Another swing of the searchlight and it falls upon The Labor and Capital Question.

After all the years of education, agitation and legislation, we find capital combining in great corporations on one hand, and labor organizing in great trade unions on the other. Like two great armies they face each other, both determined to win. While capital is expanding on one side, the wants of the laboring classes are expanding on the other. They see excursion trains bound for world's fairs; they want to go. They see stores crowded with the necessaries and luxuries of life; they want a share. They live in days of startling pronouncements, they can read, they want the morning papers. They live in a larger world, and knowing their brains and brawn helped to create the larger world they feel they deserve a larger share in its fortunes. When they see avenues lined with the mansion homes of capital, and the toiling world crowded into tenement quarters, and these tenements owned by capital, not five in fifty of the country's wage-earners owning their homes, they naturally conclude there is something wrong somewhere.

Over an inn in Ireland hangs a picture representing the "FOUR ALLS;" a king with a scepter in his hand saying, "I rule all;" a soldier with a sword in his hand saying, "I fight for all;" a bishop with a Bible in his hand saying, "I pray for all," and a working man with a shovel in his hand saying, "I pay for all."

"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 months would 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 Columbia reeling 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 tragedy I 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 hail to 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 over the 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 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 forgot did upward 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 find page 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 was close 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 some work 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 life for "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 rise In happy hearts and blessed eyes. We will, we will, brave champions be In this the lordlier chivalry."



III

OUR COUNTRY, OUR HOMES AND OUR DUTY. A PLEA FOR THE HOME AGAINST THE SALOON.

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, nestled mid 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 lived long 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."

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 of your 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 Jesus cursed 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 a mocker." 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 to mock me. I remember when one of the prettiest girls in school made faces at me and mocked me; 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 head and pressed the bitter cup to His lips, they stood off and mocked Him.

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 and mocks him. 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 children for bread, with its bloody talons marks the door lintels with the death sentence of an immortal soul, and then stands off and mocks the 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's destiny?

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 this home 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 trouble is, 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 horseback from 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 to sell, 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, memory and 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 women who 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 advocate of 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 Cromwell said: "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 and in 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:

"Where he goes and how he fares, Nobody knows and nobody cares."

Along with the question of what will become of the men put out of business by prohibition, comes the question, what will the farmers do with their corn if distilleries are closed? Less consumption of whiskey means more consumption of cornbread and that means more corn. Less consumption of whiskey means greater consumption of bacon, and more bacon means more corn to feed hogs. When a liquor advocate said to an audience of farmers: "If this state goes dry what will you farmers do with your corn," an old, level-headed farmer shouted: "We'll raise more hogs and less hell."

Prohibition means more of everything good, and less of everything bad; more manhood, less meanness; more gain, less groans; more bread, less brawls; more clothing, less cussedness; less heartaches and more happiness. Turn saloons into bake shops and butcher stalls, distilleries into food factories, breweries into stock pens, and the country will be a thousandfold better off than feeding its finances by starving its morality.

This question lifts itself head and shoulders above every other question touching practical politics today. You nowhere read of a nation going to destruction because of too much gold or too little silver, too much tariff or too little tariff, but always because of the vices of its people. The nation that bases perpetuity upon moral character will endure with the stars, while walls thick and high as Babylon's will not save a drunken republic.

"Vain mightiest fleets of iron found, Vain all her conquering guns, Unless Columbia keeps unstained The true hearts of her sons."

Beautiful Constance of France was dressing for a court ball. While standing before a mirror, clasping a necklace of pearls, a spark from the fireplace caught in the folds of her gown. Absorbed in her attire, she did not detect the danger until a blaze started. Soon, rolling on the floor in flames, she burned to death. When the news reached the ballroom the music hushed, the dance halted, and "Poor Constance! Poor Constance!" went from lip to lip, but soon the music started and the dance went on. While I am talking now the youth, beauty and sweetness of American life is in peril from the flames that are kindled by the licensed saloon. From an inward fire men are being consumed and homes destroyed. Will we say, "Poor Columbia!" and keep step to the mocker's march to the nation's death; or will we put out every distillery and brewery fire and make this in reality "the land of the free and the home of the brave?"

In the name of all that is pure and true and vital in national life, I plead with every lover of home and country to come to the help of the cause that must succeed if this republic is to live. I plead with Christians in the name of the church, bleeding at every pore because of the curse of drink. If everyone whose name is on a church roll would step out in line of duty on this question, very soon God would stretch out His arm and save this republic from the liquor traffic. God has been ready a long time; His people have not been ready to do their part. Too many Christians are like the horse Sam Jones used to tell of.

