III

"God bless them, for their brawny handsHave built the glory of all lands;And richer are their drops of sweat,Than diamonds in a coronet."

"God bless them, for their brawny hands

Have built the glory of all lands;

And richer are their drops of sweat,

Than diamonds in a coronet."

I must say, however, all the fault for present conditions must not be charged to capital. There are faults within I wish the laboring world would see and correct. I travel the country over and note the men who file in and out the saloons. Are they bankers or leading business men? No, they are laborers from factories, furnaces, fields and work-shops, spending their money for what is worse than nothing and giving it to a business that pays labor less and robs more than any other capitalization in the world.

The New York Sun says: "Every successful man in Wall Street is a total abstainer. He knows he must keep his brain free from alcohol when he enters the Stock Exchange, where his mind goes like a driving wheel from which the belt has slipped." The laboring man needs brain as clear and nerves as steady as the capitalist if he expects to win in this age of sharp competition.

What the laboring classes in this country spend for liquor in twelve monthswould purchase five hundred of the average manufactories of the land; what they spend in ten years would purchase five thousand, and what they spend in twenty years would control the entire manufacturing interests of the country.

A few years ago a strike occurred with the Pullman Palace Car Company. What the laboring classes spend for intoxicating liquors in three months would purchase the Pullman Palace Car Company and all its rolling stock. Instead of a strike, in which laboring men are out of work and families suffering for the necessaries of life, why not stop drinking beer and whiskey for ninety days, buy the whole business and let the Pullman Company do something else. How to husband the resources of the poor is far more important than the right use of the fortunes of the rich. There is less danger in the massing of money by the rich than there is in wasting the wages of the working world in saloons.

Now I have already thrown the searchlight upon enough problems for you to realize I have given you an incongruous picture. You must be impressed with the conflicting forces at work upon our republic.Never have we had so many advocates of peaceful arbitration for differences between nations and never such armament for war; never such an accumulation of comforts, never such a multiplication of wants; never so much done to make men honest, never so many thieves. In 1850 seven thousand in our penitentiaries; in 1860 twenty thousand; in 1870 thirty-two thousand; in 1880 fifty-eight thousand; in 1890 eighty-two thousand, and in 1900 one hundred thousand. In London, England, last year with over seven millions of people, twenty-four murders; in Chicago, one hundred and eighteen. There are more murders in this republic than in any civilized land beneath the sky. Yet in face of all these unsettled questions, with advancement along all social, moral, intellectual and religious lines I have faith to believe this twentieth century American citizenship will prove itself sufficiently thoughtful, testful and tactful to deal with all national issues as one by one they come within reach of practical politics, and that this country is big enough, brave enough, wise enough and just enough to solve every problem vexing us today.

Some have not this faith. They see an army of three hundred thousand tramps eating bread by the sweat of other men's brows; the slums of great cities, cradles of infamy where children are trained to sin; the "fire-damp of combination trusts" stifling the working world; gambling brokers cornering the markets in the necessaries of life; the wages of working girls being such as to lead many from life's Eden of purity; a great battle on between labor and capital and in this combination of threatening dangers they see the overthrow of free government.

If these pessimists would take a view from the nether standpoint and see what we have come through as a country their fears would be dispelled.

Look backward fifty years from today and see the republic wrapped in the throes of civil strife; the soil of our Southland soaked with blood and tears; the nation overwhelmed with debt; four million negroes turned loose penniless in the South to beg bread at the white man's door, and he already on "Poverty row;" Abraham Lincoln dead in the White House, shot down by an assassin; the Secretary of War bleeding from three stab wounds the same night; and Columbiareeling on her throne.

Now see the harmonious association of all sections; a firmer establishment of this "government of the people, by the people and for the people" than was ever known. Look over the ocean and see Turkey's massacre of the Armenians, Russia with her Siberian horrors, Spain with her cruelty to the Moors and Jews; or look closer home over the Mexican border and see the government torn to tatters and public men shot down like dogs. Then turn and note our country's magnanimous dealings with Cuba; her teachers schooling Filipinos into nobler life; our President leading the armies of Russia and Japan out of the rivers of blood; slavery gone, lottery gone, polygamy outlawed, the saloon iniquity tottering to its fall; hospitals nestled in shadows of bereavement, hungry children fed on their way to school, and men who know how to make money, giving it away for the relief of suffering and uplift of mankind as never before. Don't tell me the world is getting worse.

