The Washington herald., 1913-08-31
'ELT TELLS OF SUNDAY CLOSING LAW
Campaign Completely Succeeded in Checking BIackmal,
Which for Years Had Been Rife Political COmbina-
lions Formed and Immense Sums Collected.

f, summoned twenty or thirty Of the sue
ceSsful applicants to let me look over
them. and as i walked into the hall. one
Of them. a well-set-up man, called out
| sharply to the others, "Gangway," max
ing them move to one side. found he had
served in the United States Navy. The
Incident was sufficient to make me keep
him in mind. month later I was motif
fed by police reporter, a very good feI-
low. that BOurke was in difficulties, and
that he thought had better look into the
matter myself. as Bourke was being ac-
cused by certain very influential men Of
grave misconduct in an arrest he had
made the night before. Accordingly,
took the matter up personally. I found
that on the new patrolman's beat the pre-
Ceding night-a new beat-there was a big
saloon run by a man OF great influence in
political circles known as King Gala
han After midnight the saloon was still
running In full blast, and Bourke, step
ping inside, told Callahan to close up.
1t was at the time filled with friends
of personal liberty, as Gov. Hill used at
that time, in moments of pathos, to term
everybody who regarded as tyranny any
restriction on the sale OF liquor. Gala
mans saloon had never before in its his
tory been closed, and to have a greer
cop tell him to close was. it seemed tc
nlm' So incredible that he regarded II
merely as bad Jest. On his next round
Bourke stepped in and repeated the order.
Callahan felt that the Jest had gone toe
Iar' and by way Of protest knocked
Bourke down. This was an error of judE-
ment on MS part, for when Bourke arose
he knocked Callahan down The two men
then grappled and fell on the floor, while
the friends of personal liberty danced
around the hghters and endeayored tC
tramp on everything they thought wasn't
Callahan. However, Bourke, though pret-
ty roughly handled, got his man and shut
the saloon. When he appeared against
the lawbreaker in court next day. he
found the courtroom crowded with infiu-
entail Tammany politicians, backed by
one or two Republican leaders Of the same
type, for Callahan was a baron of the
underworld, and both his feudal superioIs
and his feudal interiors gathered to the
rescue.
His hackers in court included a Con-
gressman and a State senator, and 50
deep-roOted was the police belief in pulp
that his own superiors had turned against
Bourke and were preparing to sacrifice
him. Just at this time I acted on the
Information given me by my newspaper
friend by starting in person for the court.
The knowledge that 1 knew what was
going on, that I meant what I said, and
that / intended to make the affair per
sonal was all that was necessary. Before
] reached the court all effort to defend
Callahan had promptly ceased, and Bourke
had come forth triumphant 1 immedi-
ately promoted him to rOundsman He is
a captain now. He has been on the force
ever since, save that when the Spanish
war came he obtained a holiday without
pay for six months and re-entered the
navy, serving as gun captain in one of
the gunboats. and doing his work. as was
to be expected, in first-rate fashion, espe-
cially when under fire.