What May Be

In Manhattan, statistics have long been circulated showing a high percentage of criminals among cabmen. To the city's executive department, reports have come in concerning thugs, dips, flim-flams, louies, yeggs and fiddle-faced murderers who have posed as honest metre-men only to procure material upon which to indulge their vicious predilections.

Determined to remedy this state of affairs, Richard E. Enright, New York City Police Commissioner, caused a card to be printed which he ordered every taximan to display in a prominent place in his cab. On it appear the photograph, thumb print and physical description of the driver, with the following warning to the passenger:

"This is the description of the legal driver of this cab. If the person now driving this car does not conform thereto

HE MAY BE A CRIMINAL

Your safety may demand that you act immediately; vacate the car and CALL A POLICEMAN."

Met the taxi-drivers guild, "The Federation of Operating Associations," which represents 8,000 cab-operators. Reports were recited of how cabmen, roused to fury by the cards, conversed in doorways, gathered in angry knots near every cabstand questioning the legality of the order, searching the Police Commissioner's legal right to force citizens to suggest to every comer what they might be. These cabmen, said reports, were pointing out that if every person were compelled to wear a placard proclaiming what he might be, college presidents, holy fathers, merchants, doctors and respected burghers would go about, perforce, with such signs as: HE MAY BE A CLEPTOMANIAC HE MAY BE AN ADULTERER HE MAY BE A POISONER ETC.

Passionate addresses were made; formal protest was sent to the Commissioner.