I was in New York City for two weeks at the time of the Titanic disaster. On Saturday evening before the ocean tragedyI stood on the elevated at the corner of Thirty-third and Broadway. The "Great White Way" was thronged with pleasure-seekers, crowding their way to theatres and picture shows. It seemed to me I never saw the great city so gay. But, on Monday morning after, there came on ether waves the appalling news that the finest ship in the world had gone down, and sixteen hundred human beings had gone with it. I never witnessed such a transformation. It seemed to me every woman had tears in her eyes, and every man a lump in his throat. Actors played to empty houses that evening; a pall hung over the great Metropolis. But when details came, with them came the triumph of humanity. The rich had died for the poor, the strong had died for the weak.

John Jacob Astor had turned away from his fine mansion on Fifth Avenue, his summer home at Newport, his hundred millions of dollars in wealth, and was found spending his last moments saving women and children. All honor to the brave young bridegroom who carried his bride to a life boat, said, "good-bye sweetheart," kissed her and stepping back went down with the ship. All hailto that loyal loving Hebrew wife and mother, Mrs. Straus, who holding to her husband's arm said: "I would rather die with you than live without you." Like Ruth of old, she said: "Where thou goest, I will go; where thou diest I will die, and there will I be buried." There side by side at the ocean gateway to eternity these old lovers went down together.

Ah! this republic will never perish while we have such manhood and womanhood to live and die for its honor.

It has been said: "We live in a materialistic age; that all human activities are born of selfishness; that manhood is dying out of the world." All over the land at midnight, men lean from the saddles of iron horses, peering down the railroad track, ready to die if need be for the safety of those entrusted to their care. Firemen will climb ladders tonight and their souls will go up in flames, like Jim Bludsoe's, to save the lives of imperiled women and children.

Look at the orchestra on board the Titanic. When the supreme moment of danger came, they rushed to the deck, not to put on life belts, not to get into lifeboats but to form in order, and send out overthe icy ocean, the music of the sweet song, "Nearer, my God, to Thee." When the ship lifted at one end and started on its headlong dive of twenty-seven hundred fathoms to the depths of the salty sea, those brave men, without a discordant note, sent out the sweet refrain;

"Now let the way appearSteps unto Heaven;All that Thou sendest me,In mercy given;Angels to beckon me,Nearer, my God to thee;Near to Thee."

"Now let the way appear

Steps unto Heaven;

All that Thou sendest me,

In mercy given;

Angels to beckon me,

Nearer, my God to thee;

Near to Thee."

May we not hope those brave musicians and those who died that others might live, "On joyful wings cleaving the sky," ocean and icebergs forgotdidupward fly, and on their flight to the spirit world continued the song, "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

Manhood is not dying out of the world.

Students of history are asking, "Will the fate of Rome be repeated in the history of this republic?" The answer is, we have saving influences in this republic Rome never knew. Rome never had an asylum for her blind or insane; she never had a home for widows and orphans;her "golden house" of Nero never had an equal, but nowhere in her dusty highways could be found footprints of mercy. In Rome the soldier was the cohesive power, while socially everything was isolated. In this republic there is an interlacing and binding together in bonds of human brotherhood. A Methodist here bound to Methodists everywhere, Presbyterian to Presbyterian, Baptist to Baptist, Disciple to Disciple, Lutheran to Lutheran, Catholic to Catholic, Masons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, Red Men, Maccabees, Woodmen, Christian Endeavor Societies, Epworth Leagues, Y.M.C.A.'s, W.C.T.U.'s, and many other fraternities, making up an interdependent, together-woven, God-allied and God-saving influence ancient empires never dreamt of. These are the moral lightning rods that avert from this republic the wrath of God.

Am I putting too much stress upon the humanity side of national life? Do you tell me money is the great question of this country, tariff the great question? Bring me the Bible and what do I find? Only a very few pages given to the creation of the material universe, with all its gold and silver, suns and systems, but I findpage after page, chapter after chapter, and book after book, given to the healing of the lame, the halt and the blind, teaching a kindred spirit of sympathy to meet the common woes of humanity.

What I am about to say may seem more like sermon than lecture, but I believe it will be the best thing I have said when the lecture closes. In the formula of human touch, laid down in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, there is more saving influence for national endurance than in all the wealth of our country's treasury.

