For White Wings

I Greet you.

May success follow your birth

To be worth your bold undertaking

To bring a better understanding

Among the men of Sanitation.

You come amidst thundering and lightning

Your coming--your staying shall be a benefit

To all who clean the city streets

Your aim--shall always be--to better conditions

For all men in the Department of Sanitation.

The greeter was John Cabbage, poet-laureate of New York City's street sweepers, garbage collectors, scowmen, dump tenders, sewage engineers, and white-collar employes of the city's Department of Sanitation. His salute was addressed to, and appeared last week in, the first issue of D S, a new monthly magazine of the department. Like New York's prison keepers' house-organ, On Guard, it is unique in the U. S.

First issue of D S preserves a careful balance between business and frivolity. Cover design, by Truck Driver Otto Ernst, is a chaste night scene in water color showing impressive snow plows and soldierly men clearing the drifts from around Washington Arch.

There is a foreword by plump Dr. William Schroeder Jr., chairman of the sanitary commission and sponsor of D S. The engineer in charge of sewage disposal writes learnedly of progress on the unfinished new disposal plant. There is a detailed resume of the work of removing last December's snow, which cost the City "approximately $1,367,251.55." Auditor Harry R. Langdon quotes excerpts from musty official records of the appointment of a public scavenger of 1701 at $40 a year. Two pages are devoted to the department's Holy Name Society, two more to routine department news. Remainder of the 24 pages is given over to fun--cartoons, personal notes, verse. Sample personal notes:

"Jim Brawley, stableman of nth Street Garage, had to go without his supper at the entertainment and dance. By the way, Jim, we are all curious and want to know who is the girl on your lap."

"Joseph Morris, is a second Morton Downey; he rehearses in the incinerator at Clifton."

Most of the verse is from the pen of John Cabbage, but not all. District Superintendent Emil Disch contributes "Sing a Song of Can Can." Excerpt:

They do their work most thoroughly and with a goodly will. Without them what could we do with the fruit skins and the swill? They are the benefactors of mankind and play a heavy part, Though they annoy us in the morning with their very early start.

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