The Irish standard., 1913-06-21

priest. Good picture shows are all
right. like them myself. No, 1 can't
go myself. 1t wouldn't look well; now,
would it.?
But what have to protest against,
and that constantly, is allowing boys
and girls of tender years to see these
shows Unfortunately. 1t is not good
for them to go unattended in dark
ened house, but not only that but some
of the films shown are ruinous for
them, especially in cheap houses such
'as abound down here. l have heard
dreadful stories-
Most of ours criminals are young.
They start young, and let a boy once
be sent away to an institution and he
is pretty nearly done for. You know
and know the schools of crime our
reformatories and prisons are. Not
only does a boy become skilled in
crime, he becomes moral pervert. I
do not know what we are going to do
to end these conditions.
But as to the movies, it is as told
Mayor Gaynor; we do not need any
new law, we need only to enforce the
one we have. But it seems impossible
to keep the children out of these
shows. 1t is q bad day in the matter
of children anyway. They seldom have
proper discipline. They have their own
way too largely"
Father Curry is 56. He says that
except for occasional twinges of rheu-
matism he feels twenty years younger
He was at st. James for a while back
in the '90s and then was moved about
a bit. landing at one time at Rhine
Cliff on the Hudson, where the Astors
have summer home. He had not been
back on the East Side more than a few
months before he began police work.
He closed a notorious resort at Catha-
rtne street and East Broadway and got
the regular police to drive women who
accosted even him out of Chatham
Square (Which he calls the Dead Seal,
Then he denounced policemen in the
precinct who were siding with the
dives against his boys club. He
closed an illegal resort the rear of
which could be seen from the club
rooms. The woman who kept it came
to the priest and tried to bride him,
He showed her the door.
When the recreation pier at the foot
OF Market street was opened in 1904
Father Curry visited it for a while at
night until he was able to impress
upon the girls of his parish that they
must not stay there late and go home
alone after l o'clock in the morning.
Very little girls had been spending
most of the night on the pier and COM
plants had come to the REST about
it.
1t was in the following year that the
pastor of st. James waged such war
on the practice of sending children to
saloons on errands that it was almost
done away with in that part of the
East Side. Hard on this campaign
came Il pitched battle with the settle
ment workers.
On a summer morning of 1906 Faith
er Curry came out to the altar railing
at each of the six masses in his
church to denounce the Protestant
settlement workers who, he said, were
stealing his children and running
down his district in order to touch the
sympathies and pocketbooks OF veal
thy people uptown. He named names
and praised the Jews for not at
tempting anything Of the sort q He
charged that the settlement workers
were unable to find the poverty needed
for their business or the children for
whom they were supposed to do SO
much. The priest said that of the
money collected by these settlements
30 per cent went for maintenance and
10 per cent reached the poor.
This ELECTED from the University
Settlement IL reply that of $4,000 COL
lected 1t had not paid 80 per cent in
salaries. but only $4,000, or a little
over half. Father Curry seemed to
think that the reply proved his point
that tse settlements We're ineflclently
administered.
He sailed into the settlement named
after Jacob Riis as one Of the worst
offenders and warned his people not
to accept charity but to stand on their
own feet. Riis replied that the poor
OF the East Side had many hardships
to endure, but that their greatest
hardship was Ito have man like
Father Curry as pastor" at which
the priest smiled and replied:
"A good many persons are making
a fine, fat living at this settlement and