CHAPTER VI
INVESTIGATIONS, LEGISLATION, AND MEETINGS
=Type of story.= News stories of various kinds of meetings constitute a distinct class. In the term “meeting” are included sessions of state legislatures, meetings of municipal councils, conventions of various organizations, and meetings of local societies. Investigations and hearings as conducted by committees of legislative bodies are also placed in this class, although they are often more like judicial proceedings.
The purely informative type of story is the common form for reporting meetings, investigations, and hearings. The parts of the proceedings that are of general interest and significance make up the contents of such stories (cf. “State Legislature,” p. 116, and “Meeting of Safety Council,” p. 120). In meetings of some importance are to be found humorous or pathetic phases that may be brought out legitimately to heighten the interest and to emphasize the significance of the proceedings (cf. “Hearing on Proposed Ordinance,” p. 113, and “Testimony in Investigation,” p. 110). Some meetings lend themselves to humorous treatment, and when the news interest in them is slight, such stories about them constitute typical human interest stories (cf. “Old Clothes Men’s Meeting,” p. 122).
=Purpose.= To give the facts accurately and as completely as their significance warrants should be the first aim in reporting proceedings of official bodies, because, like court proceedings, they are matters of public concern. The desire to accomplish some end, no matter how laudable that end may be, does not justify distortion or suppression of the news of the doings of official bodies. A constructive purpose, such as that of exposing sinister influences that may be affecting legislative action, is entirely justifiable, but distortion or suppression of facts in order to make out a stronger case is not legitimate and should not be necessary. Politically partisan news stories that misrepresent public matters in order to create opinion favorable to the cause that the paper upholds, whether they be reports of official proceedings or of political campaign meetings, not only hurt the reputation of the newspaper that publishes them but tend to cast doubt on the truthfulness of newspapers generally.
Much more effort should be made by newspapers in this country to show the significance of acts of representative public bodies, in relation not only to the home and business interests of the individual reader, but to the welfare of the community, the state, and the nation. Intelligent interest in government on the part of the individual citizen, which is generally recognized as absolutely essential to the success of a democracy, can be more effectively created through the news columns of the daily newspaper than by any other means.
=Treatment.= To make interesting what is often considered dry and unattractive in proceedings of various public meetings, is the chief problem in writing news stories concerning them. Simple, clear explanation of the meaning of significant parts of the proceedings, lively accounts of debate on various measures, and vivid description of persons and scenes connected with them--all add to the interest of the stories. Too often, however, insignificant incidents of casual interest are played up as features of meetings of importance to the subordination or even to the exclusion of matters of vital concern.
Testimony in investigations and hearings sometimes has dramatic phases like that in court trials. The questions and the answers in these proceedings are handled like those in court stories, and testimony is dealt with in much the same manner (cf. “Congressional Investigation,” p. 109 and “Testimony in Investigation,” p. 110).
To select the vital matters, to present them concisely, and to condense routine but necessary details into the smallest possible compass in stories of this class, require effort and skill.
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NOTE--_The following two stories give the results of the first two days’ work in the investigation of conditions growing out of a coal strike. Both were sent by the Associated Press._
CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATION
(1)
_Chicago Inter Ocean_
CHARLESTON, W. Va., June 10.--The power and authority of the government of the United States came to West Virginia today to determine who is responsible for the conditions which have kept the state in virtual civil war for more than a year.
Opening the investigation of the coal mine strike, which has dealt death and destruction in the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek mining sections, the Senate mine strike investigating committee tonight called upon the military authorities for the records of the proceedings prior to, and under the declaration of, martial law in the strike territory.
Judge Advocate General George S. Wallace, Adjutant General Charles D. Elliott, Major James I. Pratt, Captain Charles R. Morgan and Captain Samuel L. Walker were summoned before the committee this evening, to produce the state records regarding the declaration of martial law and the proceedings of the military committee which was placed in authority in the strike district.
Senator Borah of Idaho desired their testimony and their records as a basis for the branch of the inquiry which he is conducting, as to the charge that citizens have been “arrested, tried and convicted in violation of the Constitution or the law of the United States.”
Opening his case under the section of the Senate resolution authorizing the investigation which directs an inquiry into this subject, Senator Borah, at a brief session of the committee this afternoon, read into the record several excerpts from the constitution of West Virginia. The first was the provision declaring that the constitution of the state and of the United States shall always be in effect. The second provision declared, under no circumstances shall the right of habeas corpus be denied.
The third was the usual provision that no citizen shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law. The fourth set forth that the military authority shall not supersede the civil powers, even under the plea of necessity, and others provided for trial by jury in open court for all criminal offenses.
The activities of the state authorities in connection with the strike will be probed by the committee, in view of these constitutional guarantees, and the charge that the mine workers have not been accorded their full rights will be investigated with these provisions in mind.
A formidable array of counsel was on hand. For the miners there appeared Frank S. Monnet, formerly attorney general of Ohio, Seymour Stedman of Illinois, and M. M. Belcher and H. W. Houston. The operators were represented by Z. T. Vinson, E. W. Knight and C. C. Watts, with a half score of assistants.
Two lengthy preliminary statements were filed with the committee by the attorneys for the operators. The first was filed by Mr. Vinson for the operators generally, and the second by Mr. Watts for the Paint Creek Collieries company. Both were pleas of “not guilty” and both denied in detail and in toto the charges made in the resolution passed by the Senate authorizing the inquiry.
The operators in their brief made the counter charge that the United Mine Workers of America, in its attempts “to organize” the coal miners in the West Virginia field, was responsible for the violence which has characterized the strike.
The operators declared they expect to prove that firearms and ammunition were brought into the state “for acts of lawlessness and violence, which were designed to keep the Paint Creek and Cabin Creek mines idle and prevent shipments of coal therefrom until the United Mine Workers of America should be recognized.”
The statement presented by the Paint Creek Collieries company made similar denials and similar charges.
Former Governor Glasscock, who was Governor when the strike began and who declared martial law in the district, will appear before the committee on Thursday. He sent a telegram to the committee today offering to testify, and at the suggestion of Senator Borah it was arranged to examine him on Thursday.
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(2)
_Chicago Inter Ocean_
CHARLESTON, W. Va., June 11.--War time rule in the coal strike regions of West Virginia was described before the Senate mine investigating committee here today, and after three military officers had told of conditions, the committee expressed itself as satisfied as to the charge that “the citizens of West Virginia had been tried and convicted in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States.”
Two members of the military committee, which at three different times have assumed absolute dominion over some 150 square miles of West Virginia territory, testified. They were Captain Charles R. Morgan, a lawyer, and Major James I. Pratt, who was president of the second military court which took charge of the strike district. Both told the committee that their proceedings were conducted without regard to the civil laws of the state; that they arrested, arraigned, tried, convicted and sentenced offenders without recourse to civil courts and without regard to the limitations imposed by the statutes of West Virginia.
