The Press: In Central Park

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It is fantastic for a nation proclaiming the lofty ideals of America to exhibit a criminal record worse than that of any other civilized country. Other nations in recent years have been curbing crime. . . .

Responsibility for the existing conditions rests with the homes, schools, churches, communities and the legal profession. The fault is not with the police and prisons so much as with us, the people. . . .

Henry Goddard Leach, 54, A. B. A. M. Ph. D., Commander of the North Star (Sweden), Knight of St. Olav (Norway), Knight of Falcon (Iceland), and president of the American-Scandinavian Foundation, read over what he had written for the next issue of his Forum and found it good. It would make a whacking lead editorial.

After okaying the galley proof, Editor Leach scribbled a headline: "The Revolt Against Crime." He clapped a hat over his thinning brown hair, slipped into a raincoat, picked up his umbrella, strode out of the Forum office and joined the late afternoon crowds hurrying along Manhattan's Lexington Avenue. There was plenty of time for his customary brisk jaunt through Central Park before dinner.

Completing the traditional "once around the reservoir," Editor Leach bounced along the West Drive toward a Park exit, thinking of the anti-Crime indignation he hoped to arouse. Suddenly two men jumped from the shrubbery into his path. One pinioned Editor Leach's arms, forced him to his knees. The other mercilessly drove his fists again &again into Editor Leach's face, closed both his eyes. The ruffians took Editor Leach's wallet, containing $40, and his gold watch, chain & penknife which his wife had given him before they were married. By the time the editor recovered sight & senses his attackers had vanished. But he found a small address book which later led to the arrest of one of the hold-up men.

Home from the hospital, with a trained nurse at his bedside, Editor Leach felt cheerful enough to talk through his bandages to reporters. Said he: "The public and I have not been after the police enough to have the Park properly protected."

What disappointed Editor Leach as much as anything was the fact that he could not attend that night's meeting of the Poetry Society of America. He was to have been inaugurated president.