The Washington herald., 1918-05-21
BY o. o. MCINTYRE,

Special Correspondent Of The Washington Herald.
New York. May 20.-In a huge.
dark, smelly tenement at 92 Horatin
street lives Annie Mackinen. A
block away is the Hudson river
front. There is little sunlight or
cheer in the few small and crowded
rooms she calls home OF the
trees, of birds. OF flowers. of the
beauty OF nature she knows and
sees little. She is only 80 years old.
Four children she has brought
into the world. In addition to her
own family she watches over the
five children Of another woman on
the same floor. for the other woman
goes each day to toll for bread.
Every day is a workday in the
life of Annie Mackinen. She washes.
scrubs. cooks, mends. irons. or
holiday she knows nothing. Yet
she says this is a blessed country.
Eight of her brothers have answer
ed the call of duty-the call to
battle for freedom. One has made
the supreme sacrifce-killed in ac-
tion in France.
One has been wounded three times
and is at the front again. Three
others have been wounded. One has
been a prisoner of war since 1914.
Out of the wages of her husband.
out of his pay as a lonGshoreman.
this woman has pinched and saved
and bought $500 of Liberty Bonds.
One bond she bought the day be-
fore the child now nursing at her
breast was born.
1t becomes difficult for the most
of US to measure out patriotism by
that of Annie MacKinCn-whoi is by
the way a daughter of Scotland ana
resident for five years of the city
of New York. o. Henry used to say
that the real people were to be
found in the tenements. The re-
pOrters and sob sisters are finding
their greatest stories of patriotism
down among the tenement dwellers.
People in New York. in fact. are
beginning to wonder if they should
permit such a thing as a sitting.
cooped-up tenement. People who
live there, it seems, deserve a better
pla e to live in. a place with God S
sunlight and pure air. a place with
play spots for children.
Those who take to rhyming will
be interested in the blank wall that
New York versifiers have reached in
their efforts to rhyme Foch. Haig
and Pershing. 1t appears that it is
impossible for rhymesters to do any
thing worth while with these names.
Apps rCntly the only muse that can
inspire verse makers to the height
of rhyming the three rhymeless ones
| is an alcoholic one. Here is the ef-
| fort:
Said he. while tossing off a peg
OF spirits named for Gen. Haig:
Were wish you. Zheneral FOch
| AsH soon as ZheneTal Pershing
Gets through wish his rehearshing
Zhust watch us smash the Boche!
New York is now anxiously await
ing the appearance of the sober,
super-poet.
It was at one of those studio teas,
The same old types were there-thOse
who rant about the Cosmic urge to-
ward self-eXpression, the crying need
of the intellectual proletariat for lib
erty of utterance and the genera
upspurge of the masses clamorinE to
be heard in the arts. The effect is
to spread artistic Bolshevism. New
York swarms with schools and teach
ers protesting to teach artistic self
expression by dancing on the Greek
| form'-the boast is nearer the truth
| than they suspect. Graduates OF
their time and money and Drawn
expecting to be Mordkins, Chalifs oil
Pavlowas-and wind up with nothing
gained but sad experience. But tc
get back to this studio tea. They
were discussing prose impressionism
A man from the West listened awhile
grabbed his hat, said n, hell" ano
rushed out into the air.