Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-07-12
Fifty Years Ago
In The Star

The crime of Charles Jules Guiteau.
who shot President Garfield on the %
Many Cranks in attention Sus 10th to the o fact
Washington. that Washington
was dangerously
peopled with eccentrics and radicals and
grievance bearers. One of them. named
Mcnamara, was taken by the police and
sent to the insane asylum. The Star OF
July 6, 1881. says of this use:
The police authorities were exactly
right in promptly sending McNamara,
the insane man. who says his mission Is
to kill Secretary Blaine or Vice Presl-
dent Arthur, to the asylum. 1t Is true
that a man who talks so openly of his
mission, ETC., is not so dangerous as the
secretive lunatic, but there is no telling
what sort of delusion might next take
possession Of his diseased mind. Wash
ington is a sort of Mecca for lunatics.
monomaniacs and cranky people. Many
Of them conceive some idea in connec.
ton with the Government, or have some
imaginary claim, or some absurd meas
ure for presentation to Congress. They
hang about here, and though harmless
at first, exposure and hunger may con-
vert them into dangerous characters.
There is a regulation under which the
police can arrest individuals of this
hAAlO, anu ~ 1lOSI 11SANuy CA1-
forced. A distorted and diseased mind
like that of McNamara's looks upon
Guiteau as hero. and might become
filled with the idea of committing a
similar deed for the sake of notoriety."
"The boast is made by the Cincinnati
Enquirer" says The Star of July 6. 1881,
Tb. S+er'. that it printed and sold
Ane 0'ai 100000 copies in one day
Extras. during the excitement in
cident to the Presidents
critical condition, claiming that this is
by far the largest number ever circu-
lated by any paper west of the Ale
ghany Mountains. But comparing the
population of Cincinnati with that of
thickly settled country Immediately
around Cincinnati and the number Of
populous cities within easy reach. as
compared with the sparsely settled
country in the vicinity of Washington
and the limited facilities for reaching
it, the circulation of the Enquirer is not
half as great, relatively, as that Of The
Evening Star on Saturday, for example.
OF the first extra edition alone on that
day more than $1,000 copies were
printed and promptly sold, and from
night The Stars fast, mammoth press
was constantly kept running at its high
est rate of speed, and still not able at
times to meet the urgent and insistent
calls upon it from the city and neigh
boring townsville aggregate, however.
putting up nearly two-thirdS of the
Enquirer's large figures. great part
of this extraordinary demand for The
Star was doubtless due to the quick.
clear and comprehensive manner in
which it covered the whole field of news
on that occasion, and for which I'M
stinted words of appreciation and praise
| are still reaching it from every quarter
but it sprang still more largely from
popular interest in. and sympathy with
the stricken head of the Nation No.
where was this feeling more deeply en-
tertained or more spontaneously and
fervently expressed than in Washing
| ton: and we record this fact and the
evidence of 1t with even more pride arI
qualification than we feel in receiving
so many and such hearty tributes to
The Stars enterprise and success in
| meeting the just expectations of the
public on the melancholy occasion which
called it forth"