The Washington herald., 1919-06-03

New York, June 2.-These are dark
days indeed for the police scribes
down at headquarters Commish En-
right. at the instigation Of the Mayor.
whom the reporters dignity with the
name of BLACK Mike has given ord
ers that the police reporters must keep
moving. They cannot ioiter about po-
lice headquarters. peep into hidden
chambers. search wsste-baskets for
hidden information in scraps Of paper.
Those days are gone When the
police reporters. some OF whom have
been covering headquarters for thir-
ty-five years, stroiled into the police
building the other day they were ap-
preached by a uniformed policeman
and told that they must keep moving
and not remain around the corners or
, the corridors.
The reasonI Well. there have been a
lot of safe crackings within stone
throw Of the police headquarters. The
reporters kldded the police for permit
ting crimes at their doorsteps. Dignity
bruised. Zowie! Out go the reporters
crackers crossed Fulton street.-the
dead line-and blew a safe in Wall
street. The police tried to suppress it;
the story leaked out. The police are
going to stop these leaks by sup
pressing reporters. BAsiness of sup
pressing a couple Of chortles.)
The dead line at Fulton street was
established to keep the crooks out of
the great financial center. Every
known crook was arrested the instant
he crossed Fulton street. He got a
swing up the river for it. too inva-
riably, for the police would dig UP old
charges. The crooks wisely have kept
away. But they are growing brazen
and the police are not anxious to let
it be known that their vigilance
skidded
In other words the police expect to
put censorship On news-as rigid
as that imposed in Darkest Russia.
But they will not do 1t. like police
men. When 1 was a boy I wanted to
be one. But there Is no denying that
in the profession of policing there are
lot of fat heads" When they at
tempt to suppress news from a lot of
trained news hounds they are attempt
ing the impossible.
There is a certain young sport writer
in Gotham-brilliant and perhaps sus-
ceptfble-who has been breezing about
I-oosteria lately with a charmingly
pretty movie star. The devotion ex-
cited much comment among the lit
erati. And then the romance seemed
to have burgeoned and bloomed for a
few weeks only. And II died. Per-
haps the reason may be found in this
! little lament in the sport writer's col
umn the other day. Here it is:
I only slipped on Broadway once
Yo no, Yo hoi
I know 1 looked like quite a Ounce
Yo no! Yo hoi
I thought that a butterfly loved me,
And dwelt in a world of ectasy
But the butterfly proved a big queen
bee!
Yo no! Yo no,
The well known gamblers of Broad
way and the cross streets suddenly
disappeared from their usual haunts
recently. 1t became such a mystery
that several newspapers commented
upon 1t. Then several days later word
drifted back from Fort Worth, the
new oil metropolis, that the gamblers
had decided to try their luck in the
pitch center OF the Texas oil fever.
Where people speculate, gamblers be-
lieve they will always gamble. The
poker sharps. faro wizards and the
deft rollers of dice were tipped off
by a confederate they sent on
scouting expedition and he reported
that the pickings looked promising.