Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1902-07-05
MOTIVES QUESTIONED
INSTANCES WHERE MALICIOUS
ISLANDERS WERE PRoPAGATED.
Bold Burglars Take Daylight for
Their Work A Bravo
Police Captain.
,pee,al correspopdence of The Evening Star.

Special Correspondence of The Evening Star.
NEW YORK, July 4, 1902.
When charity Is the recipient OF vicious
and organized lampooning and lambastlng
one Is melted to reflect that there must be
something sinister about community
which affords such a spectacle. That spec
tacle is being presented In New York just
now.
One Of the most benevolent men In New
York Is the main owner of one Of the towns
greatest department stores-an institution
that is known all over the country. This
man is a Jew. His department store Is not
managed under his name, for the reason
that In natural business course he sue
ceeded to a famous plant that for half
century had been run under the Gentle
name of it's original founder. and he elect
ed to have the business preserve that name
when he succeeded to it's proprietorship
This mans life has been wholly admirable
ever since he first picked up the leading
strings of success and came under the pub
lie eye. A Jew, he is yet the most unsec-
tartan of all New York philanthropists.
Today he will add wing to Hebrew
orphan asylum, tomorrow he will erect
new dormitory for Catholic homo for the
aged. He gives without ostentation. When
his gifts become public 1t is against his
will.
For several years this man has been dis
tributing free coal to the poor of New York
during the cold weather. He has paid mar
ket prices for his coal out of his own pock-
ct, employed careful men to ascertain the
addresses of the really poverty-stricken
and dumped the coal at their doors without
the recipients becoming aware, in nine
cases out of ten of the name of their bene-
factor. This has been a very fine and OBJ
a h9 rift nd yrof
the man at the bottom of it has had to en-
dure the shafts of malice aimed by jealous
and less Open-handed business rivals, ever
since he inaugurated this charity. Through
the medium of unimportant daily and
weekly publications in which the philan-
thropist has failed to perceive the advan-
tages OF advertising his department store
business, he has been necessarily attacked
be derived from the advertising gained by
his liberality.
Fresh Milk for the Poor.
During the past two summers this same
man has been distributing from temporary
stands erected in nearly all of the parks of
New York fresh milk, sold for the benefit
of poor folks at purely nominal rates-with
not enough profit accruing from such sales
during season to pay the wages of the
young women employed to serve the milk
bitterly attacked by the savages in the en-
ploy OF the New York Notwithstanding
clique, on the score that the virtually free
milk which he distributes is polluted and
poisonous, that it comes from insanitary, if
not actually filthy, creameries; that It
feeks with typhoid and other awful things,
and that 1t Is endangering the health of tho
poorer people of the community who avail
themselves of the chance to buy IT for If
tie or nothing. The benevolent mans as
sahants do not scruple to maintain that
again In this milk charity he Is merely
seeking to glorify himself for the express
purpose of adding to the business of his
department store. They do not attemnt
to explain why he gives every year to char
ity almost his entire income. vast aa that
income is, and why he resorts to the most
extraordinary measures to keep his bene-
factions quiet. "e-'e
few years ago the proprietor of one of
the great New York newspapers tname, VI
rated free ice fund He chipned In Verv
heavily himself toward the fund. and in
Vlteo MS friends. all Of them very wealthy
New York men, to help the fund along with
mel. ,,,,,h Snecks. Ihey responded literally,
WIN the result that thousands of the DoOr
OF ehe tenements who could as soon have
thought of buying diamonds as ice-consid
erlng the outrageous price of ice in New
ioIk curing recent years-have been lib-
eraily PROVIDED with the great summer COM
tort. 1t would of course be impossible to
say Just how many infant lives have been
saved during the scorching midsummer
weather through this free distribution of
ice but the physicians Of the tenements
have testified that the number ia very
great.
Sneers for This Benefactor. Too.
Yet the author of this charity has not
escaped the sneers Of his enemies. They
have called him, and are still calling him
a seif-seeker through his charitable enter
& fha
that of all living men this one is the most
utterly Indifferent to public opinion, that
he has spent all Of his time abroad for
more than quarter of century, and that,
such is his peculiar makeup, he would a
little bit rather be disapproved by the
world in general than possess the worlds
approval. The shabby critics of his free
ice charity nave not stopped at buzzing
1t about that he is simply looking for self
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT through great public
charity, but they are now setting In circu-
lation the singularly mean, and as sim
gularly false. story that the ice which he
causes to be distributed among New York's
poor is cut in sWampy and infected waters
and that 1t Is therefore a menace to the
health and the lives Of those who use it,
Nothing could be more wholly menda cious
than this assertion. Yet the story finds it's
believers by the thousands among that
large class who instinctively prefer to ac-
cept bad currency to good in the mart Of
rumor.
A few years ago high grade New York
organization. formed for the purpose Of i'm
proving civic conditions. decided to start
pawn shops on the pattern of those of
France. which are controlled by the gov
eminent. number of benevolent men pro-
vided the capital, and quite number of
the pawnshops were started in different
parts of the town, mostly in the districts
of the very poor. The interest charge on
pawned articles was made about one-f1fth
that of the regular pawnshops, the idea Of
the promoters Of the scheme being to
merely earn enough interest to make the
benevolent pawnshops self supporting. The
plan was big success from the beginning.
It's inaugurators thoroughly understood the
inevitability of the pawning habit among
the poor and unfortunate. and their one
aim was to render the conditions Of pawn
ing less grueling upon the poorer class of
paWners. Yet the men behind this strictly
charitable scheme have been bitterly at
tackled ever since the system was put in
motion, and for two years there has been
at Albany a strong lobby. said to be in the
employ of an association Of New York
pawnbrokers, sent to the state capital for
the purpose of securing the passage of a
bill declaring the charitable pawnbroking
plants to be fraudulent. unconstitutional
and numerous other terrible things.
Boldness Of Professional Thieves.
During recent years a large number Of
the professional thieves of New York have