He said: "We have a horse in my neighborhood in Georgia, which if hitched to a load of stone or cotton balks and won't go a step; but in light harness in the shafts of a race cart he will pace a mile in two-thirty. We have too many Christians who are like this horse; they trot out to church Sunday morning, but hitch them to a prayer meeting and they won't pull a pound."

Dr. McLeod, the stalwart Scotch preacher, on his way to a session of his church had with him a small hunch-back member of his church, a dwarf in size but an earnest worker. Crossing a certain stream a storm struck the boat and the waves were sending it toward the rocks. A boatman at one end said:

"Let the big preacher pray for us."

The helmsman at the other end said: "No, let that little fellow pray and the big one take an oar."

Oliver Cromwell, going through a cathedral, came upon twelve silver statues. Turning to the guide he said: "Who are these?"

The guide replied: "Those are the twelve apostles, life-size and solid silver."

Cromwell said: "What good are they doing as silver apostles? Melt them down into money and let them be of some service to the country."

We have too many silver statue church members who need melting down and sending out to help save our republic from the fate of other nations that have perished through their vices. We need more men with moral courage to voice and vote their convictions. When the slavery question was agitating the country Henry Clay stood for a compromise he believed would help to solve the question. Many of his friends in the South censured him, and sent him letters calling him a traitor. He arose in the Senate to speak, it is said, looking pale from the effect of the censure he was then receiving day by day. Addressing the Senate he said: "I suppose what I shall say in this address will cost me many dear friends." A reporter said: "He hesitated as if choked with emotion at the thought of losing his friends." Then with the majesty of greatness and magnetism of manner he proceeded, saying: "I am charged with being ambitious. If I had listened to the soft whisperings of ambition I would have stood still, gazed upon the raging storm and let the ship of state drift on with the winds. I seek no office at the cost of courage or conviction. Pass this bill. Restore affection to the states of this Union and I will go back to my Ashland home; there in its groves, on its lawns, 'mid my flocks and herds, and in the bosom of my family, I will find a sincerity I have not found in the public walks of life. Yes, I am ambitious, but my ambition is that I may become the humble instrument in the hands of God, in restoring harmony to a distracted nation, and behold the glorious spectacle of a true, united happy and prosperous people."

There is a grandeur in the mountain that lifts itself above the hamlets at its base, and bearing its brow to the threatening storm clouds says to the forked lightning, "Strike me!" but grander is the man who can stand 'mid the allurements of the world's honors and say: "I would rather be right than President." Dare to do right and what you do will have its reward.

"Shamgar, what's that in thy hand?"

"Only an ox-goad."

"Come dedicate it to God, and go slay those Philistines."

"David, what's that in thy hand?"

"Only a sling and a little stone from the brook."

"Come dedicate them to God, and go kill the giant."

"My little lad, what's that you have?"

"Only five loaves and two little fishes."

"Come, dedicate them to God; they'll feed thousands and you will have baskets full left."

My brother, what's that in thy hand? Only a little American ballot. Come dedicate it to God and home and native land, go cast it against the licensed liquor traffic and your life will bear fruit which the angels will gather when you have "finished your course" and "kept the faith."

You are soon to have the local option test in your county. If I could do one thing I could make the victory for the home overwhelming. You know if the saloons continue they will have their victims in the future as they have had in the past. You know too their victims will come from the youth of your county. Those who are victims now will soon be dead bodies, or "dead broke." The men in the saloon business do not look to men who are drunkards now, for future use nor do they intend to use horses or cattle or dogs, but boys. If I could announce that on the evening before the vote is to be taken I would present to the public the future victims of the saloons in this county. If I had a prophet's eye and could select these victims, how many homes I would enter where I would not only be an unwelcome but an unexpected visitor. When the hour would arrive for the exhibition, what an audience I would have! Nothing like it ever gathered in this county; from every corner of it parents would come. When placed in line on an elevated platform so all could see, I would speak through a megaphone saying: "I present to you the future victims of the liquor traffic in your county; here are the boys who will be your future drunkards and here are the girls who will be the wives of drunkards." I imagine some father, who thinks regulation the best policy, would exclaim:

"There's my boy. I never thought the saloon would take my son. Don't talk to me about regulation. Come, you fathers whose sons are not here, and help me save my boy."

Another would press through the crowd to be sure that he was not mistaken and say: "There's my daughter. I never dreamt she would be a drunkard's wife. I have said prohibition won't prohibit, but I will say it no more. Come, good fathers who love your children, and help me save my child."

This is but the forecast for some parents in this audience. Would it be wrong if I should say: "O God, if the saloons are to continue in this county, if they are to have their victims in the future as in the past, let the fathers who vote the curse on the county furnish the victims." I do not offer up any such prayer, but I do say: "O God, give to the home the protection of a prohibition law, and may the victims not be anybody's boy or anybody's girl. Go out of this hall tonight resolved you will link your faith in principle with your work. Faith and work!"

