The Washington herald., 1920-11-07
HAVEN
OF LOSTHOPES
Men With Brilliant Pass.
End Lives in New York
Slum District.
~ 0. 0. MCINTYRE.


New York. Noy s--Playwrishts
are fond of showing a character in
one scene surrounded BY crook
kneed iackeys enjoying the gor-
geousness Of palace library and in
the next occupying a stall In q Bow
cry fop house. The descent is rapid
indeed. but there are many stops be-
tween affluence. and the tensment
slums.
Every man on the tobogran ciings
at anything that win hold him back
for very few return from the Bow.
cry. On the side streets on lower
Fifth avenue are hundreds Of cooped
up Offices where one may always get
q job addressing envelopes. The pay
Is 81 thousand and 1t pliers a
refuge for derelicts.
o. Henry found much material in
the addressing shops. Men who can
quote Marcus Aurelius: young men
only a few years removed from a
college campus and already lined
and marked with dissipation; white
haired old .patriarchs, fiouted with
lives been round pegs In square
holes-human misfits.
There are dried up men In little
skull caps, resembling peevish peli.
cans, who sit from sun up until af-
ter dark scratching of names on en- !.
velopes. They do Il to forget. Some
were once college professors. The
addressing business Is about the
last stop before one goes into the
discard and hides away among the
fiotsam OF the Bowery.
Another field that offers temper.
airy sustenance is track sweeping.
AT the crowded corners there must
be some one to grease the tracks
and keep the curves free from im-
pediments. One is furnished with q
blue suit and receives 50 a day but
there Is danger of being recognized,
and so these jobs generally 60
begging.
After one reaches the Bowery the
Job OF carrying q sign strapped
around the neck advertising CHEAP
cafes. pawnshops and what not Ii
always open. The pay is SO cents a
day. and all one has to do is walk
the streets of the East Side.
1t is because IL is SO easy to hide
in a great city that those who are
cast adrift and go down and down
rarely go to smaller communities.
Some one has said that New York
in calling says: Come or stay
you who are eager. promise every
thing and may give that or moth
ing"
Book collectors are now paying
5000 a copy for Mile. New York, that
brilliant periodical that Vance
Thompson edited and Tom Powers
illustrated twenty years ago. II
was far ahead of its time for II
printed vers libre and accounts of
the Black Mass. II also spoke hope
fully of the Cubist art. There were
only fourteen issues and then il
died. Now 1t is in great demand.
In those days Bunner of Puck
fourished. Also Will Mcconnell, OF
the old Bostonians, and Barnabee
and Frothingham. Charles s. NJ. Nc
Lellan. who was editing Town Top
les. wrote The Belle OF New York.
that made Edna May famous and
brought Dave Warheld out of San
Francisco obscurity to fame.
Only twenty years ago--yet how
things have changed In those
days Franklin Fyles every Monday
morning wrote a review of an East
Side melodrama in a serious vein
Now the melodrama is as out OF
date as the gold ear pick. Action
Davies was the best-known dra-
matte critic. He has gone, and there
are critics writing today who do no,
even know OF his fame.
William Winter, the celebrated
Tribune critic, was an old man then,
and at first nights people looked al
him hunched up and apparently
asleep in mis- seat. They rather
pitied him until they picked up the
Tribune the next morning and read
his clean-cut reviews. He never
missed a point.
1t appears to be quite easy TO
run into debt in New York. A GER
tain actor playwright went into
bankruptcy last week and made the
statement that he owes s47,oil. He
had no assets. He found It quite
easy to live at one hotel for two
months and run up a bill of more
than $1,000. At one restaurant he
had a charge account by merely
signing his name to the check for a
$50 dinner one night. II was SO easy
that he went back again and again
and he had contracted bill of more
than $500 before he was called to
settle. Fifth avenue jewelers. trusted
him over the telephone. His tailor
never asked him question. He
just went in and ordered clothing
and with a flourish asked that the
bill be sent to him at a certain
prominent hotel where he stopped.
A New York magazine editor. in a
moment of devilment, issued a
challenge to neglected literary
geniuses inviting them to send him
their scorned manuscripts. He
would SEQ that they got a fair deal,
The manuscripts came withta rush
tidal wave in fact, gushing in
from all parts OF the republic. IN the
entire lot he found exactly one
manuscript showing sense and skill.
The first publisher to which IL was
sent accepted it forthwith. But II
happened this manuscript was nor
the work of a neglected genius. II
was written by a man who had Al.
ready one novel printed by a reuu.
table house. The fact of tt was that
out of 34S manuscripts not n single
case of neglected. genius was found
Most of the manuscripts came from
the Los Angeles neishborhood. There
are so many people out there who
have written moving picture see
narious successfully that they feel
1t is quite easy to write a revel
and so they try. The South Is also
a prolific field for amateur writer's.
Fiction editors say that they get
most out of their MANUSCRIPTS from
that section.