Judge — February 19, 1921 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Drawe by Heawas Patan Reveen P. Scescwer, President Grorce I, Steicuer, § Perxrronx esq baree Editor E. Rottaver, Treasurer James S. Metcarre, C buting Editor J. A. Warnrox, Associate Editor HIS is indeed sad. Miss Lucy Page Gaston has lost her salary. In spite of the notoriety which the daily press delights in bestowing on any one who does any- thing conspicuously silly, ill-mannered or in bad taste, there are doubtless many readers of JupGr who haven't the faintest idea on earth who Miss Lucy Page Gaston is. For their information, and even at the cost of giving her more of the advertising for which persons of her kind hunger, it y be stated that she is the individual who wrote an imper- tinent letter to President-elect Harding, based on the suspicion that he had, might have, or perhaps could have, at some time in his life, smoked a cigarette. The fact that he received the let- ter was given by the daily press a wider publicity than it deserved and, in the eyes of some persons who get their educ n from headlines, its writer immediately became an impor- tant public character. A to the lost salary. It seems that the lady was the organ- izer of the Kansas Anti-Cigarette League. The advertis- ing she had secured for herself and the cause doubtless endeared her to that organization as well as to the national body which promotes the same cause and has its headquarters in Chicago Perhaps the lady over estimated the amount of that endear- ment and presumed on it too far. When she announced that an organ to be called by the highly humorous and original title of Coffin Nails, and which intended to swat the hated cigarette off the face of the earth, was to be published from opeka, Kansas, her fellow-leaguers became indignant, chopped off her salary and refused to be responsible for bills she might incur in battling with the insidious enemy of the human race. It is stated that the more important national cigarette-haters at the Chicago headquarters also disapproved of Cofin Nails. HE sadness of this case is heartrending. There are few spectacles on earth more pitiful than that of a reformer without a salary and an expense account. If there is no salary and no expense account, why be a reformer? To many persons the words reform and salary are almost synonymous. One begets the other. They follow each other as the night the day. To them a reform would carry no meaning unless it also carried a salary, and where would the salary be without the reform to produce the needed funds? To havea salary from a reform, to be chopped off from that salary and then sce the reform march- ing gloriously on, paying other salaries, is a cruelty which no one can appreciate except the one who has suffered the awful experience. UT let us revert to Miss Lucy Page Gaston Ierself. Is she downhearted? No! A thousand times, no! There is lowa. Kansas may no longer be so fertile for reforms as it has been, but in Iowa there is one born every minute. Upon learn- ing that she had been amputated from her salary in Kansas, Miss Gaston announced that she would proceed iinmediately to Iowa and start an Anti-Cigarette League there Jupce has a very tender feeling in his heart for Miss Gaston in her hour of defeat, but fears that there is another disappoint- ment in store for her. -It is impossible that the great and intelli- gent State of lowa is without an Anti-Cigarette League already established, and paying salaries. Knowing something of lowese history in similar matters, JuDGE feels positive that the great State has not overlooked this opportunity tu save its minority inhabitants from the consequences of wicked enjoy- ment. Towa has always been very quick on the trigger in the make-your-neighbor-good-by-law business, and it is not to be believed that she has missed this chance to spread dis- comfort But Miss Gaston has the assurance of Jupce’s distinguished sympathy. Perhaps she has learned a lesson. If she had destroyed that letter to the new President before she wrote it, she would not now be in her salaryless condition. YOOR little, old New York. She doesn't even get out of one peck of trouble before she finds herself in another bushel. Right on top of the mammoth system of extortion in the building trades comes evidence of an extensive undermining of the police department by a new method of graft. This time it isn’t the old unholy alliance that has existed be- tween thieves and their takers since the days of custodes ipsos and before. The new graft is based on the lawless methods of the labor unions. In strikes manufacturers and merchants are fully entitled to police protection against crimes of violence directed at persons and property. Of late policemen have simply declined to perform that duty against strikers until the ims had made the proper, or most improper, financial rangements with men well up in police circles. In the old days when the deals were with criminals, gam- blers and others who could not afford to give information, the grafting was comparatively safe. When business men are com- pelled to pay blackmail under duress it is only a question of op- portunity when they will turn on their oppressors. On that account Judge Whitman, the special prosecutor in the present crusade, is finding much evidence against high police officials. New York is politically the dirtiest metropolis in the world. But some day she may clean up. San Francisco did once. comicbooks.com