“We considered that the strike district was in a state of actual warfare,” said Captain Morgan, “and we acted according to the procedure of the United States Army in time of war.”
“But the constitution of the state provides,” interjected Attorney Monnet, for the miners, “that the military shall be subordinate to the civil power, and that no citizen, unless engaged in military service of the state, shall be tried or punished for any offense that is cognizable by the civil courts of the state.”
“My understanding was,” replied Captain Morgan, “that during the state of insurrection which prevailed, the constitution of the state of West Virginia was suspended by the acts of those men who were burning, killing and destroying property.
“We believed that to perpetuate the state of West Virginia and restore the constitution was to use extreme measures.”
A dozen pictures of men clad in prison clothing were identified by Major Pratt as those of men who had been sentenced by the military commission. One man was given a sentence of seven and a half years; several others were given three, four and five year terms.
“Was there any indictment against these men?” asked Senator Borah.
“No,” answered Major Pratt; “they were arraigned on charges prepared by the judge advocate general.”
Senator Borah elicited that Captain Morgan, as a lawyer, believed that there was no appeal from the decision of the commission, if approved by the Governor, except to the Supreme court of the United States.
“Then a man did not have to commit a statutory offense to make himself amenable to the action of your commission?” asked Attorney Monnet.
“No.”
“You could arraign him for anything that in your estimation was an offense?”
“Yes, except that the Governor’s proclamation specified statutory offenses.”
Senator Martine ascertained that after the commission had heard the testimony in a case it went into secret session, executed sealed findings after the manner of a verdict, and sent them to the Governor. It was developed that forty-nine accused men were tried at one time by the commission.
“There was no opportunity given a man to secure a new trial, or bail, no possibility of a stay of execution; your decision was final,” suggested Mr. Monnet.
“Yes.”
“If you had sentenced a man to death, there was no way of stopping the execution?” asked Senator Borah.
“We did not contemplate imposing death sentences,” replied the witness.
Adjutant General Charles D. Elliott occupied the morning session and part of the afternoon session. Tonight Senator Borah took up witnesses produced by the Mine Workers to testify as to charges that peonage obtains in the Paint and Cabin creeks sections. A hundred brawny miners came in from the hills today, and the attorneys for the Mine Workers weeded out the witnesses they wanted to call.
Following today’s speedy work, the committee decided to divide up the inquiry tomorrow, allowing Senator Borah to proceed alone with the peonage investigation, and probably requiring Senator Kenyon to begin an individual inquiry into general conditions in the strike zone, while the remainder of the committee take up other branches of the inquiry.
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TESTIMONY IN INVESTIGATION
_Milwaukee Free Press_
NEW YORK, Feb. 3.--Mrs. Mary Petrucci, a coal miner’s wife, today told the federal industrial commission how her three small children met death at her side in the Ludlow strike massacre of 1914.
Women wept and tense faced men bent forward eagerly, as the bareheaded, black clad woman, in low, passive tones, reflecting the deep melancholy of her face, recited the dramatic events of the night of April 20, when fire and machine guns swept the strikers’ camp in the southern Colorado hills, collecting a toll of twelve children, two women and five men. It was a remarkable recital and a memorable scene.
Mrs. Petrucci is 24 years old. She was born of Italian parents in a Colorado mining camp. She was married at the age of 16 and had four children when the strike of the Colorado Fuel & Iron company employes was declared in 1913. She lost one child in March of the following year as a result of privations occasioned by the strike. With the grief of that loss still upon her she went to live in the tent colony at Ludlow after the strikers had been driven from the company settlement. There the final tragedy of her life was enacted.
She took the witness stand today with listless manner and haunted eyes. Throughout her testimony she alternately bit at her finger nails and twisted in her frail hands a cotton handkerchief.
Her sweet voice at no time rose above a conversational tone, and the matter of fact manner in which she told the story of her grief served only to bring out with more striking force its tragic import.
“Yes,” she said in answer to Chairman Walsh’s questions, “we had good times in the tent colony. I liked it there better than in the company camp. Over there the militia came up every day and insulted us. The Sunday before the fire was the Greek Easter. The men in the camp celebrated it. We had a baseball game, and that night there was singing, and the boys came with banjos and we had a good time.”
Into this background of merriment she fitted the picture of the woe that followed.
“April 20 I didn’t leave our tent at all,” she said. “Our tent was No. 1, and right behind it was the maternity tent. A cellar had been dug in that tent and there several babies were born while we lived in the colony. We also had a cellar in our tent. It was about 6 o’clock that night. I was down in the cellar and smelled a fire. The children were playing around. I went up and discovered that the tent was all on fire. I seized my children, and taking one in my arms, I got another by the hand, and the other one took hold of my skirt and we ran out of the tent.
“When I ran out I saw a lot of the militiamen around. They hollered to me to look out and were shooting at me as I ran. As quick as I could I ran into the maternity tent and down the steps into the cellar.”
“You are sure you saw the militiamen,” asked Mr. Walsh.
“Oh yes, sir,” replied the witness. “They were about twenty-five yards away.”
“And could they see you?”
“I saw them. And they hollered at me; yes, sir.”
She looked at Walsh with frightened eyes as if recalling in her mind the scene of the night and continued:
“There was a door down to the cellar inside the tent and there were earth steps. The door was left open as I went down, and I don’t know how it came to be closed later. When I got down in the cellar there were three women and eight children there. I knew them all. I had my baby in my arms. It was six months old. The others were close to me and my boy had hold of my dress.”
Twirling the handkerchief in her hands, the woman looked over at Mr. Walsh and in a voice from which all emotion seemed to have been drained, she said:
“He would have been 5 years old yesterday--my boy.”
“You lost all three of your children there?” said Walsh.
“Yes, sir,” she replied, soft and low. “I lost them that night.”
And again she twisted the handkerchief into a knot. A woman on the front row of benches sobbed audibly. A shuffling of feet and the deep breathing of the spectators swept over the room. Mrs. Petrucci gazed dully at her questioner.
“We were in the cellar about ten minutes,” she said, “when the tent over our head took fire. I don’t know how it started. It was not on fire when I went in. Pretty soon after that we all lost consciousness.”
“But before that,” asked Walsh, “didn’t you try to escape?”
“It was all on fire over our heads,” replied the woman simply.
“Did you do anything to save your children?”
“What could I? Oh, yes. There was a woman there with a blanket. I asked her to share it with me for my babies; one was 6 months, you know, and the other 2½ years, and my boy 4. She told me it was only big enough for herself.”
Mrs. Petrucci sighed. It was the only display of emotion she made during the recital. That blanket--a corner of it might have saved one of the babies from the suffocation that quickly overtook all there. She sighed at the recollection.
