Life — May 28, 1914 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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

Harvard graduates and professional uplifters, along with a few disciples, and proceed voluntarily to Dr. Woelf- kin’s church and offer, when it came to sermon time, to make the proceedings interesting by discussion of a live sub- ject; and what do Cornelius and his congregation do about it? Did they em- brace Bouck and Milo and Mrs. Milo and conduct them to the platform, and send a barker over to Fifth Avenue to collect more congregation, and proceed to discuss the subject? Not at all. The congregation might apparently have done something like that if left to their own devices, but what happened was intervention by the ushers and the police, and something like a free fight (which was pleasant enough, but not edifying) and banged heads and bloody noses and the removal of the intruders in the police wagon. It is true that nobody present knew that Bouck and Milo were professional Harvard uplifters! That explains a little. But what a waste! What a waste! Is it any wonder that people are reluctant churchgoers, but that that vulgar apostle, Billy Sunday, can draw a huge crowd whenever he slides across the platform? And he not only draws the crowd, but gives them re- ligion. Of course, the law and the police are on the side of the Rev. Cornelius and his ushers. So is the Evening Post and almost all respectable and law- abiding people. But what good to the churches are the law and the police and the Evening Post? “Free speech,” says the Post, “but not free tan- trums!” Very good; but does the Post go to church? We bet it doesn't. If it did it would amend its words and say “but not free tantrums e: lawful occupants of the pulpit know a person who goes to church regularly and have his word that when the Episcopal convention was here last fall he had to sit under a half-baked, ignorant visiting minister from Can- ada, who preached, not religion at all, but total abstinence, and declared that not if the King of England sat at his table would he set wine before him! That was simply tantrums in the pulpit by a lawful occupant, and that churchgoing folks have to bear. But try irregular tantrums and you get six months on the Island as boarder with Katharine B. Davis, who allows no meals sent in from the outside. Let us all support the law and the police, and leave the support of the Rev. Cornelius Woelfkin and the Calvary Baptist Church to persons lawfully responsive to that solemn duty. Outside help is not wanted there: talent is turned away. It seems, too bad, but we can’t help it. Not but what Bouck White and Milo Woolman are geese, and disorderly geese at that. We think they are, but the Rev. Cornelius Woelfkin’s method of driving them seems more foolish than they are. ECRETARY DANIELS has an- nounced with pride that he has Admiral Fletcher’s word for it that out of six thousand American sailors and marines landed at Vera Cruz, not one was drunk. Since he does not speak of Admiral Fletcher or any other officer having succumbed to liquor, it may be inferred that the offi- cers, too, got away decorously and without scandal with anything they had to drink at Vera Cruz. These edifying results were obtained under the rules and discipline that Mr. “Tow IT OUT TO SEA AND SINK IT” Daniels found in the navy when he came into possession of it. It would seem as if he was in danger of paint- ing the lily by devising new regula- tions against intoxicants for a navy whose conduct is already so conspicu- ously correct. But he does not see it so. Instead of announcing the with- drawal of his recent edict for the pro- tection of admirals from the insidious possibilities of beer and light wines, he declares firmly that “the order will go into effect July 1st”. VArious editors of our neighbor, the Globe, have been fined about a thousand dollars for printing, two days before it was delivered, a speech of Mr. Whitman's to the Becker jury, with a detailed report of its reception in court. Too bad to have any editor fined for anything, but the practice of put- ting in the paper stories of occurrences that have not happened is fine to dis- courage. It was bad luck to have printed the speech prematurely, but the details that went with it were invented, and the system that per- mitted them got just what it deserved. comichooks.