From the time His beautiful mother wrapped Him in coarse linen, and cradled Him on cattle straw in that Bethlehem barn, on up to His death on the cross, He was ever touching the masses, healing their diseases, soothing their sorrows and teaching the lesson, "the more humanity you place at the bottom the better citizenship you will have at the top." In the golden rule of this human touch lies the hope of this home of the free.

A little boy boarded a car in New York City. A few feet from him sat a finely-dressed lady and as the boy stared at her, he moved nearer and nearer until he wasclose beside her.

"What do you mean by getting so close to me? Don't you see you have put mud on my dress from your shoes? Move away," said the lady.

The little urchin replied: "I'm so sorry I got mud on your dress; I didn't mean to do it."

"Where are you going, all by your little self, anyway?"

"I'm going to my aunt's where I live."

"Have you no mother?"

"No mam; she died four weeks ago. I ain't got any mother now, and that's why I was settin' up close to you to make believe you wuz my mother. I'm sorry 'bout the mud, you'll 'scuse me, won't you, good lady?"

The woman extending her hand said: "Yes I will; come here," and soon her arm was about him, and tears in her eyes, and the boy could have wiped his feet on any dress in that car without rebuke. We want more of human touch in national and individual life.

A tramp called at a fine home for his supper. The owner said: "You can have something to eat provided you do somework beforehand."

"What can I do," asked the "hobo."

A set of harness was given him to clean. The gentleman went to his supper, and soon after a blue-eyed, golden-haired girl of four years came out, and approaching the tramp, said: "Good evening, sir. Is you got a little girl like me?"

"No, I am all alone in the world."

"Ain't you got no mama and papa?"

"No, they died a long time ago," and the tramp wiped away a tear as memory came rolling up from out the hallowed past.

"Oh! I'm so sorry for you, 'cause I have a home and papa and mama."

The man of the house came out, and looking at the harness said: "That's a good job; you must have done that work before. Come in and you shall have a good supper."

The little tot ran around to the front gate, where a pair of horses, hitched to a carriage, waited to take the family on a drive. The tramp finished his supper and passing out, the little one in the carriage said: "Good-bye, mister. When you want supper again you come and see us, won't you;" and turning to the driver she said:"He ain't got no papa, nor mama, no little girl and no home."

The tramp, who heard these words taking off his old hat bowed low to the little one who had spoken the kind words.

A few minutes later while standing on a street corner, wondering where he could spend the night, some one shouted, "Horses running away!" The driver had left the team and the horses started with the little girl alone in the carriage, screaming for help. Men ran out but the mad horses cleared the track. The tramp fixed himself, and as the team swept by, he gave a bound and caught the bit of the nearest horse. The horses reared and plunged but the tramp held on, until he swerved them to the sidewalk. As the near horse struck the curb he fell and the tramp was crushed beneath the horse. A physician came and as he bent over to examine the heart, the tramp said: "Was the little one saved?"

The child was brought and as her sweet blue eyes tenderly looked at the face of the dying man he smiled, and then the spirit took its flight, to where He who died to save the world, looked with compassion upon the tramp who gave his lifefor "one of these little ones."

Oh, the beauty and power of human touch!

The Panama Canal is considered the glory crowning achievement of this century; but the building of a highway of sympathy over which to send help to the hopeless is a far greater achievement. If this republic is to endure with the stars; if it is to go down the ages like a broadening colonade of light, and stand in steady splendor at the height of the world's civilization; it will not be because of its money standard, its tariff or expansion policy, but because the heart-beat of human brotherhood sends the blood of a common father bounding through the veins of the concentrated whole of humanity, binding high and low, rich and poor, weak and strong together.

"Work brothers; sisters work; work hand and brain,We'll win the golden age again;And love's millennial morn shall riseIn happy hearts and blessed eyes.We will, we will, brave champions beIn this the lordlier chivalry."

"Work brothers; sisters work; work hand and brain,

We'll win the golden age again;

And love's millennial morn shall rise

In happy hearts and blessed eyes.

We will, we will, brave champions be

In this the lordlier chivalry."

The sweetest word in the language we speak is home. No matter in what clime or country, whether where sunbeams dance and play or frost fiend rules the air, there's no place like home. At the World's Fair in Chicago I visited the Eskimo village. To a woman who could speak English I said: "How do you like this country?"

"Beautiful, beautiful country. Oh, the flowers, the green grass, the lovely homes!" was her reply.