“The next I knew,” she continued plaintively, “was when I woke up at 5 the next morning. I ran out for water for my babies. They were lying there. I thought water would help them. I did not know what I was doing. I felt like I was drunk. Outside I saw guards walking down the railroad tracks. They were laughing. I kept turning back all the time. I was afraid they would shoot me.”
Again the frightened look came into her dark ringed, black eyes. A score of women in the audience were weeping now. Save for their smothered sighs the room was in absolute silence. The clanging of a bell on one of the lower floors of the Metropolitan building rang out like a funeral note.
“I went to the railroad station,” said Mrs. Petrucci. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I asked Mrs. Horning to go look for my babies. She said she could not find them. Someone bought me a ticket for Trinidad. I was in bed there nine days with pneumonia. I did not see my children again.”
A woman on the front row groaned and Mrs. Petrucci looked down at her with dazed eyes.
“Don’t you know how the fire started?” asked Commissioner Weinstock.
“No, sir; the beginning of the fire was in my tent. It was about 6 o’clock. It was still light. It started outside.”
“But when you went out didn’t you see anyone?”
“No, sir, only the militiamen.”
For a full two minutes the commissioners gazed silently at the woman. Then finally Weinstock asked:
“When you went to the railroad station what did you think had become of your children?”
“I wasn’t thinking of anything,” replied Mrs. Petrucci, clasping her handkerchief to her breast.
Mother Jones took the woman in her arms as she stepped from the stand and led her away.
Andrew Carnegie will probably be called on Friday.
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HEARING ON CITY ORDINANCE
_New York Herald_
If there is any general opposition to an ordinance to guard the public against the nuisance of smoking automobiles, it failed to develop at a public hearing in the matter held yesterday afternoon by the Committee on Laws and Legislation of the Board of Aldermen. One man appeared when opponents of the bill were asked to express their views, but he admitted that the ordinance would be a good thing if operative only in Manhattan.
He was Herbert G. Andrews, of the Committee on Laws and Legislation of the Long Island Automobile Club. He said the club favored the abatement of the nuisance, but would like to have the ordinance altered in certain respects.
In the form introduced by Alderman Nicoll the ordinance is identically the same as one now in force prohibiting smoking automobiles in the parks. It says that “no person shall run a motor vehicle in the streets and highways of the city of New York which emits from the exhaust or muffler thereof offensive quantities of smoke, gas or disagreeable odors,” and that “any violation of the provisions of this ordinance shall be deemed a minor offence and, upon conviction thereof before a city magistrate, shall be punished by a fine of not more than $10 or by imprisonment in the City Prison, or by both; but no such imprisonment, however, shall exceed a term of five days.”
Mr. Andrews suggested that the word “offensive” be changed to “excessive” and that the fine be graduated--slight for the first offence and heavier for subsequent offences.
William H. Palmer, of the New York Transportation Company, a taxicab concern, said that it would be easier to determine the offence if the ordinance made some reference to the distance at which smoke extending from an automobile was unlawful.
In support of the bill there appeared many persons, including two women. Alderman Nicoll said that smoking automobiles were the cause of a great blue haze often to be found at places such as Columbus Circle and Forty-second street and Fifth avenue. The smoke penetrated stores, he said, and made it necessary for merchants to keep their doors and windows closed to protect their goods.
The alderman told of riding in a taxicab from Cortlandt street to Fiftieth street on Thursday afternoon and of passing one hundred and sixty-four automobiles, of which, he said, thirty were smoking.
Paris, London and Berlin have laws prohibiting the emission of smoke from automobiles, he said, and the law in force in Paris is even more drastic than his ordinance.
Dr. Holbrook Curtis corroborated Mr. Nicoll in his claim that smoke had a bad effect on the health of the people who inhaled the fumes. He said it was especially injurious to persons suffering from gastritis.
Mrs. John Rogers, as chairman of the Hygiene Committee of the New York City Federation of Women’s Clubs, pleaded for the passage of the ordinance for the sake of little children, whose noses and eyes were affected by the smoke, she said. Mrs. Katherine S. Day, of the Women’s Municipal League, also urged the passage of the measure.
Others who spoke in favor of the measure were Charles J. Campbell, counsel for the Hotel Association of the City of New York; Frederick G. Cook, president of the Fifth Avenue Association; John C. Coleman, of the West End Association, and William Kirkpatrick.
Mr. Coleman said that on the upper west side chauffeurs often vie with one another to see how much smoke they can emit and how much noise they can make.
The claim was made that the emission of smoke could be prevented without difficulty, and nobody contradicted the statement. Taxicabs were said to be the worst offenders.
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HEARING ON PROPOSED ORDINANCE
_New York Times_
Nearly 500 persons living in New York who raise chickens on their fire escapes, in their backyards, or on vacant lots, for eating purposes or for their eggs, went by invitation to the offices of the Department of Health yesterday afternoon and made a mighty protest against the proposed ordinance to prohibit the raising of hens within seventy-five feet of the nearest residence or public building, and the keeping of roosters anywhere.
Their complaints against the hardships of the regulations under consideration were heard with great patience by Dr. Haven Emerson, Deputy Commissioner of Health, in charge of the Sanitary Bureau. Dr. Emerson had difficulty in keeping order at the meeting, because all the chicken owners were disposed to talk at once. On this account, too, many of those who probably had good arguments to use against the tentative ordinance were unable to get a hearing.
The lecture room on the fifth floor of the Department of Health Building was packed with chicken owners long before 4 o’clock, when the meeting was called to order by Dr. Emerson. The gathering was composed of every kind of chicken raiser, from the head of a family which kept just two pullets for their eggs, to the fancier who boasted of the finest breed of fowl in large numbers. Seated on either side of Dr. Emerson were several members of his staff, including Dr. John Barry, Assistant Sanitary Superintendent of Queens, and Dr. John Sprague, Assistant Sanitary Superintendent of Richmond.
The meeting was opened by Dr. Emerson, who explained that the Sanitary Bureau had received more than 14,000 complaints on account of chickens since the first of the year. Furthermore, he asserted that inspectors were occupied one-third of their time investigating applications for permits to keep chickens, or complaints about them. He then started to read some of the hundreds of letters of complaint on the subject of chickens, when one of the owners interrupted:
“I don’t think it’s fair to take up our time with letters of complaint, because we already know what’s in them. We want to find out what’s the best the Department of Health can do for chicken raisers.”
A member of a delegation from Sheepshead Bay said that the proposed seventy-five-foot limit would entirely wipe out chicken raising in his section, and he believed it would have the same effect in other suburban districts. He said:
“I have a plot 100 by 100 feet, and my house is constructed so that it would be impossible for me to keep chickens in accordance with the seventy-five-foot limit. The average suburbanite lives on a plot 50 by 100 feet.”
