Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-01
By
Gardner
Hunting.

her way back to today, among fallen
young bodies, wrtthing and stark. In
less fevered hours, she heard John Knox
preach and Paganini play! Again she
saw. Macedonian phalanx in battle
with hordes of unknown naked savages
She saw what had once been man
taken from Calcutta's Black Hole. She
heard the Confederates yell at Ante
tam!-and saw bullet pull the white
lining out through the blue of a Union
soldiers coat! And she lay in her bed
staring, sleepless, with every fiber in her
body shaking, on a night after she had
looked into a Russian prison!
People could not write or converse
sanely about the Vicarion; they gave
UP trying. They gave UP shaking their
heads in amazement or apprehension.
They only crowded the theaters, old and
new. They crowded every building
which opened It's doors with announce
rnent of the Vicarion.. Her home city
famed with signs. In one theater in
which she sat scenes in other cities
were shown, where throngs fought for
opportunity to see liquid life. San Fran
cisco, Denver, Chicago. Philadelphia,
New York! You could see their eyes
dare-and hear them pant.
America was mad. Europe was waiting
agape until a supply of the new mar
wells could be afforded for consumption
there. Every day that the girl ira
versed the streets she saw the spread of
Brainard's activities. Building after
building was taken over, at any cost,
at every inconvenience to other inter-
ests. The fire which destroyed that
block of studios. once belonging to Com
plete Illusions, but bought for Brainard,
did not even delay his expansion. He
swept on into the suddenly .paralyzed
headquarters Of the former monopoly
like a rolling flood. 1t was rumored
enemy aimed at him. It was said that
the former members of Complete nlu-
sions Incorporated had schemed, con-
Spired, fought, begged, wept, In their
crazed efforts to check him first and
then to destroy him. But 1t was rumor-
ed. too, that Brainard had simply re-
corded their conspirings and their weep
ings and held them ready to show in
public when he might choose.
One night Phyllis saw two men sud-
denly come madly to blows before q
theater ticket office over some quarrel
about right of way. A score Of people
were hurt in panic resulting from q
rush at the Bijou-Pacific on the night
when certain real history behind the
evidence in a historic divorce trial was
shown. A committee of public safety,
so-caIled. announced that showings of
the Vicarion would be stopped until all
records could be viewed and passed
upon by authority; but nothing hap
pened and it was said that Brainard
had responded that he would welcome
such censorship, provided the censors
would first submit their own careers
to the Vicarion's eye. The leaders in
thusiastic. A mob demolished a trolley
car that stopped one evening in its
midst before the doors of the Palais
Royale and blocked free passage to the
entrance. A train load of Brainard's
bombs was wrecked as it started East
from the Salt Lake yards, in Los An
geles, because somebody had put ties
across the tracks; next day a fanatic
who had done the thing was in jail,
picked UP first by 1.-The Vicarion and
then by the officers. A prisoner es-
capped from San Quentin, and that
night. before he was caught, his move
mentS were shown in Santa Monica
theaters. A popular preacher de-
nounced Brainard in unmeasured terms
in his pulpit on Sunday morning;
and that night he arrived in his church
to ind his congregation gaping at q
presentation there Of him
self repreaching recent sermon on
charity. A trial was stopped instantly
in q local court by a sudden appear
aIice OF the exact fe-enactniefit of the
deed involved, which frightened two
witnesses for the defense into confess
sion of perjury. A notorious dive at
a. nearby beach suddenly closed its
doors, after one scene from its parlors
was shown in the prosecuting attor-
ney's Office.
A newspaper said that q man had
come to Brafnard claiming to have
discovered the secret Of the vicarion;
and Brainard had merely retorted.
You haven't any secrets don't
knowl" And this phrase spread from
mouth to mouth. slanged and laughed
at, but persisting because II was an
expression. In reverse perhaps. Of q
universal fear. ].
!. People grew uneasy-eyed indees over
that approached private