But when I ventured to ask: "Will you remain here after the fair and not return to your land of ice and snow," she shook her head and said: "No, I want to go home. I am so homesick."

"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home." In Lexington, Kentucky, there is a modest looking house, nestledmid linden and locust trees. Visitors who pass in quest of historic spots about the far-famed city, seldom give even a glance at that humble abode. Yet when I am far away, whether in the wonderful west with its scenic grandeur, or in the east surrounded by mansions of millionaires, my heart goes back in memory's aeroplane to the old Blue Grass town, where six generations of my family sleep, the dearest spot on earth to me—"home, sweet home." When years ago I was nearing the end of a three months' lecture tour in California, a friend invited me to join him on a visit to Yosemite Valley, saying: "You will see the grandest scenery and biggest trees in the world." My reply was: "I thank you very much, but my engagements in the golden west close on the eighth and I will start east on the ninth; my old Kentucky home is grander to me than Yosemite Valley and my baby bigger than any tree in California."

Someone has said the nearest spot to heaven in this world is a happy home, where the parents are young and the children small. I don't know about that. It seems to me a little nearer heaven is the home where husband and wife have livedlong together, where children honor parents and parents honor God; where the aged wife can look her husband in the face and give him the sentiment of the dame of John Anderson:

"John Anderson, my jo John,When we were first acquent;Your locks were like the raven,Your bonnie brow was brent;But now your brow is beld, John,Your locks are like the snaw;But blessings on your frosty pow,John Anderson, my jo."John Anderson, my jo, John,We clamb the hill thegither;And mony a cantie day, John,We've had wi' one anither:Now we maun totter down, John,And hand in hand we'll go,And sleep thegither at the foot,John Anderson, my jo."

"John Anderson, my jo John,

When we were first acquent;

Your locks were like the raven,

Your bonnie brow was brent;

But now your brow is beld, John,

Your locks are like the snaw;

But blessings on your frosty pow,

John Anderson, my jo.

"John Anderson, my jo, John,We clamb the hill thegither;And mony a cantie day, John,We've had wi' one anither:Now we maun totter down, John,And hand in hand we'll go,And sleep thegither at the foot,John Anderson, my jo."

"John Anderson, my jo, John,

We clamb the hill thegither;

And mony a cantie day, John,

We've had wi' one anither:

Now we maun totter down, John,

And hand in hand we'll go,

And sleep thegither at the foot,

John Anderson, my jo."

James A. Garfield said: "It's by the fireside, where calm thoughts inspired by love of home and love of country, the history of the past, the hope of the future, God works out the destiny of this republic."

A Spartan general pointing to his army said: "There stand the walls of Sparta and every man's a brick." Can I not point to the homes of our country and say: "There stand the walls of this republic and every home's a brick." Suppose a battery, planted on some eminence outside this city, were to send a shell through some building every hour; how long until your beautiful city would be one of crumbling walls and flying population? On yonder heights of law are planted two hundred thousand rum batteries, sending shells of destruction through the homes of the people and every day hundreds of homes are knocked out of the walls of the republic.

Do you realize what it means when an American home is destroyed by drink? Some years ago on Sunday afternoon I visited an eastern penitentiary by invitation of the chaplain. Passing a row of cells my attention was called to a man whose face bore the marks of intelligence and refinement. The chaplain said: "That man is an ideal prisoner and a born gentleman, though here for life. He is the graduate of an eastern college. He married an accomplished young woman. In social life he was led into the drink habit,and it grew upon him until at times he became intoxicated. When under the influence of liquor his reason was dethroned, and one night in a brawl he killed a man. He was given a life sentence. Asking permission to speak he said: 'I have no complaint to make of the verdict, but beg the privilege of saying, God who knows the secrets of all hearts, knows I am not a murderer at heart, for I don't know how nor when I killed my friend.' A few days after he entered this prison his wife came to visit him. She had with her a sweet little golden-haired child. As he entered the office in his striped prison garb his wife fell into his arms; the agony on that man's face I can never forget. The child shrank from him at first, then recognizing her father, she ran to him. As he hugged her to his bosom the little one twined her arms about his neck and said: 'Papa, please come home with us. Mama cries so much cause you don't come home.' The man sinking into a chair said: 'O God, am I never to see my home again?'"

