Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 April 1912 — JLi *» [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JLi *»

Crossing Policeman is Like a Crusoe

CHICAGO.— “Who is the loneliest person in Chicago?” asked a traffic policeman the other day, an officer who sometimes looks at things from a novel standpoint. “It is not the crib tender, the bridge tender nor the night watchman. It Is not the elevated train operator In his secluded cage. It is not the scrubwoman who sweeps out the empty skyscraper between midnight and,sunrise. It is not the milkman nor the man who puts the town to bed. All of these are lonely, but none of them so lonely as the traffic ‘copper.’ - “This desolate Robinson Crusoe marooned in a sea of traffic with thousands brushing his 'elbows, with the hoarse cries of coal wagon drivers and the honk of automobile horns ever In his ears, holds the palm as"he loneliest man. Standing squarely in the heart of the city's uproar, his solitude Is deeper than that of the hermit or the aviator near the altitude mark.” “I could stand this job better,” continued the chaos dissipator at one of the busy downtown intersections several days ago, waving back a taxi with

one hand and drawing forward a tiny girl In a polo coat with the other, “Hilt wasn’t so lonesome. 1 used to gett so tired standing on my'feet all day. that I didn't notice ft at first, but lately that thought has been coming to me more and more. Why, sometimes I get so lonesome that I say* ‘Hello’ to some wagon driver, and that’s a dangerous thing to do. One morning while I was standing here and thinking what a terrible thing it Is to be all alone In the world along comes a big wagon with a red headed fellow sittin’ on the seat that looked like one T used to know, and I yell* out ‘Hello, Bank!* and the guy was so surprised he nearly fell off his seat. ‘“Hello yourself, you big stiff!’ he says. 'Don't try to kid me. Tm wise to you. I’mdrivln’ this team right and you can just let me alone.’ , ‘‘After that there was nothin’ ® could do but pinch him —had to use my club some, too. That’s just on» Instance. Oh, of course, I talk at a lot of people and they talk at me, but what’s the good of that? They’re none of them talkin’ to me. You’re the first one I’ve/had a real conversation with on the job for about a month, I guess.” . “They get like that,” said a man: who knows aJJ about traffic policemen and others, too. "I’ve seen them get so lonesome on that loop job that they ask to be shifted.”