The evening world. Newspaper, February 26, 1921, Page 10

EXEMPTION four ued of backing and filling, de- the tax exemption ordi- » Anas romain the Board of Aldermen ten was passed by the Board of Estimace The building season is simost new construction are far below for new housing grows more insistent of partial exemption from taxa- encourage the building of homes. Because ‘the housing shortage and because of the high of -ovange 3 material and labor, the cily offers n likely to amount to from $1,200 to ' fo present homme! constructor: end of ten years it is possible that build- | will have dropped so that the net invest- cost of houses constructed now will be ap- timately on a par with both older houses and houses. ~ Whether exemption will give the necessary stimu-_ for the 1921 building programme remains to be If it does not, the next Legislature will have “40 consider further plans for the encoufagement of Teast the New York Board of Aldermen and ini of Estimate no longer block the one construc- aid for which the Legislature provided. WHERE 18 IT NOW! Hi Jobnson says New York will have to worry along without him for a few days over Inaugu- ration, ‘ ‘We hope he’s made plans to leave the pallad- -fum well guarded. Or maybe it would be safer if he took it with him. OVERLOADED MUNICIPAL COURTS.’ (pc re aad nich phnlbaarre the Municipal, Courts have Been swamped by » flood of landlord arid tenant cases. ’ » ‘Congestion results in detay of all cases and a prac- denial of justice in some. excess of new work has submerged the regu- function of these couris in deciding cases of debtors and creditors. to choose between such a the rent laws, there could The rent laws have proved worth. 76 there is good reason for a change of pro- e in administering the rent laws. Several Mu- Justices believe the Legislature should gran? power to appoint referees in rent cases. The would take testimony, verify claims, examine Ooks,and then act as adviser to the court. Much the work of the referees could be done evenings with a minimum of inconvenience to working > 1n actual practice the referees would probably be to arbitrate a good share of the cases out of and relieve the Justices of the overload of it present It is a physical impossibility for Jus- to get accurate first-hand information on the titude of cases they must decile. The referce pouid in many instances do this, visit the premises, een: and find out the truth of disputed aap Service of referees in rent cases would speed ip the action of the courts and add assurance that isions would be fair to both sides. should consider this suggestion » and at the same time devise a method for stand- i izing administration of the existing rent laws, Are we to infer President-elect Harding is in accord also with the Senate Naval Affairs Com- ‘mittee on the proposition that the natural course toward disarming and cutting expenses is to go : » Tight on arming and spending? 3 “ (INK OF THEM IN THE SUBWAY! IFTBEN Americans from the West, who helped transport a shipload of milch cows given to many by a relief organization, have been mak- ; what amounts to a triumphal tour of that coun- ‘ity as guests of the German Red Cross. “They have been seeing Germany and Germany een seeing them. Cabled accounts of the trip that surprise and astonishment were mutual. n pomp and deference to rank and class absolutely nothing to these Western. cattle- en, Mumicipal dignitaries in high hats failed fo ‘these modern “innocents abroad.” They shook with ‘brother: farmers and talked about the Paragraph of the report must interest New Wkers. The Red Cross conductor of the party is | “Germans don't understand them. They ‘ate awfully devent fellows and polite in their ‘way too. Every man in a party riding on a street car last night got up promptly and gave _their-seats, The Germans on board antl Indiana and Texas by way of New York, what are we to look forward to in the subway in cas: the Galahads offer their seats to women? * Will passengers be dragged out in a faint, or will the cowmfen be arrested as “mashers”? practical is no longer open to doubt. may expect to see more of these machines in action vext winter. Application of expert engineering skill to the business of snow removal has proved its worth, If these milch cow Argonauts return to/Ransas More women than men, the Census Bureau tells us, in both New York and Boston, Poor man! He's losing his urban standing by even the quantity test. THE UGLY TRUTH. VERY one knows that Nation-wide Prohibition has failed to prohibit. But up to the present time