1902 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



113 



fact that he has wrong'ed an innocent party, 

 it is a question, as I look at it, whether he 

 should be either forgiven or forgotten. 



A few months ago we were having a big 

 fight with the brewers and saloon-keepers. 

 They were determined the canteen should 

 remain in the army. They got men high in 

 office to back them up. The newspapers of 

 our land, especially the great dailies, a 

 great part of them, gave place to the most 

 ridiculous false statements in regard to the 

 effect of depriving (?) soldiers of their beer. 

 In fact, the thing got a going to such an 

 extent that good Christian people — yes, and 

 some ministers of the gospel — believed these 

 ridiculous and unreasonable falsehoods to 

 be facts. They said it seemed, from care- 

 ful reports from good authority, that the 

 canteen was a temperance measure; and 

 then they quoted what the papers said. 

 The Prohibition party, the Anti-saloon 

 League, the W. C. T. U., and other tem- 

 perance organizations, invested both time 

 and money to sift these statements to 

 the bottom. They came out promptly 

 with facts that could not be disputed. 

 They then asked these great dailies, and 

 other papers that have given place to strings 

 of falsehoods in regard to the matter, to 

 please correct, giving them .any quantity of 

 facts, and letters from the proper officials, 

 demonstrating beyond dispute that the 

 newspaper statements were falsehoods, oft- 

 entimes made out of whole cloth, put out 

 by those interested in pushing the liquor- 

 trade. Most of you know how it turned 

 out. Very few indeed of the newspapers 

 gave place to a correction and refutation of 

 these pernicious lies. Sometimes in some 

 obscure corner they put in a very brief note 

 to the effect that the disasters consequent 

 on abolishing the canteen were not so bad 

 after all. Not one of them, that I know of, 

 unless it was a religious paper, apologized 

 for having unwittingly defended the brew- 

 ers, or expressed any regret whatever, that 

 they had been entrapped into serving the 

 prince of darkness. After General Miles 

 came out with his sweeping declaration, 

 the subject seemed to be dropped; and, by 

 the way, it seems to me we temperance peo- 

 ple have not thanked God as we ought to 

 have done for a man in authority, likie Gen- 

 eral Miles, to come forward at such an op- 

 portune moment. If I have not said it be- 

 fore, let me say it here, may God be praised 

 for General Miles; and inay all good men 

 and women stand by him. The inatter 

 seems to have been dropped pretty general- 

 ly; but I for one do not feel like dropping it 

 just yet. I fear the disgraceful and shame- 

 ful example set by these great dailies is go- 

 ing to establish a sort of precedent. Yes, 

 it has already started a fashion of wrong- 

 ing innocent men or an innocent class of 

 people, and then refusing to retract or re- 

 call the wrong statement. I once heard a 

 story of an editor who, by mistake, gave an 

 account of a man's death. The man came 

 into the office considerably stirred up. He 

 stood before the editor, and pointed to the 



passage. The editor said, " Well, what of 

 it?" 



"You said I was dead. Now you know 

 I am not dead; you see me standing here 

 before you. I want you to retract and 

 apologize." 



The editor very mildlj' replied: 



" No. my friend, we can not say that we 

 were mistaken. An editor never makes a 

 mistake. We will do this, however: We 

 will say you have come to life again; that 

 we have seen you, and know it to be true." 



Of course, this was sarcasm; but it is a 

 fashion among periodicals ana even home 

 papers that ought to be rebuked. I sup- 

 pose most of you see already what I am 

 driving at. By a mistake or blunder some- 

 where — yes, a stupid, senseless blunder — 

 almost every periodical, big and little, 

 thought it a fine thing to dish before their 

 rea'ers the fact that comb honey is now in 

 this new century really made in large fac- 

 tories, out of glucose and parjiffine. Permit 

 me to say right here the bee-keepers of our 

 land have done nobly in protecting their in- 

 dustry from the damaging scandal. One 

 editor said, in a sort of pleasantry, that he 

 did not know there were so many bee-keep- 

 ers on the face of the earth. Another thing, 

 he did not know what a pugnacious, vin- 

 dictive set of people they were, before. 

 This editor had been a little backward 

 about retracting, and I presume likely his 

 patrons who were producing honey more or 

 less almost snowed him under with pro- 

 tests. He said he would have to buy a big- 

 ger waste-paper basket if the thing kept 

 on; but he finally came out with a pretty 

 good apology. Of course, this story is old, 

 and has been popping up a good many 

 times. It makes one think of the seven 

 times a day mentioned in our text, and it 

 is right we should forgive and forget; but, 

 as I see it, before we do this the editor of 

 the paper needs to make at least some fee- 

 ble attempt to undo his wrong. Does any- 

 body ask ivhat wrong? During the holi- 

 days, when comb honey has usually a large 

 sale, a large dealer in Cleveland, who had 

 a ton or more of honey from us, wrote that, 

 for some reason he could not explain, the 

 sales of honey hiid suddenly dropped, and 

 that at a time of the j'ear when it is very 

 unusual. This dealer had not probably 

 noticed the scandalous statements in the 

 papers. I do not know whether our bee- 

 keeping friends, in writing to these stubborn 

 and contrary editors, told them they could 

 not consent to bring into their homes a pe- 

 riodical that would refuse to correct an in- 

 justice and injury, whether done ignorant- 

 ly and carelessly or not. But I do advise 

 that, when a mild letter to the editor of 

 your home paper fails to stir him up to a 

 sense of justice, you should tell him in 

 plain black and white that he must be fair 

 or you do not want his paper. I think the 

 moral tone of the press the world over 

 would be greatly improved if the editors got 

 more such letters. Dictating to an editor 

 that he should agree with you on politics, 