I like that story of the mother in New England, who on a visit from home, received a message calling her to the bedside of a daughter who was hopelessly ill. Hurrying to the nearest railroad station she said to the conductor: "Sir, do you connect at the junction with the train that will take me to my sick child," at the same time handing him the message.

"No, madam, we do not run our trains to connect with trains on that road. The train will be gone some little time before we reach the junction."

"Sir, are you a Christian?"

"No, madam, I'm a railroad conductor."

"Have you a Christian man with the train?"

"Yes, that man you see oiling the engine claims to be a Christian, and I think he is; you might consult him if you like."

Going to the engineer she said: "Please read this message and tell me if you can catch that train at the junction."

The engineer read the message and said: "I'm sorry, madam, but that train goes fifteen minutes before we get there."

"Please sir, catch that train and let me see my daughter before she dies."

"I would give a whole month's wages if I could," said the tender hearted engineer.

"Then don't you think God can hold the train fifteen minutes till we get there," said the distressed mother.

"Oh yes, God can do anything," was the reply.

"Won't you ask God to hold that train? And I will ask Him."

The engineer said: "Yes, I will."

The mother boarded the train, and on schedule time the engine moved. The engineer took hold of the lever and up with the smoke from the engine went the prayer: "Lord, hold that train fifteen minutes for that good mother." With this prayer more steam was turned on than usual and at the next station the train was two minutes ahead of time. At the next station two more minutes had been gained. It was in the early days of railroading when rules were not so strict as now; the conductor knew there was nothing in the way, so he concluded to let the Christian engineer have his way. As the train was starting for its third and last run for the junction, the engineer said: "Lord, if you will hold that other train seven and a half minutes, I'll make up the other seven and a half."

When the engineer had made up his seven and a half, sure enough there stood the other train. When the engineer said to the conductor: "What are you waiting for," the reply was: "Something the matter with the engine, but the boys have it fixed now and we'll go on in a minute."

"Yes," said the engineer, "you'll go on when this godly mother gets on and not before."

Each one of you do your part, God will do His part, and the end will be victory for "God and home and native land."



IV

THE NEW WOMAN AND THE OLD MAN.

In the exhibition of fine paintings it is important to have the benefit of proper light and shadow. So it should be in the study of questions. Those who look at the new woman through the distorted lense of false education or prejudice, see the monstrosity such as we have pictured in the public press. They see Dr. Mary Walker, whose dress offends our sense of propriety; they see the ranting woman on the platform, or suffragettes throwing stones through plate-glass windows, and defacing costly specimens of art. These no more represent the genuine new woman I indorse, than does the goggled-eyed, kimbo-armed dandy represent true manhood. Fanaticism marks every new movement, every life has its defect, the sun its spots and the fairest face its freckles.

The new woman is not to be judged by exceptions, nor is she to be measured by the standard of public sentiment. Public sentiment has often condemned the right. It ridiculed Columbus; put Roger Bacon in jail because he discovered the principle of concave and convex glass; condemned Socrates, and jeered Fulton and Morse. It pronounced the making of table forks a mockery of the Creator who gave us fingers to eat with, and broke up a church in Illinois because a woman prayed in prayer meeting.

Hume said: "There is nothing in itself, beautiful or deformed. These attributes arise from the peculiar construction of human sentiment and affection; the attractiveness or repulsiveness of a thing depends very much upon our schooling."

Prof. John Stuart Blackie wore his hair so long that it almost reached his waist. Seated one day in front of a hotel in London, a bootblack halted before him and said: "Mister, will you have a shine?"

Professor Blackie replied: "No, but if you will go wash that dirty face of yours I will give you the price of a shine."

The boy went but soon returned with his rosy cheeks cleansed, saying: "Sir, how do you like the job?"

"That's all right; you have earned your sixpence," said Prof. Blackie as he held out the coin.

The bootblack turning away said: "I dinna want your sixpence; keep it, old chap, and have yer hair cut."

The long hair of Professor Blackie was as offensive to the boy as the dirty face of the boy to Professor Blackie. One had been schooled to short-haired men, the other to cleanly children.

I have in my presence now scores of persons, who believe the sale of a negro on the auction block in the South to the domination of a white man was wrong. I did not think so in my youth. My schooling was that Japheth was a white man, Shem a red man and Ham was black; that it was a divine decree that the descendants of Japheth should dwell in the tents of Shem and send for the children of Ham to be their servants, thereby supporting the white man in his dealings with the black and red races. As the Bible was used to justify slavery, so it is quoted today in favor of the liquor traffic, and against the new woman movement. Yet it's the Bible that has given woman her broader liberty. It was the Bible that broke the chains that harnessed woman to a plow by the side of an ox. In the vision of John, a woman is crowned with stars, the burnt-out moon is her footstool and the wings of a great eagle given to bear her above the floods that would engulf her.

