Son

In Manhattan, a month ago, detectives observed the conduct of a raggedy, bearded "bummer" on an elevated railway platform; questioned him, arrested him, took him to court, whence he departed with a pocketful of money given by court attendants who thought they knew a good old scoundrel when they saw one.

He was Pat Crowe, "outlaw, author and lecturer," whose misdemeanors began with robbing Omaha streetcars in 1890 and included a diamond theft, homicidal attempts, a visit to and escape from Joliet prison, hold-ups and pilfering on railroads. Lately Pat Crowe has been going straight, the foeman of crime and drink. Pamphlets that stuffed their author's pockets said: "The best man we have this side of eternity is the man who warns us of possible danger. . . . Beware of hypocrites and deceivers who sit in high places."

Last week, a detective in Washington, D. C., was reminiscing to newspaper reporters about a plan Pat Crowe had once had (and been foiled in) to kidnap John Davison Rockefeller. Crowe had figured he could get as much as a million dollars for a Rockefeller, and he knew the market fairly well. He had once got $25,000 for a Cudahy, 15-year-old Edward Aloysius Cudahy Jr., then of Omaha, Neb., where Mr. Cudahy Sr. was engaged in the meat business. On trial, five years later, Pat Crowe had successfully maintained that young Cudahy had suggested the kidnaping himself and had received $6,000 of the ran-By coincidence, Edward Aloysius Cudahy Jr. also appeared in the news last week. Many years have passed. Pat Crowe has gone straight. And newspaper readers discovered how false was the impression they have had of Cudahy Jr. ever since Pat Crowe's kidnaping trial. Last week the boy who was once suspected of being a sly young rascal was elected President of the Cudahy Packing Co., of Chicago, after 20 years in the business, during the past ten of which, as Vice President, he "had relieved the elder Cudahy of many of his more arduous duties," so that "the recent progress of the company is due in no small measure to his efforts."

Grandson

In Princeton, N. J., the undergraduate daily newspaper of the university there situate prints a perennial advertisement :

Come to JOE'S There you get those good Majestic Sandwiches There you get a small check cashed

It is honest advertising. Majestic sandwiches are -- majestic. And all the "small checks" that black-haired, sleepy-eyed Joe has cashed for empty-pocketed freshmen must by now tot up a figure somewhere near what Joe's countrymen, the Italians, borrowed from the U. S. during the War. Obliging to a fault, Joe shifts his cigar-stub, bends upon his supplicants the most perfunctory glance of appraisal, punches his register and hands over five, ten, fifteen dollars with out demur. Sometimes the scribbled slips he takes to the bank come back marked "No Funds" or "Unknown." But not often. Joe's advertisement and his faith in man continue.

Last week, however, a youth whose face shone clean and pleasant beneath his black skullcap, said something just as Joe was opening the cash-drawer to "oblige" him. The youth said: "I'm John D, Rockefeller III. I. . . ." Sock! went the cash-drawer, tight shut. Joe wiped a glass on his spotted apron. The freshman stammered, expostulated. Finally Joe spoke. "Nutting doing," he said around his cigar-stub. "A guy worked dat on me last year."

Had it been sleek, blond Jack Honore, the tall and loquacious Swedish barber just down Nassau Street, the check would have been cashed. Great Princeton character though Joe is, Barber Jack is a greater. By some occult means, he possesses himself of names, schools, home towns, parental fames--some say, of the tax returns, creeds and girlfriends' names--of every member of every entering class. Barber Jack would have known instantly that the freshman spoke the truth, that he was indeed John Davison Rockefeller III. He would have known that Freshman Rockefeller had entered Princeton University after preparing at Loomis Institute, that he was studying for a B. S. degree, that some day, all things being equal, Freshman Rockefeller would be one of Princeton's most eminent alumni, one of her most important trustees.