The Washington times., 1931-09-16
True tOType
$ NEW PRESSURE GAUGE
FOR PUBLIC FURY
REQUIRED .
.Bv GILBERT SELlDES-

No one has vet invented a pressure gauge for public
sentiments invention for which politicians and states
would pay WELL Nearly every other sort OF power
is measured and less predctable; but about
public opinion have only vague words. 1t is in
famed" or outraged" "apahetic." We cannot say
that today it is aroused 60 degrees and that by placing
certain fuels on the fire bring to 62S about
the only thing of is that public opinion IS
not to be depended that it is tricky and mysterious
In New York
Only few weeks ago public opinion in New York was
presumably at boiling point the subject of murder.
Opinion was so infamed that act of cardinal injustice
was allowed to pass without rebuke the killing OF
chauffeur who had driven for two murderous
gangsters.
The chaufeurs innocence has since been publicly pro-
claimed by the Commissioner of Poce but public opinion
is not reused by proclamations of innocence 1t was
properly reused by murder at the time and connected
gang murders with beer running awlessness racketeerng
and that mysterious thing called protection"
The Laundry Racket
Well the other night skillfuly made meodrama based
on rackeeerng and protection offered to the New
York public It avoided the familiar figures of the liquor
racket and dwelt with such simple the opening
of small laundry the pathetic little endeavor in busi-
ness which is common throughout the country, the little
package of hope and ambition and fear which hides
behind every business sign window over door.
In this it was, naturally, young man who saved
few hundred dollars, started his laundry, took his
fancee into the business to help him and hoped at the
end of six months to enough to get married He
couldn't pay the hundred month which the racketeer de-
manded so. his opening day, his front window was
bombed and the first big order he got ruined by acids
thrown into the washing machines.
The play is called "Just to Remind YOu," and is by
Owen Davis old master of meodrama since the days
Of the ten, twent thirs The rest of the plot doesn't
matter it is in truth rather thrilling What struck me
in the reaction of the audience verified by friends who
saw it after the openng) that the meodrama was
heartily accepted; but the indignation for which the
author was striving the moral effect for which he had
written the play, almost entirely lacking. We
couldn't get excited about the fate of the young laundry
man. We refused to view with alarm. LET the CALLED
Jade VINCE" we said, "our withers unwrung." We
simply refused to believe that crime and racketeerng
had home us, although three weeks earlier chill
dren had been shot streets
No Walls Of Wrath
do not imagine that the New York theater is actually
barometer of the feeling of the country and it's first
night audiences certainly interested in them
selves and in the theater than they in any public
problem. Yet in this case the response fairly
accurate. For in large cities indignation has to be
fomented and quickly dies down.
great roundup of criminals took place few days
after the street shoongs which alarmed New York; and
within week nearly all the criminals had been released
by due process of law. Here matter for wrath and
editorial writer's did their bes-but the fire had died
out. The press the pulpit, the RADIO the talies and
finally the theater had combined to stir the pubc-nd
the public is going about it's private business because
hasn't learned that in this time the public business
ought to be it's first
An End to the Sneer>
At another play noticed the decline of another en-
thusiasm, and was glad of it mean the enthusiasm