Newspaper Page Text
12
lech In His Own Tongue.”
Our readers will remember a poem published in
a recent issue as anonymous, with the above sub
ject. We have been interested, to receive the fol
lowing letter from a friend, who sends us a clipping
containing the poem credited to “M. Perkins.”
She also furnishes Ihe poem, “Not Evolution,”
written as a reply which we take pleasure in pub
lishing:
Dear Mr. Upshaw:
In the last issue of “The Golden Age” you have
a poem, “Each in his own tongue,” signed “An
nonymous. ’ ’
The poem seemed familiar to me, and a little
searching brought it to light. It appeared in 'the
“Harvest Home” (1901) number of “The Bo
hemian,” a magazine published at Fort Worth,
Tex., by my sister, Mrs. H. C. L. Gorman. Wheth
er or not it was written specially for “The Bo
hemian” I cannot say. The poems are identical
except for thd 3rd line from the close. The “Gol
den Age” has it:
“The same straight pathway plod.”
While in this version the line is: “The straight,
hard pathway trod.”
I thought, perhaps, you might be interested.
Wishing you great success in your grand fight
for temperance and purity and praying that the
cause may grow and strengthen until the white
banner waves triumphant over all our land, I am
Cordially yours,
(Mrs.) Mary Ligon Miller.
Trenton, S. C.
NOT EVOLUTION.
The wheeling of the wond’rous spheres.
Evince their author’s power,
While all that is material
Is lasting but an hour;
But Hope, that spark eternal.
To all who life’s road plod,
Shines on beyond decay and death
And softly whispers God.
Some only see material signs,
While others see the Cause,
Some think it “all just happened so,”
While others think ’tis “Laws.”
And some peer deeper ’long life’s path
Than materialists have trod,
They see that nature plainly shows
The handiwork of God.
Does cold, cold clay envelop
Something that lives for aye?
Are Love, and Hope, and Reason,
Productions of mere clay?
Are not they something paramount
To material things of sod?
Were they born of Evolution.
Or is their author God?
The idea of beginning
Was born of finite mind,
And reason’s ray can only reach
And measure finite’s kind.
There’s something in the human frame,
That was not born of sod,
If Evolution made the soul,
Then Evolution’s God.
Fort Worth, Tex. Elmon Armstrong.
Get a Business Education
The Golden Age will sell at a great
reduction a scholarship entitling the
holder to a complete course in the
Southern Shorthand and Business
University, Atlanta, Ga. Write, if you
wish a course in bookkeeping, stenog
raphy, telegraphy, or anything taught
in this University, to
THE GOLDEN AGE,
Atlanta, Ga.
The Golden Age for February 28, 1907
Gambling Evil in New York.
The last issue of Ridgway’s Weekly, which un
fortunately ceased publication after February 9th,
contains a most excellent and significant article
by Hartley Davis on the “Menace of New York’s
Great Gambling Evil.” This article is in many
respects a revelation to the uninitiated who, while
appreciating the evils of gambling in a general
way, have no idea of the methods used in “profes
sional” gambling hells. We quote the following
extracts from the paper in question, and feel sure
they will prove of interest to our readers, even
though Mr. Davis’ conclusions may not be indorsed
by us:
“The tremendous hold of the gambling mania
on its victims is a familiar thing. So far as a
vast majority of the pool-room players is concern
ed, this common mania is supplemented with a de
sire to get rich quick, to secure money to buy
greater comforts and luxuries for themselves and
their families, for in New York at least an over
whelming number of the pool-room victims are
married. They feel they cannot accumulate the
money they want through saving, and they have
ever before them the evidence that men do make
great sums by betting on races.
“A person who persuades others to enter a
gambling house and bet is called a ‘capper’ or a
‘plugger. ’ The greatest cappers for the pool
rooms are the newspapers. Nine-tenths of all the
news they print about horse races is for the bene
fit of those who bet on them. The pages devoted
to ‘past performances’ are for the gamblers exclu
sively, and more especially for the pool-room play
ers. It is no exaggeration to say that these make
thousands of pool-room gamblers.
