Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-14
When the Tumult and the Shouting
Quietly Dies.
Y END OF HYPOCRISY
Gus Boys" Swindle as Practiced in
Our Little Capital Worked With
Effect in Lime-Light Town.
Special Correspondence OF The Star.

Special Correspondence OF The Star.
NEW YORK. December IL. 1907.
<<TO bring about the repeal of an
obnoxious law, enforce 1t"
Here's a dictum. and a true one
nigh as old as Pythagoras. Many thou
sands Of worthy persons. whose views
are certainly entitled to consideration,
were not only pleased. but elated, over
the strict enforcement of the Sunday
law here last Sunday. But the over
whelming majority were displeased and
downcast. None Of the latter crowd pos
sessing the brain Of a hoopsnake cried
out against Justice O'Gorman's interpre-
tation Of the Sunday law. nor against
Commissioner Bingham's enforcement OF
it. They knew. if they knew they were
alive. that the law was such-and-so. that
OGorman couldn't possibly have inter
p-eted 1t in any other way: they knew If
they knew that theoretically the sun rises
and sets, that 1t was Bingham's business
to enforce the law, II he were to keep his
record clean and to preserve his self
respect. Inconsequential sneerers there
were, Of course. who barked at the Jus
tees literaness of interpretation ana
who aimed the "officious buttinskf' arb
a =
to these. Their views didn't figure Il. ali
In the upheaval.
An upheaval it was, and will continue
to be. 1t would be foolish and fruit
less to attempt to make presentation o,
the thousand and odd views held and
expressed over here on this Sunday OBJ
servance question. The opinions are as
various as the ''isms" represented at a
mothers congress. Every religious de-
nomination speaketh more or less fren-
bo subj We have T.
ing partisans of the Continental sun
day the "Puritanical Sunday" the Chi
cago Sunday the Cincinnati Sunday.
the Seattle Sunday" the wide Open
the Let 'Er Go Gallagher Sunday" the
Put EN- in the Pillory Sunday" There
must be. and probably is. some decent
medium thai may eventually be reached
when the tumult and the shouting have
died.
Whatever be the outcome, the desirable
thing is that there shall be an eId to the
hypocrisy, the taking. the double-dealing
in connection with this Sunday observ-
ance question in New York.
Padlocked on Sunday.
Reasonable men of all varieties of opin-
ion on the topic are agreed as to this end
of it. For instance, the vaudeville houses
should either be allowed to remain open
and to give their regular weekday per-
Torrance. without disguise. on Sunday,
or they should be kept padlocked on
Sunday. This sacred concert business
that has been going on for years past
is too grisly and sacrilegious jest even
for the endurance OF the FOUNDERS Inc
vaudeville houses that stand EN- up
twice a day on Sunday should never nave
been permitted to toss a sneer into the
teeth of religiously inclined or even non
reljpiO11S hlt less reNerenlldl
folk, by advertising such affairs as ga
cred concerts.
1t IS fair to say that the most level
headed people of the town want TO see
the law, as it stands, enforced to the
handle or completely abrogated. Half
way, compensatory laws don't work
over here. Neither do laws that are
winked at or enforced 'f tn breach. A
volatile population, such as New YORK s.
requires a whole-hos- system.
Either make of New York. on Sunday. a
Norwalk, Conn.,, or Vienna-that is the
imperative demand of the element in this
town which hates stiffness and wabbli-
ness They hate a legal system that Is
necessarily falling between two stools.
That sort Of thing makes for the brewing
of war medicine on the one side or the
other all the time.
A perfectly impartial prediction as to
the outcome would embody the prophecy
that within year, despite all opposition.
New York will be the wide-oDenest town
on Sundays in the western hemisphere.
That looks like an inevitable proposition.
The anti-SabbatarianS are too strong in
this v!cinage to remain quiescent or sub
merged. They know the ropes too well.
can, bring too much pressure to bear. It
seems a dead certainty to those who
know how and by whom New York Is
governed that. now the fight is under
way. the wide-ooen Sunday crowd will
beat the Sabbatar!ans into the ground.
Cano "a IN he H,,11ih1as
The other day a Washington man-his
name doesn't matter-was arrested over
here for working that Old us Boys
sWindle. He had a lot of strings to his
bow, and they all were bringing him in
the money in gobs. All of the schemes
were based upon his pretense-which he
had previously worked to his own con-
siderable profit in little old Washington
long before making Ne-7 York his swind-
ling headquarters-that he had some sort
of connection with the press or with
press workers. The dodge that they nail
ed him on here was that old "cartoonists
and illustrators " swindle which l told
about In The Star some years ago when
the gag" was known as the Press Art
lists League" sxindle. Washington had
q good dose. on two distinct occasions, of
this raw. brazen sort of scoundrelism
The thieves who work the scheme visit
wealthy people, flash a somewhat impress
sive if mystifying bundle of documents
seeming to show that they, the grafters.
are connected with the "Cartoonists and
Illustrators Association or The Press
Artists League" edge in some hurried
but oily remarks to the general essence
that the association or league Is presently
to hold an exhibition of the pictures of Its
members, that all of the really good
prominent people are chipping in to make
the thing go. and that the bogus
boys"-would Immensely appreciate It If
the present easy mark would, etc, ETC.;
and then the CRATER would point out
dotted line where the worked one might
Sign up for fifty or a hundred or a
couple of hundred, or whatever the latest
victim felt like falling for'-there was
always a phoney list, showing contribu-
tons in the high and liberal figures, fash
ed upon the ewly-approached one, as a
method of suggesting to that one that he
or she might employ the same degree of
hberality.
Well, 1t seems scarcely necessary to say
that these thieves who infested Washing
ton working this scheme three years ago
had never, any of them. met a sure
enough newspaper artist y that their list of
newspaper and magazine artists and IL
Illustrators. which appeared at the top of
their letterheads, was cold-blooded swim
die. inasmuch as not one OF the artists
knew anything about the so-called league
or association except when they heard,
as they did occasionally. that such an
outfit was being chased out of town by
the police of some middle western city,
and that the whole scheme was singu-
larly impudent frame-up for the purpose
of Sapa rating well-tO-dO EullibleS