The viewpoint of schooling has much to do with our convictions and prejudices. When the bicycle craze first came upon us, women bicycle clubs were formed throughout the country. Wheels were made specially for woman, and to facilitate the pleasure and comfort, bloomers were worn by women in all our cities. The fat and lean, tall and short, old and young wore bloomers. At that time if a man from the country neighborhood where I was reared, one given to dancing, had gone to Chicago and seen these bloomer-clad women, he would have thought the whole sex disgraced. And I must admit I didn't like the bloomer girl myself. I can appreciate the Yankee farmer who lived between Boston and Wareham, Mass. A young woman who lived in Boston had a friend in Wareham, and donning her bloomers she mounted her wheel and started for the village. Passing several diverging points, and thinking possibly she had missed the right road, she decided to inquire at the next house. Seeing the Yankee farmer at the front gate she rode up, dismounted and said: "Sir, will you please tell me, is this the way to Wareham?"

The farmer, with eyes fixed upon the new garb, said: "Miss, you'll have to excuse me. I can't tell you, for I never saw anything like them before."

I said our opinions are based upon schooling. Let the man from the dancing community leave Chicago, go back to Kentucky, attend a country ball, see a young woman with low neck dress and short sleeves, in the arms of a man she never met before, and he thinks her the picture of propriety, as well as grace and beauty. Yet the bloomer girl was completely clad from her chin to the soles of her feet while the other is so un-clad that when a woman, now noted for her great work among the unfortunate of New York City, was a society leader, and was passing through her library to her carriage one evening, her little son said: "Mama, you are not going out on the street looking that way, are you? Why, you are scarcely dressed at all." The mother realizing as never before, the immodesty of her attire, returned to her room, changed her apparel to what met the approval of her boy, and has never since worn a decollete gown.

Let a respectable woman in this town stand on a street corner to-morrow, and utter an oath; she would shock every one within sound of her voice. A man can "cuss" to his satisfaction and, if not a church member, the community is not shocked. Let a young woman seeking a position in a public school in one of our cities, call a member of the school board into a saloon and order beer set up for two; would she get the position? Not much. Not if the community found it out, or the remainder of the board who were slighted. A man can invite a dozen men into a saloon, order drinks for the company, and thereby help to win the position he seeks. In the city where I reside a young man can get drunk and howl like a wolf through the streets, yet if he has wealth and family influence, in ten days he can attend a social gathering of the best society. Let a young woman step aside from the path of right and she is hurled to the depths of the low-land of vices.

Some years ago a young man died in our city whose family name was honored and whose father was wealthy. The young man went the pace that kills and in the very morning of life died a victim to his vices. A long line of carriages followed him to our beautiful cemetery, his pall bearers were from the leading families of the city; flowers covered his grave and the daily papers paid a tribute to the young man cut down before the river of life was half run.

Soon after, a poor girl died in one of the wicked dens of the city. She had been left an orphan in early life without a mother's love to guard and guide her, she went astray. Two carriages followed her to the stranger's burying ground. In one were two of her kind; in the other the pastor of the church of which I am a member. He afterward said to me: "We had to get two negro men at work near by to help lower her body into the grave."

No wonder woman cries out against these standards, these peculiar constructions of human sentiment. Public sentiment demands of a man that he shall be physically brave. If a woman appeals to him for protection, his bosom must heave with courage like the billows of the ocean, though he quake in his boots. Yet the woman he defends will endure pain without a murmur, which would make the man groan for an hour. When my wife is ill it takes about two days to find it out; she does not seem so cheerful the first day, and the second, she will admit she is not so well. Let me get sick, and the whole family will know it in half an hour.

I know a woman will scream if a mouse runs across the floor, but give her a loved one to defend, let supreme danger come and she's no coward. John Temple Graves tells of a Georgia girl so timid she was afraid to cross the hall at night to mother's room. She married a worthy young man and by industry and economy they paid for a cottage home. He began to cough, and the hectic flush told his lungs were involved. The doctor advised a change of climate.

"We'll sell the home," said the little wife, "and go where the doctor advises, for the home will be nothing to me if you are gone."

They went to Florida and knowing they must husband their small means, she took in sewing. A few months later the doctor advised a higher altitude. They went to a little city in the Ozark mountains. Here again she plied her needle, wearing upon her face by day a smile to cheer her husband, while at night her pillow was wet with tears as she heard him coughing his life away. After several months she was informed by physicians that but one chance in a hundred remained, and that was still further west.