theré thas been no such concrete ‘presentation of the grim facts of the failure as The Evening World's survey of the actuai news records of law-breaking, graft and crime dur- ing the attempted enforcement of the Volstead ac: since Jan. 17, 1920. z In this cily alone, 5,813 arrests for drunkenness in the year 1920 as against 5,657 in 1919. Thus does Nation-wide Prohibition diminish the intemperate use of alcoholic liquors! More than $100,000,000 worth of whiskey re- leased from New York warehouses on forge. Thus does Nation-wide Prohibition maintain Gov- émment control of alcohol! Smuggling and bootlegging on a colossal and growing scale; stills and private brewing plants multiplying every month; home manufacture of alcoholic drinks studied and praoticed as a new domestic art. Thus does Nation-wide Prohibition put a stop to the circulation and consumption of intoxicating beverages! ; Unprecedented daily records of crime in its bold- est, most violent forms; bribery and corruption per- vading tke entire system of Prohibition enforcs- ment; private citizens of high standing and char- acter jovially violating the law as a kind of new sport. Thus does Nation-wide Prohibition lift the moral level of communitics! So il was bound to be, and so it is. A law that cannot be reconciled with reason in the minds of temperate, self-respecting men and women is a dangerous law. The strength of any law is measured by the re- spect in which it is held by good citizens. When any considerable number of this class treat a new law lightly, their attitude has the worst pos- sible influence on other classes who hold no law in high esteem. That is what has happened in the case of Federal Prohibition. Because it takes away personal liberty in a man- ner hitherto abhorrent to American ideas of the proper function of Federal Government, otherwis: law-abiding men have evaded it. Because law-abiding men evade il, unprincipled men disregard it entirely or make money out of it. Such a law can work incalculable harm by lessen- ing the respect in which other laws are held among classeS upon whom the fear of law should act with greatest force. When, on the plea of treating an ill thal couli have been cured by other means, the Eighteenth Amendment was jammed into the Federal Consti- tution, violence was done some of the soundest fibre and tissue of organism. the American democratic The ugly look of the wound can't be concealed, “Harding is in accord with Hoover" sounds more like i than t’other way round. UP-TO-DATE SNOW HANDLING. NTERESTED crowds in City Hall Park yesterday afternoon watched the demonstration of three different types of mechanical snow loaders. Frozen piles of snow provided a difficult test for the machines, but all three did the work. Which was the best and most useful is for the engitfeers to decide, Very likely any one of the three could be improved by further experiment. But that mechanical loading is both possible and New York When the city was blockaded last winter The Evening World’s editorial “Try an Engineer’ was | followed by the creation of the Board of Snow | Removal under Chief Kenlon, A year later The Evening World i is glad to con- gratulate Commissioner Leo and the Snow Removal Board on the results achieved. The engineers when tried wére not found’ wanting. Preparedness and machinery had the snow beat from tte first. New York will never go back to the old slow wav* | of fighting snows Keep the engineers on the job. E EVEN: Woult S wy From Evening World Readers, What kind of a letter do you find most readable? Isn't it the one that gives you the worth of a thousand words in a couple of hundred? et a ae ARN oe cc dhe decode Ms bad | te sey much in a few words, Take time to be brio. ae rom Bad to Worse. To the Editor of ‘The Preting World: I agree with the ewbject matter of | penter, plumber, painter or mason with their $9 to $10 per day of eight bead vapod and think that the man th 1 | who pulls your train is only one out ee etter you published from Dr} or about eight boys who started in vin, the game with the expectation - of I used to be a Tammany Hall man, | some day sitting on the right aide of and I am sorry to say I voted for} 3. prares re oly aly phone norte. out Hylan. Never again—and I have quit|% ye who sturt life as firemen | sti pelea i stick at it long enough to be promoted to engineer, About ten out of this ‘All there ds to ‘Tammany nowadays | forty’ become is the Big Chief. He hogs everything, vail, hepa ypeee ears ene engineers, American youths will sel- ron pies Say or abigail 48/dom put