The suggestion that the new limit would practically eliminate the chicken industry from this city, brought forth a chorus of groans not unlike that of Sing Sing when a convict is led from the death house to the electric chair.
Dr. Emerson was the target for a score of different questions from every part of the room, and, as the best way out of the difficulty, he asked all who had killed chickens on their plots to raise their hands.
“Don’t you do it; you’ll be fined,” was the warning shouted by one of the chicken owners, and this was the signal for another series of groans.
It took the Deputy Health Commissioner some little time to restore order and to explain to the men and women that no police officers were present to start proceedings against offenders of the anti-chicken-slaughtering regulations.
One of the chicken raisers pointed out that the law was absurd in that it said that a chicken coop could not be kept within seventy-five feet of a factory.
“Is a chicken going to harm a factory?” he asked.
Dr. Emerson then tried to tell the complaining chicken owners that milk-bottling works, on the sanitation of which depended the lives of thousands of babies, were among the “factories” protected by the regulation. He also said that there was no intent in the seventy-five-foot limit to discriminate against chicken owners any more than there was to discriminate against saloons, which are required to be 200 feet removed from the nearest church or school. Here he was interrupted:
“You see a lot of drunken men coming out of saloons, but you never see a drunken chicken coming out of a chicken coop.”
When Dr. Emerson asserted that 150,000 chickens were slaughtered in New York City every year in violation of the law regulating slaughter houses, several men and women jumped to their feet. All at once the men protested:
“But we slaughter them in a more sanitary way than the licensed slaughter houses.”
When this period of excitement had somewhat subsided, a little woman arose quietly and, on the ground that she kept two chickens for their eggs, protested against further reference to the killing of fowls as “slaughter.”
J. Howland Leavitt, Superintendent of Highways of Queens, endeavored to calm the chicken owners by assuring them that it must be the idea of the Department of Health to improve bad conditions without being too strict with those persons who complied with the health regulations.
“For instance,” said Supt. Leavitt, “I keep chickens within sixty-five feet of a school house. They do not disturb any of my neighbors, and there has never been any complaint about them, to my knowledge.”
“Have you ever received a permit to keep those chickens?” asked Dr. Emerson.
“No,” replied Mr. Leavitt, and the chicken owners were forced to laugh--for the first time.
On behalf of citizens of Queens and Richmond Boroughs in their districts, Aldermen Burden of Flushing and O’Rourke of Richmond made certain objections to the proposed ordinance. Alderman Burden said his constituents were satisfied with the present law, and only asked for adequate inspection. Alderman O’Rourke said it would be more in keeping with the Mayor’s policy to apply home rule to chickens and leave each Assistant Sanitary Superintendent with jurisdiction in his borough.
The fears of the chicken raisers were somewhat allayed when Commissioner Emerson read a letter from one of their number suggesting a few modifications to the proposed ordinance. He took a vote on the suggestions and the majority indorsed them.
Before the meeting was closed the chicken owners voted their thanks to Dr. Emerson for his patience in hearing their complaints.
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HEARING BEFORE COMMITTEE
_Chicago Herald_
Are women less brave than men in time of danger?
J. C. McDonnell, chief of the fire prevention bureau, precipitated the second chapter in the controversy yesterday when he appeared before the judiciary committee of the city council and reiterated his contention that public safety demanded the substitution of men for women ushers in Chicago theaters.
“Women ushers are not as brave as men when danger comes,” he argued.
“Experience has proved that statement purely theoretical and absolutely untrue,” responded the managers of playhouses which employ girl ushers.
“Women ushers are all right to hand out programs and show patrons to seats, but that is all,” the fire prevention chief remarked.
And thereby Armageddon was set down in the midst of the theatrical world.
The first strategic move of the opposing forces--the girl ushers of Chicago-consisted in the organization of an effective fighting machine.
“The Girl Ushers’ Anti-McDonnell League” it is called--and the name conceals little of the organization’s plans of procedure.
“Our work is to us what other kinds of work are to other girls--our means of earning a livelihood,” said Miss Marie Donlan of the Princess Theater, chairman of the league. “To the assistant fire chief the change from women ushers to men would mean only the vindication of an idea. To us it would mean the loss of our positions.”
The campaign contemplated by the league has no place in it for consideration of the feelings of the fire prevention head.
“We shall ignore him with pleasure,” volunteered Miss Blanche Lamb, head usher of the Garrick.
Here is the plan worked out by the members of the league’s impromptu war council: A petition will be prepared and presented to Mayor Harrison by a committee selected from the membership of the league. The petition will recite actual instances in which girls have proved their bravery “under fire.”
New friends sprang to the defense of the young women at the council committee meeting. They were Aldermen Coughlin and Dempsey. The former cited the instance of the Iroquois Theater fire, when “men ushers failed to prevent terrible loss of life.” Alderman Dempsey said it would be wrong “to throw so many girls out of employment.”
Girl ushers active in the new league include the Misses Eleanor Cline and Gertrude White of the Princess Theater, the Misses Lucile Perkins and Blanche Lamb of the Garrick, and the Misses T. Crowley, D. Dennis and G. Kennedy of Powers’.
The council judiciary committee voted to defer action until after the managers of the theaters had been given an opportunity to be heard.
Meanwhile--who are braver, girls or boys?
Theatrical managers say girls.
Assistant Chief McDonnell says boys.
And you--?
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STATE LEGISLATURE
_St. Louis Post-Dispatch_
JEFFERSON CITY, Jan. 21--Opposition of Democratic politicians in St. Louis to a reform of the Justice of the Peace system in the city developed in the House yesterday over a bill modeled along the lines of the Municipal Courts bill, which has three times been killed through the influence of politicians who sought to perpetuate the present system in the minor courts of St. Louis.
William R. Handy, Democratic member from the Third District in St. Louis, yesterday succeeded in keeping the Justice of the Peace bill in the Committee on Municipal Corporations after the House had voted to request that committee to return the bill that it might be referred to the Committee on Justices of the Peace, to which it properly belongs.
Handy is a member of the Municipal Corporations Committee, and with the bill in that committee, it is always under his eye, and he is in a position to have a voice in determining whether it shall ever be reported. Through many sessions Handy has fought to kill the municipal courts bill.
The Justices of the Peace bill was introduced by John C. Harrison of St. Louis. Harrison is a lawyer and a former Justice of the Peace.
His bill provides that Justices of the Peace shall be elected at large in St. Louis and that each shall have jurisdiction throughout the city. It places each Justice on a salary of $3000 a year and provides for a reduction in the number of Justices from 11 to 7. Each Justice, the bill provides, must be a licensed attorney.
One clerk is provided for, to be elected by the Justices. There are to be such deputy clerks as are required. One Constable is provided for in the bill, his salary to be $2500 a year. Deputy clerks and Constables shall be paid $1800 a year each. In addition to his salary, the Constable is allowed 2½ per cent of all amounts collected by him on execution.
