CHURCH SEIZED

Evening Star, Issue 18885, 9 March 1925, Page 4

CHURCH SEIZED

NEW YORK UNEMPLOYED LED BY “ MR ZERO " The New York correspondent of the London ‘ Daily Telegraph ’ recently wrote as follows :—■ Despite the national prosperity New York has its unemployed and unemployable, and on Sunday night an army of 200, homeless and hungry, with the thermometer hovering around zero, quiet!)' but determinedly took possession of the Camp Memorial C’hurch, and also its outworks, in the way of the parsonage and the Sunday school. The church in question has been deserted on account of the city's development involving a flow of residents to the suburbs, and less than a dozen persons belonging to tho congregation of the church were present when the motley throng, many in rags and tatters, and ail looking pinched and hungry, entered, led by Urbain Lcdoux, commonly known in New Yqrk as Air Zero, who earned national attention by his attempts four years ago to establish an auction block tor human labor. Zero and his followers sat quietly through tho sermon, but the Benediction by tho pastor, the Rev. David -Minor, had barely ended when Zero stalked to the pulpit and dramatically announced ho had brought a permanent congregation to fill the place of the one which Jiad failed to attend. Ho described his ragged followers ns members of the Old Bucks and Lame Ducks Club, which had head>quarters at the Tub, an establishment maintained by Zero to provide meals tor the poor at 3d each. The majority of his congregation were forced • to walk the streets at night, Zero said, and in their names he pleaded for shelter from the cruel cold. The pastor explained lie could not bo generous with other people’s property, hut the, trustees of the church present agreed to permit 1 lie vagrants to lodge in the church for one night on Zero’s promise to take up the question of permanent occupancy in the morning with the secretary of the Congregational Missions. After n restful night spent in the cushioned pews, the derelicts were told to go out and seek work and return to-night. Zero promises to raid more churches which remain closed six days out of seven, and make them real places of shelter. ” Don’t lose your manhood,” he pleaded with his followers. ” Earn something, if it is only a shilling, and retain your independence. If vou drink, smoke, or otherwise abuse Die privilege of this church,” Zero threatened, “ Fit throw you out.” Zero told newspaper reporters that possession was nine points of the law, and, if necessary, ho will appeal to the courts to support his contention that, as churches are exempt from taxation because they are places of worship and shelter, they must, if necessary, shelter the homeless.

On December 23 the same correspondent reported as follows:- —Urbain Ledoux Air Zero, ns ho is popularly called, because ho only pursues his work as shepherd'of "the homeless in wintry weather, tells me ho has made a list of the churches in New York where ho proposes to shelter the unemployed, of whom it is estimated there are 300,000 in New York alone, 60,000 being described as homeless. At the Tub, where members of the Old Buck and Lame Duck’s Club assemble to eat a big plate of sausage and mash for 3d under tho auspices of Lcdoux, i spent an interesting hour yesterday evening. The chief argument advanced is that quite a number of city churches here are closed throughout the" week and only sparsely occupied on Sundays, and since they are exempt from taxation and will shortly he demolished to make room for office buildings they may be well utilised during the winter to put to bod, as Ledoux says, hundreds of jobless but honest men. Two hundred of Zero's army again occupied (lie Camp Memorial Congregational Church last night. Two more churches have been selected for investment on Sunday, and, if the situation does not improve, Zero contemplates leading his ragged army fit'tv miles up the Hudson River to a place where fifty disused vessels, the property of the United States Shipping Board; are rusting away, unsold, and apparently unsaleable. “These vessels make admirable boarding-houses for men in a time of emergency.”