up with the tind work and ive Hylan Administration has failen | Sejceaipe lone enough to elt on the down all along the line, and the city] started to fire a locomotive at the iy in the grip of a lot of political cor~ age of 22. After eight long years I ruptionista who steal anything from | ag promoted to an engineer. How a hot stove to a wheelbarrow. The! easy it looks on paper, but six years only way to get rid of them is either) out of this eight I bucked the extra to have the Governor remove them or | {ist, never knowing when I would eat have the people get together at the| or sleep. When not-on duty I was next election, regardiess of politics | held in readiness, without pay. and, political affiliations, and vote the | “At the age of thirty 1 was promoted. whole bunch out from top to bottom. | 1 had two years of regular hours and ee Sle cd ce & Sosstaie coasior | Caress Saran RY ML TORE SO dors Ch ne Oe One rome, | Vice as & fireman. After putting in will help the taxpayers, get this _re- lief. RY SMYTHERS. New York, We, 38, 1921. eleven years bucking the extra list as an engineer I was assigned to a lo- cal freight. My family grew up al- most without getting acquainted with their Now, after twenty-six years of service, | have a regular pas- senger run in commuter service, But remember, Mr. Former Passenger, /1 work Sundays and holidays, and when you think of an engineer in commuter service with a monthly wage from $200 to $250, think also oe thirty days ot from twelve to fourteen hours on duty. Have the locomotive engineers: been reoeiving war compared Does Money Make the Gentiemast To the Eilitor@f The Drening Word I would like to answer Jane Wright and others by askifig them whether the ability to pay 75 cents or $3.30 for a seat in the theatre makes of a roughneck a gentleman? On $22 a week I have been in but one the- atre in Manhattan since 1896. I have! with other skilled Piricgarn yt gs a wife and six children to support) cordance with the TesponsBollity and M. B. | hazard of the occupation ‘The Engimeer’s Pay. ‘To the Biltor of The Mrening World : May I reply to “A Former Pas- To the Waitor of ‘The ivening Workd 1 made application for work on senger’’ whose letter on railroad wages and fares you printed, Feb, 18, |the snow last Sunday night, and was toe told that they had enough men, but to come out Monday night and they would surely give me a ticket to go to work. Monday night I was told they would only put the men to work who worked on Sunday, Tuesday morning (Washington's Birthday) | went out again and was told they”had teo mafly men and had to call in the night gang at 2 A. M. Instead of 5 A. In this mernipg's World | saw notice saying that "Practically all of the moneyless ana jobless men ac- customed to ask ‘for meals and sleening quariers at stations of or- ganized charities started work when it he was a commuter, which Be ie cal tal bee. was person by the suppose he was, received on an ay-|D. 8 ©. and are still working.” erage of $6.68 for his first tén hours Mr. Editor and fellow readers, ‘and 73 cents an hour for overtime bout us men who never ask for providing he made leas than 100 miles. y (but are sometimes money- It be made miles to exceed 100 he re- and who cannot get work on ceived 5.68 cents per mile over 100 1 addition. After waiting two years living ‘on hope, hustle and hash, he received 4a cents per day increase, which brought the average engineer in com- muter service, pay per day of ten hours to $6.48, with the same ragio for Every fair minded man will side with Warren 8, Stone when he under- stands the situation. Let all our readers, including “A Former Passenger” weigh well these facts 1 relate in regard to a locomotive engineer who is looked upon as a bandit by this “Former Passenger.” During the war unskilled labor was receiving from 60,to 80 cents per hour, instead of 1.50 to $2 a day wsrin 1914. Tradesmen and skilled loborers were receiving $1 to $1.9 per hour, com- pared with ¥% to $6. day in 1914. The engineer who pulled the train that this “Former Passenger” rode in, tess), the snow when our own work is tied op by the snow? We want a square dea! 2 NewYork, Jo To the Panitor jening World Men who ait at desks may get along UNCOMMON SENSE By John Blake (Coprright, 1931, by John Btake.) THOUGHT IS VALUABLE—DON’T WASTE IT. It is thought that makes progress. Men first aspired to higher things, then thought out ways to attain them. Thought has produced every invention that has con- tributed to the comfort of civilization. It has brought about every great reforny