The bill does not require that all the justice courts shall be in one building, but provides that the Board of Aldermen shall provide suitable rooms and offices, which shall be centrally located.
The bill is opposed by ward politicians, as was the Municipal Courts bill in previous sessions, for the reason that it would abolish many jobs of Constables and would break up the political organizations in the Justice of the Peace districts in St. Louis.
Democrats are opposing it on the additional ground that under the present system the Democrats are able to elect some Justices and Constables, and they fear that, if such officers were elected at large, the Republicans would win all the jobs.
The controlling motive of the opposition, however, is the danger of breaking up the organizations through which political bosses are able to reward faithful henchmen or get jobs for themselves.
The requirement that a Justice must be a practicing attorney would end the present system, practiced in many of the districts in St. Louis, of ward politicians having themselves elected Justices of the Peace.
Harrison’s bill was introduced a week ago. It was referred by Speaker Ross to the Municipal Corporations Committee, of which Handy is a member. Yesterday Harrison requested that it be taken from that committee and sent to the Committee on Justices of the Peace, of which he is a member.
Handy objected. He said that he was opposed to having the bill in Harrison’s committee. Speaker Ross said that it was customary to refer a bill to any committee the member introducing it desired, but Representative James J. Blain made the point that Ross had no power to take the bill out of the Municipal Corporations Committee.
Harrison then offered a motion that the committee be instructed to return the bill to the House. Blain objected to the form of the motion. He said that the committee should be requested, not instructed. Harrison changed his motion.
The Municipal Corporations Committee met yesterday afternoon. Handy was present. The committee voted to refuse the request of the House and to retain possession of the bill. The only Democrats on the committee voting to return the bill were Representatives White of Cole County and O’Brien of Wayne County.
Harrison said this morning that he would renew his motion and that he would ask that the House order the Municipal Corporations Committee to return the bill.
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NOTE--_The second of the next two stories follows up the news of the introduction of an ordinance given in the first story._
CITY COUNCIL MEETING
(1)
_Philadelphia Ledger_
(Condensed)
Authority for the immediate erection of a two-track elevated railway from Front and Arch streets to Rhawn street, Holmesburg, is granted in an ordinance introduced in Common Council yesterday by Peter E. Costello, of the 45th Ward.
Asserting that he had introduced the bill upon his own volition, Mr. Costello said that he did not even know whether it embraced the recommendations made by Director of City Transit Taylor for such a road. The people in the northeast want it, he said, and are certain that it will be a paying proposition. Republican Organization leaders are understood to be behind the measure. The bill relegates Director Taylor to second place in approval of the plans for the project. It provides that work shall be started within six months after the plans have been approved by the “Departments of Public Works and of City Transit.”
Attention was called to the fact that the Costello ordinance, by clearing the way for the Philadelphia Rapid Transit to accept a Northeast “L” proposition by itself, might seriously hamper the projects of Director Taylor by eliminating one of the main features in the Taylor plans, which contemplate the new high-speed system as a unit. The deep significance of the ordinance, councilmanic observers said, lay in this fact.
In accordance with the agreement between the city and the Rapid Transit Company, the latter has first refusal of the franchise. If within 90 days after passage of the ordinance that company does not indicate acceptance or rejection, the Mayor shall, by public advertisement, request tenders for the construction of the elevated and report the same to Councils, “to the end that the said new company or the city of Philadelphia may proceed with the construction of the same.”
The company submitting the successful tender is given six months within which to present complete plans for approval to the Departments of Public Works and of City Transit. Within six months after approval of such plans actual work of construction must be started.
In consideration of the franchise the company is to pay to the city 10 per cent. of its net profits in cash before any dividends are paid. The rate of fare is not to exceed 5 cents for a continuous ride.
The road throughout is to have an overhead clearance of 14 feet above street grades. From Front and Arch streets to Frankford, the Costello route is declared to be the same as that laid down by Director Taylor.
As provided in the ordinance, the route of the road is to be from Front and Arch streets, along Front street to Kensington avenue, along Kensington avenue to Frankford avenue, along Frankford avenue to Rhawn street.
Stations are to be established at Front and Arch streets, at Noble street, Girard avenue and Berks street; along Kensington avenue between Somerset and Cambria streets, between Allegheny avenue and Westmoreland street and at or near Tioga and Adams streets; along Frankford avenue at Unity, Arrott, Bridge, Comly, Tyson and Rhawn streets.
The road is to be operated by electricity or any power other than steam. The ordinance was referred to the Committee on Street Railways, of which Charles Seger is chairman and Mr. Costello a member.
The announcement that an ordinance had been introduced for the construction of the Frankford elevated was a complete surprise to Director of Transit Taylor. He so told the audience he addressed last night at a mass-meeting in Tioga. He refused to discuss the matter at any length.
“After I carefully study that ordinance,” he said, “and learn more about it, I will make a public statement. That will be tomorrow afternoon.”
A resolution introduced by Select Councilman Harry J. Trainer, to grant permission for the use of the south side of Pier 16, South, for loading supplies by the American Commission for Relief in Belgium, was passed.
An ordinance for a “curb market” on Marshall street, between Brown and Parrish streets, also was passed.
A resolution providing for the extension of the Greenmount Cemetery, which recently passed Common Council, was objected to by William R. Rieber and, on motion of Louis Hutt, of the 29th Ward, was laid on the table.
A resolution was passed providing for the extension of Fairmount Park by the addition of a plot of ground at Rittenhouse street and Wissahickon avenue.
Resolutions were introduced providing for the appropriation of $26,000 for a bridge on Sherwood avenue over the east branch of Indian Run; for the opening of Beulah street from Shunk street to Oregon avenue, and Charles street from Bridge to Harrison streets; for an appropriation of $6500 for the improvement of Connell Park; for the opening of a playground and recreation centre between Frankford and Erie avenues, Venango street and the Pennsylvania railroad; and for $12,000 for the purchase of a Delaware wharf property on the south side of Pine street.
A communication was received from the East Germantown Improvement Association, calling attention to the dangerous condition existing along York road by reason of the absence of properly paved sidewalks, and urging better police protection. A letter also was received from Judge Barratt, urging that the Sons of the Revolution be permitted to erect a bronze tablet to the memory of John Nixon in Independence Square.
A plea also was received from the Mutual Beneficial and Protective Association of the Bureau of Water, requesting a 15 per cent. increase in salaries for employes now getting $1400 a year or less.
Select Councilman George T. Conrade, of the 5th Ward, introduced a resolution granting the use of Washington Square for the proposed “mongrel” or “yellow dog” show, to be held on December 19.