"I'll take the hundredth chance," she said, and on west they went. Soon after, in the far-away city he died; she pawned her wedding ring to make up the price of tickets back to Georgia. There the little widow buried her dead by the side of his mother, and after planting her favorite flowers about the grave, she turned away to face the duties of life, and though a dead wall seemed lifted before her, she met each day with a smile and hid her sorrow beneath the soul's altar of hope.

Man has won his title to courage upon battlefield, and yet the battlefield is not the place to test true courage.

"The wife who girds her husband's sword, 'Mid little ones who weep or wonder, And bravely speaks the cheering word, E'en though her heart be rent asunder:

Doomed nightly in her dreams to hear The bolts of death around him rattle, Hath shed as sacred blood as ere Was poured upon the field of battle."

When elbows touch, ten thousand feet keep step together, martial music fills the air, the shout of battle is on, bayonets glitter in the sunlight, the flag flutters in the breeze, and the general commands, men will shout and rush into battle who without these stimulating influences would be going the other way. I remember when a boy how whistling kept up my courage in the dark. It is told of General Zeb Vance of the Confederate army, that while leading his forces across a field into an engagement he met a rabbit going the other way. As the hare dodged around the command, General Vance lifting his hat said: "Go it, Mollie; go it, Mollie Cotton-tail; if I didn't have a reputation to sustain I would be right there with you."

For Christine Bradley, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the Governor of Kentucky, to stand on the dock at Newport News, against the customs of centuries and facing the jeers of prejudice, baptize the battleship Kentucky with water, required as blood-born bravery as coursed the veins of the ensign who cut the wires in Cardenas Bay, or the lieutenant who sunk the Merrimac in the entrance to Santiago Harbor. Because she dared to violate a long-established custom by refusing to use what had blighted the hopes of many daughters, sent to drunkards' graves so many sons, and buried crafts and crews in watery graves, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union presented her with a handsome silver service. I was chosen to make the presentation speech, which I closed by saying: "Heaven bless Christine Bradley, who by her example said:

I christen thee Kentucky, With water from the spring, Which enriched the blood of Lincoln, Whose praise the sailors sing.

I christen thee Kentucky, With prayers of woman true, That wine, the curse of sailors, May never curse your crew.

I christen thee Kentucky, And may this christening be, A lesson of safety ever To sailors on the sea."

Now if public sentiment has made such a mistake in the allotment of virtues, why may it not have made a greater mistake in the allotment of spheres? It has been well said: "God made woman a free moral agent, capable of the highest development of brain, heart and conscience; with these are interwoven interests that involve issues for time and eternity, and God expects of woman the best she can do in whatever field she is best fitted for the accomplishment of results for the world's good." If a young woman is fitted to preside over a home, and some young man desires to crown her queen of that realm, she can find no higher calling in this world. There is nothing on this earth more like heaven than a happy home. I can give to a young woman no better wish than that the future may find her presiding over a home made beautiful by her character and culture, and safe through her influence.

But if a young woman is qualified like Frances E. Willard to better the world by public life-work, or like Florence Nightingale or Jane Addams to relieve the suffering of thousands, then she should not confine herself to the limited sphere of one household. I believe in the call of capacity for usefulness in both sexes. There are men who are called to be cooks; they know the art of the caterer. There are men fitted to be dressmakers; they know the colors that blend and the styles which give beauty to dress. There are women who are fitted for science, literature and medicine. Some of the best cooks we have are men; some of the best writers and speakers are women. Abraham Lincoln never did more by his proclamation to free the slave, than did Harriet Beecher Stowe with "Uncle Tom's Cabin." William E. Gladstone never did more to endear himself to the people of Ireland by his advocacy of the home-rule, than has Lady Henry Somerset endeared herself to the common people of the "United Kingdom," by turning away from the wealth, nobility and aristocracy of England to devote her great heart, gifted brain and abundant means to the elevation of the masses, the reformation of the wayward, and the relief of the poor.

There is a fitness that must not be ignored. Frances E. Willard would never have made a dressmaker. It is said she did not know when her own dress fit, or whether becoming; she depended upon Anna Gordon to decide for her. But by the music of her eloquence and the rhythm of her rhetoric, she could send the truth echoing through the hearts of her hearers like the strain of a sweet melody. Worth, of Paris, France, would not have made an orator, but he could design a robe to please a princess and make a dress to fit "to the queen's taste." Then let Worths make dresses, and Frances E. Willards charm the world by their eloquence.