This is but one of the thousands of homes destroyed every year by the drink curse. If I could draw aside the veil and let you look into the desolate homes ofyour own city tonight, you would feel Ex-Governor Hanley of Indiana did not give an overwrought picture when he said: "Personally, I have seen so much physical ruin, mental blight and moral corruption from strong drink that I hate the traffic. I hate it for its arrogance; I hate it for its hypocrisy; I hate it for its greed and avarice; I hate it for its domination in politics; I hate it for its disregard of law; I hate it for the load it straps on labor's back; I hate it for the wounds it has given to genius, for the human wrecks it has wrought, for the alms-houses it has peopled, for the prisons it has filled, for the crimes it has committed, the homes it has destroyed, the hearts it has broken, the malice it has planted in the hearts of men, and the dead sea fruit with which it starves immortal souls." With proof of the truth of this phillipic on every hand, it is a strange anomaly in our government that the degrading influence of the saloon is linked by law to the elevating influence of school, church and home.

When Jesus was on earth He came to a fig tree, dressed in rich leaves but barren of fruit; it was in fig season but the tree had only leaves. We read that Jesuscursed the tree and it withered. We have in this country a upas tree named the liquor traffic. It is not a barren tree, but far worse than barren. Its branches bend with the weight of its fruit, but not a pint, nor a quart, nor gallon, nor barrel from its boughs ever benefited a single mortal by its use as a beverage. Its leaves drip with poison and the bones of its dead victims would build a pyramid as high as Appenines piled on the Alps. Jesus withered the tree that produced nothing. We license and cultivate the tree whose fruitage the Bible compares to the bite of a serpent, the sting of an adder and the poison of asps.

In the earlier days of the temperance movement, when we discussed the question along moral lines, the license advocates made it an economic question, but since the commercial world is fast becoming a great temperance league, and great industries are blacklisting the saloon as an enemy of legitimate business, the liquor advocates are taking refuge behind the Bible, and claiming that He who cursed the tree that was barren, planted the one whose root and heart, bark and branches are poisoning the blood of the nation.They pervert scripture, take isolated passages and present an ominum gatherum of quotations to prove the Bible indorses the use of strong drink. By the same process I can prove one of these Bible license scholars should hang himself and be in haste about it. I read on one page of the Bible, "Judas went out and hanged himself." On another page I read, "Go thou and do likewise." And on another, "Whatsoever thou doest, do it quickly."

Against these sacrilegious uses of scripture, I place the estimate of the fruit of this upas tree from one whose words are unmistakable, and whose wisdom none can question. Solomon said: "Wine is amocker." Was there ever a word of more weight in its application? When a boy in school nothing so vexed me and made me want to fight, as for a boy tomockme. I remember when one of the prettiest girls in school made faces at me andmockedme; from that hour I could never see any beauty in that girl's face, nor have I quite forgiven her to this day. When the Jews wanted to heap the greatest indignity possible upon Jesus, when they had driven the nails in His hands, pierced His side, placed the crown of thorns upon His headand pressed the bitter cup to His lips, they stood off andmockedHim.

Is wine a mocker? Did Solomon know what he was talking about when he gave it that detestable name? He added still another word and called it a deceiver. Does it deceive and mock? It meets a young man at a social feast, garlands itself with the graces of hospitality, sparkles in the brilliant jewels of fashion, smiles through the faces of female beauty, furnishes inspiration for the dance and mingles with music, mirth and hilarity. Gently it takes the young man by the hand, leads him down the green, flowery sward of license, filled with the rich aroma of the wild flowers of life. When it has firmly fixed itself in his appetite, it begins to strip him of his manhood as hail strips the trees, and when, with will-power gone, nerves shattered, eyes bleared and face bloated, he stands with the last vestige of manly beauty swept from the shattered temple of the soul, it stands off andmockshim. It goes to a home, tramples upon the pure unselfish love of a wife, enthrones the shadow of a drunkard's poverty upon the hearth-stone, makes the empty cupboard echo the wail of hungry childrenfor bread, with its bloody talons marks the door lintels with the death sentence of an immortal soul, and then stands off andmocksthe home. It goes to the Congress of the United States and says: "Put upon me the harness of taxation and I'll pull you out of the mire of national debt, and make the administration of the party in power a financial success." Then with a government permit, it proceeds to take out of the pockets of the people five times as much as it pays the government; creates three-fourths of the country's crimes, four-fifths of its pauperism, sixty per cent. of its divorces, dooms to poverty and shame a great army of children, blights rosebuds of beauty on cheeks of innocence, shatters oaks of manhood, leaves its polluting taint upon all that it touches, and then stands off and mocks the republic. Was there ever more meaning condensed into one brief utterance than in Solomon's warning, "Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging, and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise?" Is it wisdom in this republic to deliberately, for revenue, set in motion causes that neutralize its progress, waste its forces and destroy the fireside nurseries of the nation'sdestiny?

