finally linked Oregon and California, I looked over the scattered village of Ashland, took cognizance of its 1800 inhabitants, drank of the mineral waters running to waste in the streets, was enchanted with its reposeful setting in the outstretched arms of hoary old Siskiyou and felt the spirit of prophecy setting upon me and I straightaway told the old-timers that here would be built a city of ten thousand people, but there were many to scoff and few believed.
    I had already purchased, as a flyer, while on one of my overland stage trips between Alaska and San Francisco, the land of which the Peachblow Paradise Orchard is now a part, but having faith in my own prognostications I immediately bought more and more of the lands in the district now known as East and South Ashland, and selling our my holdings in Alaska became a working citizen of Ashland. It was hard work at the outset; the mossback was still glooming the atmosphere and glowering at the cheechako, the newcomer, the tenderfoot, he who dared to invade his blissful repose, improve the city and by making improvements increase values, and to the everlasting sorrow of the mossback, thereby increase the taxes. The opening of the Boulevard, the best move Ashland had till then made, to a degree scattered the forces of the pullbacks; some gave up their contrary ghosts, others moved away, and a few stayed, and were converted to the gospel of progress. We had to take one of the leaders into court and by open offers of more than he himself had figured his land was worth overwhelmed him with our generosity, but he would not stay, our blessings following him. From that day to this, barring the political setback during the period 1893 to 1897, our city has progressed, the newcomers have been made welcome and become assimilated, Ashland has expanded, bloomed and fructified, its fame heralded by its wonderful fruit, has gone the length and breadth of the land, even Alaska has sent a colony to follow up my lead, and today there is not a more prosperous, healthful or desirable little city on the Pacific Slope, and how near my prophecy is to its fulfillment, the six thousand happy and contented citizens, active pushers and boomers all, can testify.
    When the first settlers creaked into the mining camp on the creek, where now the plaza opens into Chautauqua Park, way back in the fifties, their faith and endurance was rewarded in the promises of peace and plenty in a land of sunshine and perfumed forests and many of them settled down to a life of ease and comfort, satisfied with the surfeit of good things nature had provided, happy in their own companionship, and it was not until the railroad pierced the granite walls of the Siskiyous and brought men and money for planning and developing that Ashland began to find herself and, today, radiating out from the original miners' business center like a senorita's fan, the spirit of Ashland smiles at the overlapping mountains north, east and west, and is bringing to her feet the seekers after health and education and a competence. The new Carnegie Library building, on the spot where stood John Gum's barn and blocked the way of progress, accentuates the fact that Ashland has burst into full bloom, her ever-increasing charms bringing to her embrace the cultivated men and women of all the union.
    Ashland, my Ashland, how sittest thou upon thy everlasting mountains and glorifies the rising sun! My heart is with thee ever.
Ashland Tidings, February 24, 1910, page 1




    Since retiring from the government service at Washington, Max Pracht, well known in Portland, has developed into a practical horticulturist. He resides near Ashland, Jackson County, where he first came into prominence as a successful peach culturist. More recently he has produced a new variety of cherry, which is pronounced by experts to be one of the best commercial varieties that is grown in the Pacific Northwest. This cherry in many respects resembles the Bing, being large, firm and of exceptional flavor.
    Mr. Pracht sent a sample box of the fruit, which he has christened the Pracht Imperial, to his friend, Phil Metschan, proprietor of the Imperial Hotel. The box arrived yesterday, but the demand for "just a taste" of the cherries was so great that the supply proved insufficient to go the rounds.
Sunday Oregonian, Portland, July 7, 1912, page 15


    Attorney B. F. Mulkey appeared before the city council Tuesday evening to petition them in behalf of E. J. Arant that Max Pracht be compelled to remove a barn recently erected by him near Euclid Avenue. The petition, which was very lengthy, recited that Pracht built the foundation seven years ago and put up the barn last August. That it was on higher ground than the residence of petitioner and that the manure leached onto petitioner's land and the odor annoyed him and his family.
    The matter was referred to the sanitary committee.
    Councilman Cunningham asked Mr. Mulkey to define a nuisance and he defined it as anything that annoyed any number of people or that was detrimental to their health or that damaged their property.
Ashland Tidings, December 5, 1912, page 1




    "Ah, me! The soul kiss! Something new, you think? Nay, nay, good soul, think not thusly. 'Tis as old as our good friend Solomon; aye, as old as time itself."
    Thus declares Washington's osculatory expert, Max Pracht, veteran of the Civil War and student of the art of soulful kissing.
    "There is nothing new under the sun, not even the soul kiss," he continued, bringing his cane to the pavement with a thump, as a reporter, who had buttonholed him on the street corner, listened to his authoritative words. "I have no doubt but that Solomon kept them in stock and regaled his wives with them. The educated and refined kissers of Missouri certainly knew how to administer them as first aid in times of stress and perturbation, for I lived in Missouri, both 'befoh and aftah de wah.'
    "I am naming no personages, but there was once a young man who had occasion to go from Jefferson City to the wilds of the Ozarks on horseback. And, by the way, that's the place where the 'houn' dawgs' come from. Well, one day, while ambling along, he came upon a log cabin, near which, in a clump of chinquapins, stood a farmer's fair daughter, sizing the stranger up. He asked for a cool drink, and in a moment the lass had before him a gourd filled with sparkling water. He gazed at the beautiful wood nymph, standing with downcast eyes and bashful flush at his stirrups, and then, returning to her the emptied gourd, he placed a shining coin in her hand.
    "'Stranger, what is this for?' said the maiden. 'For your goodness in giving a gourd of cold water at my request,' responded the traveler. 'Well, answered the lass, handing back the coin, 'we uns down here don't charge strangers for water.' 'Ah, well, then, my pretty lass,' said the traveler, 'keep the coin anyway, and give me a sweet little kiss.'
    "The maiden said nothing, so the horseman jumped down, pulled the face of the lass up to his, and--and--well, after what might have been an eternity to a man looking on, but what seemed to the traveler like only a fleeting moment, he let her down, limp, dreamy-eyed, and breathless. For a moment it seemed that both were dazed, but the maiden came to first and, holding out her palm on which lay the coin, she panted, 'Stranger, take back yer coin, and give me another one of them 'ere kisses.'
    "So, I just guess the thing they call the soul kiss isn't so new after all. Eh?"
    And, slapping the reporter on the shoulder and bursting into a wry laugh, Max went along his way.
Washington Herald, July 30, 1913, page 4




    William Pracht has returned from a two weeks' stay at Sawtelle, Cal., where his father, Max Pracht, is in a hospital.
"Local and Personal," Ashland Tidings, May 3, 1917, page 8