Yonder is a boy. His soul is full of music; his fingers are as much at home on the key-board of a piano as a mocking-bird in its own native orange grove. His sister is a mathematician; she solves a problem in mathematics as easily as her brother plays a piece of music. Because one is a boy and the other a girl, don't make the girl teach music and the boy mathematics. What God has joined together in fitness, let not false education put asunder.

Recently I read of a man whose father left him a large business. Though an exemplary man he could not make ends meet in a business out of which his father had made a fortune. The man worried himself into nervous prostration. While he remained at home for rest, his wife took charge of the business and made of it a great success. I say let that woman run the business and the man take care of his nerves.

I know a minister who is a good man, but his strength is in his limbs. He's an athlete, but turn him loose in a field as full of ideas as a clover field of blossoms, and he can't preach a good sermon. Let Dr. Anna Shaw enter the same field and she will gather blossoms of thought faster than you can store them away in your mind. Some one in my presence may believe the man should keep on preaching and Anna Shaw go to the sewing-room and run a sewing machine; but I say if the man's strength is in his limbs, and Doctor Shaw's in her head, let the preacher run the sewing machine and Doctor Shaw preach the gospel of righteousness, temperance and judgment to come. If God fitted Anna Shaw's brain and tongue for the platform, it would be unwomanly in her to make herself the pedal power of a sewing machine. We want successful, useful men and women; and in fields for which God has fitted woman, don't be afraid to give her the freest, broadest liberty, or be uneasy about her unsexing herself. She has entered two hundred fields in the last one hundred years. Yes, I guess one more field must be added, for I saw a woman a few years ago in an occupation I had never seen one engaged in before. In a city where I lectured a beautiful, intelligent young lady was running the elevator of a hotel, and I was completely "taken up" by her.

Of all the new fields entered by woman you cannot point to one where she has degraded her womanhood, or one that has not been blessed by the touch of her influence.

It is true there are fanatics among women as there are among men, but if the extreme woman goes too far, the average woman will call a halt every time. Fifteen years ago I could stand on Michigan Avenue, Chicago, in the evening and within a half hour count twenty young women, dressed in bloomers, riding bicycles. Now one may go to Chicago, spend a year and not see one. Woman is safe enough.

Some are uneasy lest woman will go beyond her sphere, but I am not so much disturbed about the future of woman as I am of man. Upon virtue and intelligence depends the future of this republic. Have men all the virtue? Go to the saloons; are they frequented by women? No; men. Go to the gambling halls; are they crowded with women? No; men. Go to the jails and penitentiaries; are they full of women? No; men. Go to the churches; are they crowded with men? No; mostly by women. What about intelligence? Have men all the intelligence? Two girls graduate from high schools to one boy. I am glad to be living now; one hundred years hence, if I were to be born again, I would want to be a girl. Woman goes to the door of death to give life to man and man should be willing to let her seek out her own sphere for usefulness.

Not long since I read a book called "The New Woman." It was a novel by an Englishman. In it the author takes a beautiful young girl, about eighteen years of age, through a "Gretna-Green" experience with a young man of twenty. She is the daughter of a widow; he, the only son of a wealthy London merchant. They run away and after a month's search are found by the father of the young man in southern France. The girl is sent home to her mother; the young man sent to India in order to get him far away from his wife. The novelist makes the young man a noble character, who is determined to prove himself worthy of his wife, and he toils to send her means for support. The young wife becomes a mother, and the young husband toils the harder to care for his wife and babe. When time hangs heavy on the hands of the young mother, she is invited to join a woman's club. Here she imbibes the spirit of the new woman. She soon neglects her child and appears before the public for a lecture. She wears a low neck dress, paints her cheeks, blondines her hair, smokes cigarettes and drinks wine. A millionaire in India, who loses his own son, adopts the hero of the novel, dies and leaves him the great estate. Then the young man hurries back to his wife. He arrives in the evening, but finds she is not at home; she is delivering a lecture in the opera-house. He awaits her return; a storm rages outside; at a late hour she enters the door, throws off her wraps and stands before her husband, with blondined hair, painted cheeks, and eyes red with wine. He stares, then starts toward her, when she brings him to a halt by her strange manner. He asks, "Is not this my wife?" she answers, "No, I am the New Woman." She refuses to let him see their child, drives him out into the storm, then goes to her room, disrobes and lies down to dream of great audiences and applause.

It is an insult to any intelligent reader. Where is the woman, who was a sweet, modest young mother, and who today is a public speaker, who has neglected her child, driven her husband without cause into the street, blondines her hair, paints her cheeks, drinks wine and smokes cigarettes? She would be hissed from the platform. The author simply shows his extreme prejudice in an abstract attempt to prove that to be a new woman means the surrender of all womanly graces.