If I were an artist I would now place before you a picture of an ideal American home. I would not make it the fine mansion on the avenue, nor would I make it "the old log cabin in the lane." I would make it a neat country home with garden of flowers, orchard of fruits, a barn lot with bubbling spring and laughing brook. In the door of this home I would place an American mother with the youngest of four children in her arms; the oldest son driving his tired team to the barn, the second one the cows to the cupping, the daughter spreading the cloth for tea, and the head of the house sinking the iron-bound bucket in the well for a draught of cold water when day's work for loved ones is o'er. Approaching the door a commission appointed by Congress on political economy lift their hats as the spokesman says: "Madam, are you mistress of this mansion?"

"I am the wife and mother of this humble home, gentlemen; the man at the well is my husband."

"Madam, we are commissioned by Congress to investigate the home life of the country and would like to learn what thishome is doing for the republic."

"Come in, gentlemen, and be seated, while I call my husband. We feel honored by your visit and would be pleased to have you take tea with us."

The invitation is readily accepted and after a good country supper the investigation proceeds. In answer to the question as to the relation of the home to the welfare of the republic, the head of the house says: "Gentlemen, we are trying to keep our home pure; it is our purpose to make our boys patriotic American citizens and our daughters true American women. We love God and endeavor to keep His commandments, and this is about all I can say about our home."

"That is well so far, but may we ask what sacrifice would this home be willing to make for the republic if its flag were in peril?"

The wife exclaims: "You alarm us by your question. Is our country in danger?"

"Yes, madam. The combined forces of the Old World are nearing our shores and the republic is in peril."

"Wait, gentlemen, until we talk it over."The family retires for consultation and soon the mother appears, and with tears in her eyes says: "Gentlemen, we've decided. Take our oldest boy, who is eager to go. Take him to the battlefield; if he falls in defense of his country's flag, come back, we'll kiss the second one and tell him, 'go fill your brother's place.' Gentlemen, we love our country next to our God and this home is pledged to this country's honor."

I say, any country that has such mothers for its patriotism, such guardians for its homes, should protect these homes and mothers with all the power of police, all the majesty of law, and any evil that attempts to destroy these homes ought not to be licensed, but should be buried as the old Scotch woman would bury the devil—with "face down, so the more he scratched the deeper he would go."

I am sick of the hollow sentiment, "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world," insofar as it relates to the drink problem. If the hand that rocks the cradle did rule the world, there would not be two hundred thousand rum-fiend vultures soaring over the cradle homes of our country today. If a mother could keep her boy in the cradle she might rule the world, but the troubleis, the boy gets too big for the cradle and jumps out. In the cradle he's mama's child, coos if mama coos, and laughs when mama laughs; but out of the cradle he's papa's boy, swears if papa swears, smokes if papa smokes, drinks if papa drinks. If papa does none of these things, then the world, ruled by hands that don't rock cradles, steps in with licensed schools of vice to teach him to drink.

When General Grant was President of the United States he appointed an old colored man mail-carrier over a route in the mountains of Virginia. One day, when in a lonely spot, two robbers faced the negro and demanded the mail. The old man, lifting himself in his saddle said:

"Gentlemen, I is de mail-carrier of de United States; you touch dis darkey and you'll have de whole army of dis government on you in twenty fo' hours."

Blessed will be the day when every mother in our land can say to the saloon: "You touch my home and you'll have the police power of this republic on your heels in twenty-four hours."

But, who is the government? We are told that in the early history of this country, a country magistrate rode horsebackfrom Maryland to Washington to consult the government. Going to the White House he was informed the government was not there. At the Capitol he was informed the people are the government. He returned home, called the voters of his county to a meeting in the courthouse and said: "Gentlemen, I have a very important question I want to present to the government." So I desire to talk to the government, you voters who are to decide the policy of this republic regarding the liquor traffic.

