Evening star., 1938-03-20
Fifty Years Ago
In The Star
March Storm
Hits Capital,

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n.u., c4 and did great damage
A~oAoA o'oAM and caused intense
Hits Capital. suffering. The Star Of
March II, 1885, says:
Nothing that has happened in Wash
ington Of late years has emphasized more
thoroughly than yesterdays storm the
evil results of depending for electric tele-
graph, telephone and lighting facilities
on system of aerial wires. A cold March
rain, accompanied by wind. is all that is
necessary to cut of communications in
every direction and isolate the city from
the rest of the world and certain parts
of the city from all other parts. Our
underground wires have been In good
working order for the last "a hours
The overhead wires have proved per-
feet failure in the face of the bad
weather. 1t will be happy accident if
there are no bad railway disasters out
side of the city and no unattended or
half-attended fires inside of it, traceable
to broken electric currents and the mis-
carriage of alarms. to make the mi
careme riot Of the elements more
memorable"
Ill lu4 llkC1 COululNAOo uRO1l C1lC SACud0
ton The Star of March 13. 1888, said:
w. "Washington's ex-
Ne"S oi ollMe perience for the
And the Storm, last day or two
throws some light
upon problem which has long furnished
the social scientists with material for
controversy. 1t is common saying that
the world is growing morally worse in
stead of better, but the prudent reasoner
will think twice before he accepts such q
judgment as final. The earth is becom-
ing daily more densely peopled, so that
the aggregate of crime may be higher
without increasing or even maintaining
the average, and the popular demand for
news has become so much more extensive
that thousand occurrences every day,
which a half century ago would have
been passed by in silence because consid-
cred too trivial for record, are now spread
upon the printed page in the fullest
form. To show how great an influence
this matter of easy news transmission
has upon the worlds judgment of its own
moral condition. reference need only be
made to last evenings Star, which con-
tanned all the news of the "a hours since
general teleRraphic and rail communica-
ton had been suspended by the storm
Every item If intelligence, likely to be of
interest to the public and that could be
gathered by an able and energetic staf1
of employees, was printed and yet there
was not a mention of misdeed that had
occurred since the storm began of more
importance than the carrying of razor
by colored man. a little stone throwing
by youth and a case of profanity in the
streets of Georgetown What is the in
ference from this, If we adopt as sound
the line of argument pursued by the
pessimists? Are we to assume that Wash
ington Is so virtuous city that. when
cut of from the rest of the world, it
know no crime? Or are we to conclude,
because we did not hear of any murders,
thefts, bigamies, riots and other human
sins and shortcomings for "a hours, that
the world had experienced change of
heart and begun to grow better?
Either of these deductions would have
been quite as fair as that which the de-
famers of their race have presented in
drawing from the statistics of crime. If
1t is true sign that mankind is degen-
Grating, because we hear more about the
bad things that are done >than our
grandfathers did, then 1t is an equally
true sign that reformation had set in
II we cease to hear of any serious evil
doing"