(2)
_Philadelphia Ledger_
(Abridged)
Opposition to Councilman Peter E. Costello’s ordinance proposing the early construction of an elevated railroad to Frankford, with the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company receiving first preference as a building and operating company, was sounded yesterday by prominent councilmanic leaders, Republican Organization colleagues of Mr. Costello.
In a joint statement setting forth that they had no knowledge of the Costello ordinance previous to its introduction last Thursday, Charles Seger, chairman of Councils’ Joint Committee on Street Railways, and John P. Connelly, chairman of Councils’ Finance Committee, declared themselves opposed to any ordinance which does not embrace transit facilities “on a broad basis” for the entire city.
At the same time Director of City Transit A. Merritt Taylor, after an analysis of the Costello bill, issued a statement declaring that the passage of such an ordinance would be “an unthinkable betrayal of a public trust,” in that it would serve to defeat the plan of the department to connect every important section of the city with every other important section by high-speed lines for a single 5-cent fare. To hand over to any corporation at this juncture the Frankford “L,” said Director Taylor, would be to “give away the most effective lever which the people have to secure adequate rapid transit for Philadelphia.”
Protest against the Costello plan was forthcoming from many sections of the city in letters, in telephone messages and in visits to Director Taylor from delegations of citizens. The Philadelphia Navy Yard led the way by sending a delegation, headed by G. H. Williams, chairman of the League Island Improvement Association, who declared against a “one-legged proposition of any kind” and in favor of transit development for all Philadelphia. This delegation pointed out that Costello’s bill contained no provision for transfers from the Frankford “L” and Market street “L” to Navy Yard lines, making necessary two 5-cent fares rather than the single 5-cent fare proposed under the Taylor plan.
Adherents of the Taylor plan pointed out that the Costello ordinance provided for extension of the Frankford elevated from Bridge street, Frankford, the northern terminal of the Taylor elevated, to Rhawn street, in Holmesburg. This, it was pointed out, was a projection three miles long through an undeveloped territory, which, however, contains choice building lots now held by realty corporations and private owners.
In the face of all the protest, Councilman Costello announced that Frankford, with one-third of the entire population of the city, was entitled to first consideration in transit development, and that it had been trying to get better facilities for 25 years. He said he was not considering the needs of Darby, Logan or any other section of the city. He did not care whether the Rapid Transit Company or an independent concern built and operated the line. Further, he had consulted no one in drafting his ordinance.
* * * * *
MEDICAL CONVENTION
_New York Times_
The man isn’t born who can tell a lie under the close observation of physiological experts without an increase in the pressure of the blood, according to a statement made by Dr. Louisa Burns of the A. T. Still Research Institute of Chicago, at the final meeting of the sixteenth Annual Convention of the New York Osteopathic Society, yesterday afternoon, at the Park Avenue Hotel, Park Avenue and Thirty-third Street. Dr. Burns has drawn her conclusions from a long series of experiments, conducted in her laboratory.
It was pointed out to the three hundred osteopaths by Dr. Burns that any habitual liar could tell an untruth without betraying the slightest sign of deceit in the expression of his face or in the movement of his body. But the action of the pulse, she said, was far beyond the control even of the best liar. She explained that this was so because the pulse or pressure of the blood was influenced chiefly by the change of emotions, and the most finished liars, she observed, had sometimes the strongest emotions.
“The action of the blood pressure is an indicator to the person who is accustomed to work with it. By watching it you are able to get the true history of a case, even in spite of the reticence of the patient, in the same way in which you are able to find a hidden object in the game of hide and seek, when your search is guided toward that hidden thing by the warning, ‘You’re getting hot,’ and away from it by the counter warning, ‘You’re getting cold.’
“When a patient comes to my office I always find it is better to work with him as he lies on a table. In order to avoid distracting his attention, it is better to sit quietly beside him rather than stand over him. He is engaged in a conversation at first simply about the nature of his complaint. Meanwhile I have found his pulse, and as the conversation progresses, the patient soon forgets that his pulse is the one thing under observation. If the patient is asked about a certain thing which may have been true of his case, he will confirm your guess by the action of his pulse, even though he may evade your question. If he is trying to keep from disclosing this fact to you, the pressure of his blood will inevitably be increased.”
Dr. Burns said that she was certain she could take a witness in a criminal case and find out absolutely to her own satisfaction whether he was telling the truth or lying. However, she would be unwilling to give testimony this way for conviction. Asked if a man of low mentality responded differently in the pressure of his blood from a man of higher mentality, Dr. Burns explained that he did, yet the truth and the lie were as easily distinguishable in one as in the other.
The management of pneumonia, scarlet fever, and typhoid fever with technique was discussed by E. C. Link, D. O., Stamford, Conn.; G. V. Webster, D. O., Carthage; J. A. De Tienne, D. O., Brooklyn, and J. E. Foster, D. O., Butler, Penn. “Osteopathy and Acute Conditions,” was the subject of a paper by Dr. George M. Laughlin, M. S. D., D. O., of the American School of Osteopathy.
These were elected officers of the society: W. A. Merkley, D. O., Brooklyn, President; Louisa Dieckmann, D. O., Buffalo, Vice President; C. M. Bancroft, D. O., Canandaigua, Secretary, and Cecil Rogers, D. O., New York, Treasurer.
* * * * *
MEETING OF SAFETY COUNCIL
_Chicago Herald_
There is one railroad company in the United States that has solved the difficulty presented by boys who delight in “flipping” cars and “milling” locomotive turntables at considerable risk to life and limbs.
The remedy? Bribery, nothing less. Nicely embossed “Safety First” buttons, or, as a last and never failing resort, a swimming pool near the round-house.
This revelation of latest railroad safety methods was made yesterday at the closing session of the third annual congress of the national council for industrial safety at the Hotel LaSalle, by W. B. Spaulding of St. Louis, chairman of the central safety committee of the Frisco System.
“Every railroad has trouble with boys who ‘hop’ and ‘flip’ trains and play with the turntables,” said he. “I am glad to be able to report that the Frisco road has solved the problem with success, so far as we are concerned. We awarded ‘Safety’ buttons to those who swore off on these juvenile pastimes, and when that failed, we installed swimming pools near the roundhouses, under railroad supervision.
“The swimming pool never has failed to work. All that is necessary to steer a boy away from dangerous pastimes is to provide a sane outlet for his excess energy.”
The 500 members of the council, representing more than 1,000,000 workingmen throughout the United States and covering almost every line of industrial endeavor, unanimously adopted resolutions against the use of alcohol, in part as follows:
“It is recognized that the use of alcoholic stimulants is productive of most industrial accidents and works against the safety and efficiency of workmen.
“Therefore, be it resolved, That it is the sense of this congress that the members pledge themselves to the elimination of the use of alcoholic stimulants among the employes of their plants and factories.”