It has carried the human race from the cave to the modern city. It has pYoduced art and literature and drama—clean down to the movies. So you can easily see that it is fat and away the most valuable thing in the world. Tt is, in truth, far too valuable to waste. Yet most of those who have the power of thought employ it so idly and so unprodactively as to gain no good by it, Do your hard thinking about matters that count. Two hours a day spent in thinking how to improve your golf swing will improve your golf swing, bat they must be sub- _ tracted from the time you ought to be spending in thinking out ways to get a raise of salary. It was the women who thought about more freedom for their sisters who gé@ the ballot; not the women who thought about the clothes they ought to wear for various occasions, or the social snubs they received while they were trying to break into society. Find out what a man thinks about chiefly; and you can make a very accurate prediction of his future. If his mind is on the box scores of the baseball teams, or the latest styles in neckties, he will be thinking of these same subjects ten years from now—and drawing the same salary. If he is thinking about the problems of his business or profession and how to solve them you will find him in a bigger office, with bigger pay and more authority when you meet him after a few years. Thought is productive only when set in channels of pro- duction. You can think all ‘day about the population of Betelguese and never get anywhere. But if you think for ten consecutive days about a better to do your work, the work will show results, You will do it better and more easily. Thought is capital. But capital can be foolishly in- vested; and so can thought, It is a gift that was given you to use wisely. You cannot afford to waste it. men who are doing “a man’s fob” every day—I believe that strenuous occupations stimulating liquid refreshment after their hard day's toil. particularly riners, stokers and firemen, track- wrea, freight handiers, &c. I would like to pit all the Senators, Congressmen and other who are remponsible for Prohibition at snow #hovelling, for instance, or as coal drivers and helpers. 1 greatly fear they would then change their minds about the harmfulness of drink, when its indulgence does not inter- fere with others’ rights or prejudices, | as coal-heavers, our fanatical friends world doubtless consider a drink of \nnocent lager beer to relieve their | pavohed and dust y ous offense, overtime and miles in excess of 100, How dooe this compare with the oar- 4 bs seat : ‘. wrought by want etter under the Volstead act than the 'as want of heart.” men in need some Anger is a fierce and sudden flame, which may de icindled in the noblest breasts; but in these the stow droppings of un unfortunate temper never take the bhape and consistency of en- during hatred.—Hillard. In a free State it is not Capital that ralea Labor; neither is it Tabor that rulea Capital; it is Juatice that rules.—L. M. Notkin, Jealousy ts said to be the off- spring of loce. This applies to longshoremen, coaj legisiators the child, the child will not rest Litt it has potsoned the parent, Hare. Uiros etter a BE oe toe Words From the Wise Yet, unless the patient makes haste to strangle And thee'd and thou'd with them I thought Ba Quaker, too, ig) was a And Quakers ail the birds ‘that flow. Ana boone Sd all the trees that stood Like little angels being ‘200d , Quaker through m: Te Quaker maidens down a lane, I MET three Quakers on a hill, ee niet na nee And not @ Quaker I Sonate peak: Would make him be a Quaker goat. |, without apologies to any from the “Poems” (Moffat, ‘ard & ) ot Haale} Long. Tho Comfort of Old Age--» Writing his book, “Why Die Be, Young?" (Harper) Dr, John B, Huber turns a tribute to old age, thus: There are some very comfortabie, inions about old age. For in- ince, that grand old man of sci- fence swith wi a name I Began this Kk, Francis Galton, declared bia slghtyesith year: “Ac fnd: old age to be a very happy time, on the condition of wufmitting fraikly to mite Then there is “the {uatified moth- ‘of men,” whom Walt Whitman extolled, who Festa inher uenwenalt on the porch, surrounded by her Children und her chiidren's children, tie the rays of the setting sun ouch warmly her whitened halr, Serene she sits, her eyes stead- fast upon the westerly glow, as the gathers and the ‘evening star np) musing Kos many things in the past, but mostly of memorials treasured and fondly laid Saidevin Gene Ok cobines there was the aged aunt of Brillat-Savarin; when