An Irishman brought before the court for an assault upon a saloon keeper was questioned by the judge, who said: "Mr. Dolan, what have you to say; are you guilty or innocent of the charge made against you?"

The Irishman replied: "By me soul, judge, I couldn't tell ye. I was blind, stavin' drunk on the manest whiskey ye iver tasted, yer honor."

"I do not use whiskey of any kind," said the judge.

"Ye don't. Thin I don't think ye are doin' yer duty by such constituents as meself. Ye license men to sell the stuff; ye ought to taste the stuff ye license men tosell, thin ye would know how it makes a gintlemen behave himself."

The judge rapped for order in the court and repeated the question, "Are you guilty or innocent of the charge?"

"Judge, I'll state the case and let yer honor decide for me, which ye are hired to do anyway. I was standin' by the corner of the strate on me way home from work, when I spied the bottles in the window of the saloon. The sight of thim bottles made me thirsty, so I wint in and took a drink. Jist thin three other thirsty ones came in and I took a drink with thim; thin they took a drink with me and we kept on drinkin' till we thought we were back in auld Ireland at Donnybrook Fair. Whenever we saw a head we struck it and I suppose this gintlemin's head came my way. Now here's the case, judge. If I hadn't taken the whiskey, I wouldn't a been in the row, for I'm always paceable whin sober; if the saloon hadn't been there I wouldn't have taken the whiskey; and if the Court hadn't licensed the saloon it wouldn't have been there. Ye can take the case, sir."

What makes the drunkard? The drink. What supplies the drink? The saloon.What makes the saloon? The law. Who makes the law? The legislator. Who makes the legislator? The voter. It's the "House that Jack built," only I will change the verbage a little. Intemperance is the fire the devil built. Strong drink is the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. Distilleries, breweries and saloons are the axes that cut the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. License laws are molds that cast the axes, that cut the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. License voters and legislators are the patentees who invented the molds that cast the axes that cut the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built. Prohibition ballots are the sledge hammers destined to destroy the molds that cast the axes that cut the fuel that feeds the fire the devil built.

There is a chain of responsibility running through the drink question which many good men fail to recognize. You know a chain is made up of links welded together. The drunkard is only one link; he is not a chain. When you link him to the drink then you begin the chain; the drunkard comes from the drink. That is not all of the chain however; the drink is linked to the saloon. If you have the saloon,you have the drink, you have the drunkard. This is not all of the chain; you have the license law. If you have the license law, you have the saloon, you have the drink, you have the drunkard. There is yet another link; the license law is linked to the license voter. The drunkard comes from the drink, the drink comes from the saloon, the saloon from the law, and law from the license voter. Who are the license voters? Many of them are Christian men on their way to heaven; but the trouble with them is the other end of the chain is going another road. "No drunkard can enter the kingdom of heaven."

I know it is a common remark that this is a free country, and if a man chooses to drink, let him do so and take the consequences. If one could take alone the consequences of his sin there might be some claim to personal liberty. But when a man's liberty involves another life the scene changes. A young man may commit a sin in social life and by reform be forgiven, but when that other life involved in his sin, is seen in after years, walking the streets in painted shame, reproducing the consequences of that man's sin, memoryand conscience will combine to give him waking hours while the world sleeps. A man may never enter a saloon, never take a drink of intoxicating liquor, but if he votes for the saloon his life becomes involved in the consequences of the saloon. What are the consequences? Here is a sample. After a three days' blizzard in one of our large cities a reformer visited a morgue and seeing a large clothes-hamper full of dead babies he said: "What does this mean?"

The reply came: "They were gathered from the drunkards' hovels of the city this morning."

The visitor tells us: "Their bodies were frozen, and several arms were sticking up out of the basket as if reaching out after life and love."

The streets of our city slums are rivers along whose shores at midnight can be heard the death gurgle of helpless little ones, while poverty's row is full of children cursed by inheritance, who are not living but merely existing by scraping the moss of bare subsistence from empty buckets in wells of poverty; and the air is freighted with oaths and obscenities from demonized men and demi-monde womenwho pour the poison of their blood into the social life of city slums.