“Even more effective are the newspaper stories
about the great sums won by gamblers. If they
record that fact that John W. Gates made $50,000
in a day, it means nothing particularly because
Mr. Gates is many times a millionaire. But when
a plunger who came from nothing at all makes a
killing, hundreds of men are tempted to emulate
him.
“In these sophisticated days it is not necessary
to ask why the pool-rooms are permitted to flourish
despite drastic laws. Even schoolboys know it is
because of graft. The police control the pool
rooms. The politicians control the police. They
each share in the profits, made possible by their
protection.
“In the old days, before investigations revealed
conditions, and before the district attorney was
feared, the police department was practically in
control of the situation. Members of it blackmailed
the illegal places, and politicians blackmailed the
police. Patrolmen, roundsmen, sergeants, captains,
inspectors—every grade gathered in as much graft
as was possible.
“Then came an era when the collecting was
done from headquarters. The boss of the depart
ment arrogated to himself the revenue from the
gambling places. He selected a bartender working
in a saloon run in connection with a gambling house
and made him official collector, so to speak. None
could open a gambling place, whether a house or
a pool-room, without consulting the ex-bartender.
A few tried to ignore him, only to be raided and
closed up within twenty-four hours.
“In four years the police official and the ex
bartender divided $4,000,000 between them. Each
actually had $2,000,000 when the police official
lost his job.
tS..
XXhi m XrM- £H
WRITE A POSTALFOR LARGE
plain. All vehicles are shipped direct from our factory. Our prices are the very lowest. Be sure M m r»lf ai y iti, arc complete and
to see our astonishingly low prices and the most liberal terms over offered to you. IWAHVIN &IWITH GO. CHICAGO. ILL.
“Nowadays the system is different. The mini
mum sum paid by the recognized pool-rooms to
the police is SSO a week. It ranges from that to
SIOO for the larger rooms. This is the price of
protection from raids or any interference other than
the foolish practice of placing a uniformed police
man at the entrance to warn people that the sus
pected pool-room is a gambling place and likely to
be raided. It is the custom for the pool-room
owners to give this policeman $5 if he will ac
cept it.
“Os this SSO a week, it is understood that $25
goes to the captain of the precinct in which is
the pool-room, and $25 to the inspector who is
his superior. The captain does not collect for the
inspector, nor the inspector for the captain. Each
has his own man to attend to that important part
of the arrangement.
“The captain doesn’t always get this $25, and
this is true also of the inspector, for one may
find honest men in these positions. If the officials
cannot be reached, the money is paid to their under
lings in whom they have mistaken confidence.
“I am convinced that the real solution is one
that will cause every moralist to hold up his hands
in horror. It is the licensing of a limited number
of pool-rooms under the most rigid restrictions.
If it is impossible to stamp out an evil, the next
best thing is to regulate it, even if honest, sincere
folk do shout against any compromise with evil
or vice.
“It is interesting to bear in mind that the police
grafters and the political grafters are thoroughly
in accord with the high moralists on the proposi
tion to license gambling places.”
The Wall of Years.
I ask my pa some questions,
Like What makes people grow?
And Where the wind has gone to
The times it doesn’t blow?
Pa smokes and reads his paper
And hums and. says, “Er—oh”—
And then he makes this answer:
“Well, you’re too young to know.”
Pa asks me ’bout the fairies
And where I saw ’em hide.
And how I knew fat ogres
Had little boys inside?
I look at pa in pity
That he should be so slow,
And then I make this answer:
“Well, you’re too old to know.”
—Judge.
A Carrier Pigeon.
A remarkable story of the sagacity and physical
endurance of a carrier pigeon is told in Nansen’s
story of his arctic explorations. One day the pigeon
tapped at the window of Mrs. Nansen’s home in
Christiana. It was immediately opened, and the
little messenger was covered with kisses and caresses
by the explorer’s wife. After an absence of thirty
months from the cottage the pigeon had brought
a note from the explorer over a thousand miles of
frozen waste and another thousand of ocean, plain
and forest.—Our Dumb Animals.