the was sum- moned to her deathbed he raised her head and induced her to tako gome “most excellent and restora- tive wine,” whereupon she thanked him and sinking, hack ‘contented: on her pillow, said, “My dear, should you come to my years you will un- derstand that the aged need de goth Just as the young need sicep. The doctor's words are. bea but we fear his trend is old-fas' The twentieth century “Mother of Men" sits not in the twilight, but at- tends at the evening jazz. pee The Perfect Lover--- From ‘The Stars in the Pool” (Dut. ton), a prose poem for lovers, the point of quotation being chosen where | Flame sits at the feast on trial, as it were, before the eyes of the royal parents of his beloved phere And for that all " on =| these matters. was ahr and well taken, and modest withal, King Telwyn, listening, marked with gladness the manhood that had come to this youth of the isle of wea-surge and firebloom. And be right well Pleased, also, that the” trothplight of | his was wturned with Cleat eyes and noblt bearing courtesy and readiness for all made speech with him. And Queen Ellaline, in wont of elder wor ad eyes tothe way of Plaine with “his Wine, the which he took giadiy, as becomes a man, but not over+ much; and she was content, Rosemeart, sitting ibeside mother, the’ Queen, had thought Por none: but her troth-plight lord, whom she loved: yet marked with pride his thought and cour- tesy for all that sat at meat with them. There was that in her which remembered with joy and ten- demess how that he bad thought aforetime only of themselves ant thelr love; but now wus she proud that ner lord was become a man men, for well she knew that Sith all he sald and did in'wny wies, there ran always the musle of his fox dn her, and the love of his soul ‘or hers. Wherein we find counsel that to the making of the perfect lover there go tempernice, courtesy, dignity and thoughtfulness for others, with ten= derness for his own doyé. ’ And a Lover “Who Pareets <2 From “The Pes of Yesterday” (Century Company), a book in which Frederic Arnold Kummer and Mary Christian contrive a love siory from entries In the diary of a lady * Saturdity Moi ‘To-day is the 1th of Aug date Grant and I met. V dinner together that night, can atill see him, so tenderly prank- ish and Gro arlooking, across the biz the ther bowl of rr jes that stood on 4 the table.” top eerste wont re: r ‘mem we ge Oo be almost dis- appointed if he did. mayenirays thought that Y should expect a man to.remember things, like that, T put some Popp as on the dinner table to-night. | He anid they looked very and charming and that the had never known any one who joved as I di For a moment I had a sick sensation of loneliness—of Ioat something very. precious—then T went over and kissed trim. He was pleased to be kissed, How alike wives are! Am I coing to be just as silly as all the reat? suppose one ought not to mind « the little romantic foolishnessos are forgotten In big, steady joys. Which moral do these, our tale~ bearers, point: ‘That the perfect husband would be he who never forgets himself as a lover? » Or that to forgive a fongetting is part of the day's business of the perfect wife? . Living Up to the Name of John--« From a tribute by J. C. Squire, im his “Life and Letters” (Doran), to the plain name of John: Fashions There ix no name like it. In other names come and re homax an ‘liam slump an re eraide, Ltt Luclans, Marmas dukes, Marjories, are the rage of a genera- tion, and then became sickening to he Ona, countess dige up the name Giaays for her daughter; in ten Yeare it covers the country: In nA- other fifty it sinks into disrepute: amd then it goes on flourishing in dark byways until some new exe plorer produces it onoe more as @ fresh and radiant thing. But John goes on. From the axes when it was spelled Jehan to the present day the provortion of Johns to the total population has probably never fluctuatad beyond one or two per cent. ‘ime does not make stale its in- finite wameness; the most fickle slaves in Fashion's retinue cannot contract @ positive distaste for it; in its dignity, solidity, greenness and grave mystery. it defles the ovkeinet of those who tire of all ‘thing: Tt ie a name to live up to; bet ff one who bears It sinks Into dis repute it falls not with him, bat rather stays in the firmament above him, ahining down upon him kee reproachful star. A_ panegyric planned ons richly merited Yet when Mr. Squire goes on tor Unt a yuiahed bearers of his favered Bame—not a mention of our counts | ‘eas friend, John oe | nobly