I was both grieved and amazed when I read from the pen of a brilliant Kentucky editor an editorial denouncing as tyrannical a sumptuary law that "denies to a citizen the right to order his home, his meat, his drink, his clothing, according to his conscience." I wonder if the great editor ever considered the sumptuary law of the saloon. Every woman who fills the holy office of wife and mother has a right to a home. The sumptuary law of the saloon says to hundreds of thousands of such women: "You shall not have a home; you shall live in a hovel. You shall not order your home, your food, your drink, your clothing, according to your conscience, but according to the best interest of the saloon these comforts shall be ordered. You shall work all day in the harness of oppression and when night comes instead of restful sleep, you shall watch the stars out and wait the return of husband and sons." What about this inhuman denial of the right to order meat, drink, clothing and home life? Such is the sumptuary law of the saloon.

Every child in this country has a right to an education and a chance in the world. The saloons say to hosts of children: "You shall have neither education nor opportunity. You shall go to the streets and sweat-shops to earn bread. You shall live in ignorance and mid evil environment that we may gather in the wages of your fathers." How does this sumptuary law of the saloon compare with a sumptuary law that forbids the sale of what is of no earthly or eternal benefit to any one who uses it.

The same distinguished editor said: "When women gather around voting booths on election days with sandwiches and coffee, they present an indecent spectacle to the public." The man who goes with gun in hand and shoots down another in defense of his country is a hero. The mother lion or bear that defies the hunter's bullets and dies in defense of her young we can but respect; but when woman, who has suffered so long in silence, goes near where the welfare of her home is at stake and out of the sore, sad sorrow of her heart appeals to men for protection to her home from the ravages of the saloon, she is not paid the respect given to a mother hen or bird or bear by the advocateof the liquor traffic. When the niece of Cardinal Richelieu was demanded by a licentious king, the Cardinal said: "Around her form I draw the awful circle of our kingly church; set a foot within and on thy head, aye, though it wear a crown, shall fall the curse of Rome." Shall the crown of gold on the distiller's and brewer's brow hush into silence the lion-hearted manhood of our republic when its sons and daughters are demanded to feed the maw of the liquor traffic?

One of the famous pictures of the masters is of a woman bound fast to a pillar within the tide-mark of the ocean. The waves are curling about her feet. A ship is passing under full sail but no one seems to see or heed the woman in peril. Birds of prey hover above her, but she sees neither bird, nor ship, nor sea; knowing her doom is sealed, she lifts her eyes to heaven and prays. This picture represents thousands of women tied fast to their doom within the tide-waves of the ocean of intemperance. The ship of state passes by, bearing its share of the ill-gotten gains of the liquor traffic, but heeds not the moans and cries of struggling, strangling, dying woman. Oliver Cromwellsaid: "It is relative misgovernment that lashes nations into fury." The long suffering in silence by the womanhood of this country from the misgovernment that has heaped upon woman the woes of strong drink by the licensed saloon, whether a tribute to the patience of woman or not, is to the eternal shame of man, whose inhumanity to woman through the liquor traffic is making "countless millions mourn."

To this misgovernment is due the unrest among women and the impetus behind the equal suffrage movement today. There needs to be a saving influence brought into our political life, and I have faith to believe that woman's ballot will provide that influence. Having proved her dignity in every new field of activity she has entered, I believe the same flowers of refinement will adorn the ballot box when she holds in her hand the sacred trust of franchise. Her life-long habit of house-cleaning will be carried to the dirty pool of politics, where the saloon is entrenched, and the demagogue and demijohn will be carted away to the garbage pile of discarded rubbish.

Now and then I am asked: "What will become of the men who are engaged in the liquor business if the country goes dry? What will become of their families?" I answer by asking: What becomes of the men the saloons put out of business? What becomes of their families? When prohibition puts a man out of business, it leaves him his brain, blood, bone, muscle, nerves and whatever manhood he has left in store, while his long rest from active toil has given him a reserve force for active, useful business. When the saloon puts a man out of business, he goes out with shattered nerves, weak will, poisoned blood and so unfitted for service no place is open for him to earn a living. Recently a man put out of business by prohibition said to me: "This town went dry seven years ago, and going out of the saloon business has been such a benefit to me and to my family, I shall work and vote to put all other saloon-keepers in this state out of business for their own good."

On the other hand, I have in mind a man who once chained the Congress of the United States by his eloquence. Clients clamored for his service, and prosperity crowned his practice in the courts. In drinking saloons he lost his clientage andin penniless poverty he died—unwept, unhonored, unsung. The ex-saloon-keeper to whom I referred is city marshall and very popular, while the man put out of business by the saloon has no chance:

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