Let me give you, not fiction but real history, that I may present to you the kind of new woman I indorse. She was born in the State of New York, was well educated, and at proper age married a young physician. They moved to a western city, where for a while the young physician did well; but in an evil hour he commenced to drink. Like many a noble young man, he was too weak to resist the power of appetite, and soon his practice left him. His wife, the mother of two boys, secured a position in the public schools and by her ability, won her way to a principalship. The husband wandered away, while the brave wife and mother remained with her children, but followed her husband with letters of loving appeal. After long separation he was taken seriously ill in the far Southwest. She left children, home and school work to go to his bedside. Her watchful care brought him back from the very door of death, and her prayers were answered in seeing him forsake the cup and hide for safety in the cleft of the Rock of Ages. He returned with her to their home, but soon after passed away. She buried him beneath the green Missouri sod, planted flowers about the grave, paid him tribute of her tears, and returned to her work.

In the course of these years she had joined the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and was recognized as one of its greatest leaders.

Several years ago I gave an address in Hot Springs, Ark. A card was presented at my door, which bore the name of the heroine of my story. Going to the parlor I said: "What are you doing here?"

"My boy has been very ill with rheumatism and I have been here with him for several weeks. He is better now and I return to my work tomorrow."

Months later she was called again to the bedside of this son, and with all the tenderness of mother-love, he was cared for until he too passed over the river. Again she took up her work on the platform, where she inspired many young women to do their best in life, and called many to righteousness. She was the salt of the earth, the embodiment of nobility, the soul of truth; and not only her own state but the whole country is better because she lived.

Ask the author of the novel for the real to his story; he cannot name her; she does not live in England or America. Ask me for mine and I answer Clara C. Hoffman, for years the associate of Frances E. Willard as national officer of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and state president of the white ribboners of Missouri.

In a magazine article an author said: "Out of one hundred and forty-five graduates of a certain female college, only fifteen have married." A Chicago editor quoted the statement and asked: "Is it possible education breeds in woman a distaste for matrimony and home life?" In the first place, I would answer: "You never can know how many are going to marry until they are all dead."

Another explanation is that the average school girl goes out of school at that impulsive age when "love acts independent of all law, and is subject to nothing but its own sweet will," no matter how many years father has toiled to give her the comforts of life, nor how many sleepless nights mother has spent to give her rest. She meets a young man; he is handsome, dresses well and talks fluently. She falls in love, and sees in "love at first sight," the "inspiration of all wisdom." In a week, though she knows nothing of the young man's character or disposition, she is ready to say to her parents: "I appreciate all you have done for me: I love you devotedly, but I have met such a nice fellow; he has asked me to marry him, and I have accepted; ta-ta!" She's gone. If her parents ask about the prospect for a living, she answers as did the young girl whose father said: "Mary, are you determined to marry that young man?"

"I am, Father."

"Why, my child, he has no trade, no money, and very little education; what are you going to do for a living?"

She replied: "Aunt is going to give me a hen for a wedding present. You know, Father, it is said one hen will raise twenty chickens in a season. The second season, twenty each, you see, will be four hundred; the third season, eight thousand; the fourth season, one hundred and sixty thousand; and the fifth season, only five years, twenty each will be three million, two hundred thousand chickens. At twenty-five cents each they will bring eight hundred thousand dollars. We will then let you have money enough to pay off the mortgage on the farm and we will move to the city."

To a girl in love, every hen egg will hatch; not a chicken will ever die with the gapes; they will all live on love, like herself, and everything will be profit.

The college girl cannot marry at this impulsive, air-castle age. She must wait until she gets through college. By that time she is old enough for her heart to consult her head, and her head inquires into the character and capacity of the young man. Beside this, it has been the custom for women to look up to man, and when the college woman looks up, quite often she doesn't see anybody. Young man, if you want the college girl you must "get up" in good qualities to where she will see you without looking down.

I believe this higher education for women will tend to arrest the recklessness by which life is linked with life at the marriage altar. There is a legend among the Jews that man and woman were once one being; an angel was sent down from Heaven to cleave them into two. Ever since, each half has been running around looking for the other, and the misfits have been many at the marriage altar.