M. A. Dow, general safety agent of the New York Central lines, thought “the public must be educated to believe that a railroad’s safety rules are for their benefit, rather than to save the company damage suits.” As evidence of the progress of the “safety first” propaganda, he cited figures of his company showing that for the year ending June 30, 1914, there had been 109 fewer deaths from accidents and 132 fewer injuries.
The inculcation of accident prevention should start in the kindergarten and continue through high school and college, in the opinion of Martin J. Insull, vice president of the Middle West Utilities Company, Chicago.
“The public’s extravagant disregard for the value of its safety is shown during the automobile season, when our papers constantly report terrible accidents invariably caused by suicidal carelessness,” said he.
Melville W. Mix, president of the Dodge Manufacturing Company, Mishawaka, Ind., and head of the manufacturers’ bureau of that state, placed the blame for 75 per cent of factory accidents on the disinterested and indifferent attitude of the employer toward his employe.
“Safety first is not a philanthropic movement on the part of employer to employe,” said he. “Safety first is a hard practicality of business extension. That seems a hard statement, but it is not without its qualifications, as there is a blood-and-soul side of every phase of business life.
“We see wealthy magnates lay fabulous sums at the disposal of a world peace tribunal, and we see in what short space of time the martial strength of a continent may apparently forget the life-conserving principles to which they have subscribed. Do we see any such enthusiasm in the cause of commercial or industrial safety? Is the blood spilled at the lathe, the forge, the throttle or the grade crossing less red, less valuable than that shed on fields of battle?”
* * * * *
RAILWAY COMMISSIONS’ CONVENTION
_Madison_ [_Wis._] _Democrat_
WASHINGTON, Nov. 17.--“More deaths are caused by improper ventilation of train coaches and waiting rooms than by train accidents.”
The committee on railway service and railway accommodations so reported to the annual convention of the national association of railway commissions today.
“The noxious gases that fill coaches, especially sleeping cars, in connection with the peculiar character of dust therein, are most conducive to germ breeding where proper ventilation is lacking,” the committee added.
In regard to the lighting of railway coaches, the committee said that this problem has been fairly satisfactorily solved on the trunk lines, but that on many branch lines the dingy, dirty oil lamp is still in evidence. A vigorous campaign against this condition is recommended.
Carelessness in providing drinking water at stations and on trains is noted, and it is recommended that railroad commissions abolish the stationary water cooler and prescribe a cooler with a portable container. Uniform methods of cleansing such containers, sanitary methods of handling ice, and sanitary drinking cups, to be provided free of charge for the public are also recommended and the placing of ice in the receptacle is deprecated.
The failure of suburban trains to arrive and depart on time is the cause of wide complaint, says the committee. Another source of complaint is the lack of adequate service on Sundays. The committee believes that at least one train should operate in each direction as a minimum Sunday service.
The committee recommends the elimination of the practice of paying freight bills carrying manifest over charges. Delays in handling and settling claims are also complained of, and the committee concludes that the best means of minimizing such delays is to require the railroads to pay interest on the true claim amount from the date the amount of the claim went into their hands.
On the question of substitution of steel for wooden cars, the committee recommends that the interstate commerce commission be given full power to prescribe the character of equipment to be used in interstate commerce.
* * * * *
CLUB VOTES TO DISBAND
_Ohio State Journal_
The Social Workers’ Club is dead.
The end came peacefully at 10:10 last evening, after a protracted period of wasting away. The immediate friends of the deceased were present at the last.
While a divergency of opinion existed among those called in to treat the patient, a majority seemed to feel that the demise was due to malnutrition and faulty assimilation. It was felt that the Social Workers’ Club had failed to take its own medicine--it was not social.
At a consultation held last evening at the Y. M. C. A. 30 persons were present. They had appeared out of a list of 78 who had been advised that the end was near. The main question was whether digitalis and oxygen should be administered, or whether nature should be allowed to take its apparent course, unhindered. On a roll call six voted to let it die. Four voted for resuscitation. The remaining 20 did not care enough to vote, or were animated by high humanitarian motives which forbade holding out hope to a doomed patient.
The Social Workers’ Club was born about five years ago. It was a healthy infant at first, with strong pulse and regular respiration, and took nourishment regularly once a month. Social experts from all over the country came and told it how to get along. It passed through its second summer and teething period without serious disorder. The third year it showed a difficulty in digesting all that it heard. Under treatment this disorder did not disappear, but seemed rather to augment. A series of special dinners drained its vitality to the lowest ebb.
One of the reasons advanced for this condition last night was that the family income was not sufficient to support the child as it required, two other children, the Council of Churches and the Philanthropic Council, having divided the natural resources.
Miss Blanche Green prescribed a treatment of play, but it did not meet with general approval. She said it wasn’t Gowdy that brought people down town last night, but just a desire to play. She confessed to an occasional desire for a game of mumbly-peg. “Social workers, who are trying to reform the world, have forgotten how to be social,” she said.
Rev. H. W. March was inclined to the belief that the treatment had been regular and academic throughout. He thought that if the patient had to die, no criticism could lie against those who attended in its last hours. Prof. H. R. Horton was inclined to adopt the Green diagnosis, but thought a return to the treatment administered during the first two years might prolong life.
The other children, the Council of Churches and the Philanthropic Council, survive, and kind-hearted neighbors will look after them until they adjust themselves to the new condition of things.
* * * * *
OLD CLOTHES MEN’S MEETING
_New York Sun_
Around the corner from the weather-beaten Church of the Sea and Land in Henry street yesterday afternoon there was a buzzing of voices which grew in time to a loud and angry chorus and drew all the children of the quarter. The children thought there was a fight, but the policeman who was passing the time of day with a café keeper whose name ended in “opoulos,” knew better, grinned and went on about his business.
The old clothes dealers, whose profit lies in shambling through the better residence streets in the early morning and shattering the quiet with their singsong appeals for trade, were meeting to denounce Gen. Bingham, Commissioner of Police. Since last Monday, when the police muffled the strident voices of the “cash-for-clo’” men as a consequence of his belief that there was entirely too much unnecessary noise in this town, the dealers have accumulated bitterness in their insides.
Therefore yesterday afternoon in the hall at 49 Henry street they howled their woes against the walls and let out pent up sounds. Principally, it appeared, their wrath was directed against the Police Commissioner. He was a tyrant. He was a czar. He was several distinct and wholly different kinds of things which could only be expressed in Yiddish. English was quite unequal to their necessities. But the aristocrats of their trade who gabble at the corner of Bayard and Elizabeth streets came in for full scorn. Why were these allowed to buy and sell with appropriate outcries and calls when the itinerant pedlers were muzzled by the law?
