THE OLD GUARD DIES

Add the name of Jacob Orgen to the scroll of those who have paid with their lives for attempting to advance their fellow man, who put their shoulder to the wheel of the wain of progress only to have the wain turn juggernaut. But in the Ghetto read the name as "Little Augie," a pioneer in a now overcrowded profession, who added finesse to the art of unmodified murder. He was the first to shudder at the crudeness of a Jimmie Valentine's jimmy and to shrug fastidious shoulders at the alien importations of Dr. Fu Manchu. One of the most minor instances of his genius was the introduction of the shoulder-sling to the East Side, supplanting the unlovely bulge to the back trousers pocket that had been decreed by police custom. He it was who did away with the old gangster's code, under which to pump a man's back full of soft-nose bullets had been a faux pas bordering upon actual cowardice.

Like many another pioneer, the end of his usefulness came with the complete acceptance of his once radical innovations. Others explored further the implications of his ethical code. The Bergers and Capones of Cicero went on to machine gunnery, gas, bombs and airplanes. In the mad race for the new "Little Augie" stuck to his guns. And so he died when bullets sought and found him among the pushcarts of the East Side, died under the rules of self-preservation that he had made, died a martyr to his own conservatism.