The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-04-23
NEW YORK FOR ONCE IS NOT F0RGETFUL Shirt Waist Factory Fire
 Still Agitated POLITICS IS QUIET Election of Senator O'Gorman Is Fol lowed By a Dead Calm.
 Many Going to
 Nashville
By ROBERT LEE CARTER

New York, April 22.-(SpeclaL)- New York is peculiarly forgetful city. It takes the biggest kind of a sensa- tion to hold the interest of the Man hattanite for a week and two weeks is
 about the ultimate limit.
 | It is perhaps because in and about the big city so many big things hap ren that the power of being interested Is so constantly strained that It loses its resiliener
 The big shirt waist fire which cost the lives of 146 people, mostly young girls, seems to be an exception to the
 rule, however, It really looks as though New York intended to keep this horror
 in mind not only until somebody Is
 punished but until precautions are | taken which will make such wholesale sacrifice next to impossible in future. Indictments have been brought lagainst some of those responsible for tile loss of life and laws are being pushed to compel reforms and fix re- sponsibility for their endorsements. l It will take all the newspapers can do, however, to keep up the interest un- | til the work begun will be carried to completion, and then 1t is doubtful if
 the results will be permanent. | There was, 1t will be remembered, a
 great crusade for safety on steamboat after the Slocum disaster. For a time fire and boat drills, strict inspection | of fire apparatus and other precaution-
 ary measures was the rule but 1t is | very doubtful if the condition among
 craft plying the waters in the vicin-
 ity of New York Is very different now | from what 1t was before the Slocum
 burned It Is to be feared the same thing will be true about the safety of | factory girls.
 It is too much trouble for New York
 to keep after things like those for any | length of time.
 | Since the election of Senator OGor- man New York is about the deadest place in the country politically. Even tie sessions of Congress, the possibil- ities of tariff revision and the playing I for position of the various candidates | for the presidential nomination fail to arouse interest
 Leader Murphy has not even begun | the overhauling of the Tammany ma
 chine, made necessary by the strain of
 
 | year In politics anyway, and there is
 not likely to be any great excitement | until the time comes for assembly nominations.
 "One wouldn't think there is money l really to be made in cashing check S.
 but there Is if 1t is worked properly,
 said R. s. Brigham, teller of bank
 in Portland, Ore.
 | "I know of one of my banks l tcmers who runs a irst-class cafe and with it there is strong inducement
 of a tempting free lunch. Every day l he cashes checks amounting to several | hundreds of dollars There is not a | week passes that he does not cash the
 checks of one large firm that approx
 mates s6eo, including many individual checks. I asked him how he could | afford to be bothered with that sort of | thing
 "'Bothered? he replied, why there s money in 1t. Just about 10 per cent of that money goes into our till in | the course of the week He explained to me that on pay day the crowd will drift in, turn over their checks, and some of them will spend from $2 to s3 before the company of good fel- | lows breaks up. The same crowd will | make the place their rendezvous for | the mid day lunch or after work, and | there will be many treats passed along | the line before the evening is over. In | the evenings or on Saturday nights | these same men prefer to buy their | Sunday beverages from the man who accommodates them.
 "The whole thing is in knowing hu- man nature Where one man will pass | a bad check there are hundreds of oth- CTS who will never attempt it, and the l percentage of loss compared with the | profits accruing from the increased pat