The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1919-02-19
,omned Full Of Men at =. M.
d. A. Meeting There Last
Night, and Hundreds
Turned Away.
RANouE I FOR THOUSAND
That Many Men to Start Some
thing at Dinner Next Week
After Wonderful Dem
onstration.

.we,,r have a thousand people In
,,at theater next Tuesday night.
. -aid Rem Kirch, manager OF the 7.
M q A. bouts one day last week.
- rhere were 1875 men in the thea
~ last hight and about 500 more
m 20 turned away when the doors
,,ere locked by compulsion or the nre
law OF Iowa. -,
The laws were Internationally vto-
mod as It was, because the crowd |
S ss in so rapidly that every inch
If aisle and standing room was filled
before the torrent of masculine
humanity could be stopped by strong
Ion forcing the outer doors shut.
II had been announced that the
soors would be opened at 7 o'clock,
and the performance begin at 1880
Pollock. At 7:15 o'clock the theater
vas TANNED from orchestra pit to
roof At 1925 o'clock, the program
was started.
All previous records of number OF
,eople in that theater were broken,
and the crowd outside pressed so
hard against the stage door, when
the front doors were locked, that it
was broken in.
The Triumph Of Ben kirch.
Ben Kirch has worked very hard
h make go of these bouts IN the
squared circle, and he had his
triumph last evening.
In the beginning. the red blooded
men of the factories and industrial
plants looked askance at the thing,
and some of them sneered at it. But
Kirch kept on, undaunted, putting on
a little better show each week, and
persuading boxers and wrestlers to
enter the contests. He staged bouts
attractively, and everybody who at
tended the first one told somebody
else about it next day.
The attendance was about seventy
the first Tuesday night, and last
night 1t was twenty times that big,
with half as many more turned away
for lack Of room.
1t was the most remarkable scene
that Keokuk has witnessed for many
years, and perhaps it never was
equalled in all its features.
Green Bay Tree Slow Grower.
1t started when some big men in
he industrial world decided to shoot
an electric current into the KeokIk
Y NJ. c. A., and make it get very
wide awake.
o. G. Mandt was the particular big
ind, and he was made chairman of
committee with c. w. kellogg and
James w. Huiskamp as nls asso-
ciates to generate lne current and
throw it into the Y. NJ c. A. They
did.
Mandt assigned his office chief as
executive of the new, idea here and
furnished plenty OF pep and money.
me result was seen last evening,
and il is not half done yet. 1t is
growing rapidly, and last night the
president Of the KeokulS Y. M. G. A.
accustomed TO suppers attended by
dozen to a score of members, was
overcome by having to provided sup
per Tor thousand men next Tues
Jay evening. That many said last
night they would be there and got
tickets for it.
nationwide Movement Started Here.
~ was announced last night that
DIT that supper there will be started
movement and organization new to
america that the Chicago and New
YORK papers viii feature on their
'front.' page. and that will spread all
over tho United States.
We're doing things in Keokuk,"
said b. S. Phillips from the stage,
and the fourteen hundred men
cheerod.
The largest banquet ever held in
heokuk-an industrial dinner of the
inen Who do the work in the fac
s9rles OF Keokuk,' was the way he
Tgnaracterlzed the doings Of next
tuesday night, and forty ticket dis
ltiouotrs We're swamped in minute,
proving that he spoke literally.
mere will really be a thousand
piates laid next Tuesday night, and
q panquet of that size under the aus
plees OF the Keokuk Y. M. C. A.,
msae some of its oldest officers gasp
last night
How Uncle Sam Does 1t.
Inc attraction last evening at the
~, ana was combination of a motion
pleture show, lecture and some hot
II, r.ests on the mat and in the ring
me motion pictures and the lee
- pte We're the educational work of
sne United States in the campaign
saaiting to wipe out venereal dis
uases as far as possible, parallel with
e campaign against tuberculosis of
recent years
IL would be hard to conceive a
mo o.e powerful lesson in purity for
men than the show put on last even
ing by Lieutenant d. J. jacobson. of
me medical corps of the army. as
signed 10 this work.
lew Illustrative and inform
scenes IN an army camp, there
N<iS SHOWN MAY that 1rn,,31 49,