These misfits remind me of an experience when I lectured for the Colfax, Iowa, Chautauqua, some years ago. Frank Beard, the famous chalk talker, was there and on Grand Army day he was on the program for a short talk. I was seated by Mr. Beard while the speaker who preceded him was telling war stories of his regiment and himself. Frank Beard said to me: "Well! I guess I can exaggerate a little myself." It was evident he intended to measure up to the occasion. After getting his audience into proper spirit for the manufactured war story, he said:

"I was in the war myself and had a few experiences. At the battle of Shiloh, I was lying behind a log, when I saw about forty Confederates come dashing down toward me. My first impulse was to rise, make a charge and capture the whole forty. But I knew that would not be strategy; generals did not manage a battle that way with such odds against them, so I determined to make a detour. Perhaps some of you young people do not know what a detour means. It means, when in such a position as I was, to get up and go the other way. So I detoured. The chaplain of our regiment detoured also; he could detour a little faster than I, and was directly in front of me when a shell caught up with me and took my leg off just above the knee. You may notice I walk very lame." (Which he did just then for effect). "Well, the same shell took off the chaplain's leg, and we tumbled into a heap. The surgeon came up, and having a little too much booze, he got things mixed; he put the chaplain's leg on me and my leg on the chaplain. We were in good health, and the legs grew on all right. When I recovered, I concluded to celebrate my restoration to usefulness, so I went into a saloon and said to the bartender, 'Give me some good old brandy.' He set out the bottle, and I began to fill the glass, when that chaplain's leg began to kick. The chaplain was a very ardent temperance man, and the first thing I knew, that temperance leg was making for the door, and I followed. But what do you think? As I went out, I met my leg bringing the chaplain in."

That's a very absurd story, a rather ridiculous one, but if the surgeon had made the mistake Mr. Beard charged, he would not have made any greater than is made every day at the marriage altar. Young women, I would not silence the love songs in your hopeful hearts, but I would have every betrothed girl demand of her lover not only a loving heart, but a well rounded character and a reasonable store of useful knowledge.

A writer on this question said: "This progress of woman lessens mother love in our country." Is that true? Before the opening of a southern exposition, a mother of four boys applied for and was engaged as chime bell ringer. Perhaps some saw in the selection a woman as brazen as the bells she would ring. On opening day she played, "He who watches over Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps"; on New York day she played, "Yankee Doodle" and "Hail Columbia;" on Pennsylvania day, "The Star Spangled Banner;" on Kentucky day, "My Old Kentucky Home;" on Maryland day, "Maryland, my Maryland;" on Georgia day, "The Girl I Left Behind Me;" on colored people's day, the airs of the old plantation; on newsboy's day, "The Bowery" and "Sunshine of Paradise Alley;" then "Nearer, my God, to Thee," "Rock of Ages, Cleft For Me," soothed the tired Christian heart. One afternoon she took two of her boys into the belfry-tower; one seven, the other about three years of age. When they tired of the confinement, the older boy said: "Mother, can we go out for a walk?"

"Yes, son, but don't let go little brother's hand."

She was so absorbed by the music of her bells she did not notice the passing of time until the night shadows began to gather. Then her older boy came running up in the tower crying, "Mother, I've lost little brother!"

She quit her bells and running through the grounds set every policeman looking for her boy; then she hurried back to her bells and began to play "Home, Sweet Home." It is said the bells never rang so clear and sweet. Over and over again she played, "Home, Sweet Home;" some wondered why the tune did not change. At last, while trembling with dread and eyes filled with tears, she heard a sweet voice say, "Mama, I hear de bells and I tome to you." The mother, turning from the bells, clasped the child to her bosom and thanked God for its safety.

It is said everything is undergoing a constant change, but until the chime bells ring in the eternal morning mother love will live on, the same unchanging devotion. Several years ago I stood on Portland Heights, Oregon, in the evening, and saw Mount Hood in its snow-capped majesty, when the stars seemed to be set as jewels in its crown. If you ask me by what force that giant was lifted from the level of the sea till its dome touched the sky, I cannot answer you, but I know it stands there, a towering sentinel to traveler on land and sailor on the sea. So mother love, which no one can solve, exists as unchanging as the love of God; broad enough and strong enough to meet all the changing conditions of time.

While I did not make this lecture to include the suffrage question, I cannot turn away from the new woman without a word about the ballot for women. It is no longer a question of right, but whether or not men will grant the right. This I believe men will do when the sentiment of women is strong enough to force the issue. "Taxation without representation" is no less a tyranny to women than to men. I was the guest of a wealthy widow, who paid more taxes than any man in the county, yet a foreigner, who had been in this country less than three years, who had not a dollar of property nor a patriotic impulse, laid down the hoe in the garden, and going to the polls, voted additional tax upon the woman he worked for; and the saloon influence upon her two boys, while she had no voice in what taxes her property, or what might tax her heart by the ruin of a son. There being no question about woman's right to the ballot, there should be no hesitation on man's part in bestowing the right.

I now turn from the new woman to the old man. I do not mean the man old in years; for him I have only words of honor and praise. I mean the man set in old ways and habits that neutralizes the progress and wastes the forces of the republic. At the door of this old man lie the causes of commercial disturbances, depression in trade and recurring panics more than in the causes stressed by partisans for political effect.