At Bayard and Elizabeth streets is the great old clothes exchange of New York city--of the whole country, for that matter--where any day in the week you will find in the open street several hundred old and bearded men, with green frock coats that sweep to their knees, dealing in cast off garments and shoes. The Jewish women of the East Side, thrifty souls, go there to trade cloth, ironware, dishes, ribbons, anything they can spare, for hats or coats or trousers or shoes that their men might wear. Old clothes brokers from the South--as far south as Atlanta--haggle with the dealers of the East Side, and take back to their homes great packs of clothes bought cheap in money, dear in words.
It was the complaint of the Old Clothes Dealers’ Protective Association, the itinerant pedlers, that the police mandate against noise has not been applied to the market place at Bayard and Elizabeth streets.
The voice of Ikey Cohen, veteran hawker, rumbled toward old Jacob Jahr, president of the association, who sat high on the rostrum, high hat over his ears, pulling at his gray streaked beard, and lost itself in the recesses behind a great seven branched candlestick.
“No more I must gif my calls,” he complained with outspread hands. “If so much as I gry, ‘Gaaaa-ssh! Ol’ Clo’s. Gaaaa-ssh!’ a bolisman he koms from Bingham and grabs my arm by him and he says, ‘Gut id owid! If you make a holler you’ll be peenched!’” [Applause.]
And all around the long room, a place of prayer and meditation on the Jewish Sabbath, the men nodded their heads solemnly grunting in their beards, saying in Yiddish:
“Truly, that is the way we have found it. How is a citizen to prosper in these days, I ask you, my friend?”
Old Louis Stein, pedler for twenty-five years, and reputed to be rich, orated in English after his own fashion.
“Der city it owes us a liffing? Say you so? Vell, then. How vill beoples know vat we vant unless ve make cries? Uddervise, ve might as well chump in der river! Ledt us write to Bresident Roosevelt! He vill tell Mister Bingham [very scornfully was this said] where to make a gedt off!” [More applause and a great stamping on the floor.]
Along toward evening, when the meeting of the 400 old clothes pedlers had run for three hours, and nearly everybody had had a say, most of them comparing New York to St. Petersburg, the advantage lying entirely with the latter capital, they decided to send a delegation to Commissioner Bingham to-day to beg that they be permitted once more to seek trade with their tongues. They agreed among themselves to call very softly, only twice or three times in any street, if the General would permit them to open their mouths. Also, they intend to ask that the permanent exchange at Bayard and Elizabeth streets be muffled if they are to be kept quiet.
The House and Wagon Pedlers’ Association, which takes in all the fruit and vegetable venders, met last night at 304 East 101st street and decided to send a committee of their own to the Commissioner. They, as well as the old clothes merchants, said that business has fallen off at least 50 per cent since the anti-noise order was put into effect.
* * * * *
FRIENDS’ ANNUAL MEETING
_New York Evening Post_
“If it does not seem like hurrying our business,” said the clerk of the meeting, “we will now hear read the letter from the Philadelphia Meeting.” And the soft stillness of the Yearly Meeting in the old Friends’ Meeting House on Fifteenth Street, softened into even greater stillness and quiet, to listen. The voice of the clerk, his grave, slow courtesy, and his wish for no unseemly haste, were in perfect blending with the old, buff room lighted only through the great, square-paned windows below and above the gallery, through which the green of the old trees in the yard could be seen, in perfect harmony with the gentle, kindly, gracious spirit of the people gathered there, for communion with one another.
“Let us miss no opportunity of expressing the love we feel one for another, one for another,” said one of the eight women who sat on the facing seats, an old lady with silvery hair under her black bonnet. The words, “one for another” might have been the text of the morning, not alone of the woman who first spoke them, but of all the words which were said.
Another woman spoke. She was an English woman who, with her husband, represented the London Meeting. “Why do we not have a crusade for love?” she asked. “War goes on, and we do nothing about it. If this love which we have in our hearts could be irradiated about the world, war could not be possible. Thoughts of love, if sent out by us steadily and consistently, must reach to the ends of the earth, as the ripples which a stone makes in a pool.”
But the war was little touched upon. That, with almost all of the more important business of the meeting, will be taken up in the later meetings this afternoon, tonight, Wednesday afternoon, and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. This morning was held apart almost entirely for the text “One for another.”
It could almost have been a country meeting. The old, square, red-brick building on 15th Street hears little of the noise of the city. This morning there was little sound but the stirring of raindrops on the panes. And the unhurried, quiet time was given up to greetings and welcomes, messages to those who could not come, the reading of messages from Friends in other places, and slow emphasis on the kindly details of their fellowship one for another.
The meeting was opened when the eight women and the five men had taken their places on the facing seats and exchanged their silent handclasps, with which also the meeting closes. They were, truly, the elders of this house, the ones who can remember farthest back into the times when all the women, and not just three or four, wore close Quaker bonnets. A tiny woman in gray rose twice from her facing place to confirm what had been said. Some one had greeted the members of the London Meeting and recalled her own warm welcome at that meeting many years ago. The little old woman rose swiftly, and, looking down at the English people, said, with infinite dignity and sweetness in her voice, “We are very glad to have these Friends with us. I also remember the very cordial welcome I received from the London Meeting.” The very slow, quiet words had the sound of deep ceremony, of the conferring of great and unforgettable honor upon these visitors from another country.
There was a prayer for strength “to partake of Thy Spirit,” a poem read which said, “Has the Gospel of Peace then failed us, That such a thing can be?” and many suggestions concerning appreciations, sympathies, letters, to be sent. Resolutions, called minutes, were gently put, and a soft voice would come from somewhere, saying, “I should approve that,” followed by a chorus of “So should I.”
In the Gymnasium are the old books, the record of the things which the oldest Friends remember, and of things which happened so far back in the years that May was spoken of as Third Month instead of Fifth. This was in the oldest book of them all, unbound until recently, with yellowed, stained, finely written pages, the “Paper of Advice” sent by George Fox to the Quakers of Long Island. It was brought there by John Burnyeat on the twenty-ninth day of the then third month, 1671. Records of all births, deaths, marriages, removals, are here since 1672, long before other denominations or governments began to keep such close watch of statistics. For birthright membership is the very basis of the old faith, the heritage which comes down from father to son through the centuries and which keeps the bonds so close that bind the families and the friends of Friends, one to another.
Out in the meeting-room, with the sight of the leaves and a red brick wall outside the high windows, there is little to make one know that the old yellow leaves were written so very long ago, after all. Perhaps in those old days there were no white and purple lilacs in the front of the room to nod and drowse and sweeten through the long hours. Perhaps then there was not so much true kindliness as has come with the years of Friendliness. To-day, when one of the oldest women rises from her place to speak, an old man says gently, “Elizabeth, thee need not rise to speak unless thee prefer.” He might not have done that in the old days, but surely her answer would have been the same, “Thank thee, Charles, but I prefer to stand when I speak,” with just a hint of reproof in her tone.