JULY 1, 1912 



There is a beautiful promise in the 91st 

 Psalm which I think will make an excellent 

 ending for my talk on hai^piness. 



There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any 

 pUgTie come nigh thy dwelling. For he shall give 

 his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy 

 ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest 

 thou dash they foot against a stone. 



JUDGE UINDSEY^ OF THE JUVENILE COURT OF 



DENVER^ AND THE WAY RIGHTEOUSNESS 



IS PROSPERING OVER INIQUITY. 

 Mr. E. B. Root : — Perhaps you have seen it in 

 the papers ; but I want to tell you that the corpora- 

 tions have been thrown out of politics in the election 

 in Denver. This is the culmination of the fight be- 

 gun several years ago by Judge Lindsey, the story 

 of which is told in "The Beast and the Jungle." 

 The victory was so sweeping that every office was 

 captured by the Citizens' party headed by former As- 

 sessor Henry J. Arnold, who is now Mayor, and 

 Judge Lindsey, who is still Judge of the Juvenile 

 Court. Judge Lindsey ran over two thousand votes 

 ahead of the Citizens' ticket, and the Citizens' ticket 

 polled about 41,000 votes against about 30,000 for 

 the Republican and Democratic tickets combined. 



You remember that I told you about the assessor 

 being thrown out of office by force at midnight? 

 Well, he is now mayor. The reason that he was 

 thrown out of office tiy force was because he would 

 not extend an ilUegal tax levy upon the assessment 

 rolls. 



Another thing was the fact that the former ma- 

 chine administration would not call a special election 

 to vote on commission form of government, petitioned 

 isy over twenty thousand voters. This is provided 

 for in our initiative law, but they disregarded it, 

 and are now supplanted by officers, every one of 

 whom is pledged to commission government. 



Why not ask the readers of Gleanings to express 

 themselves on their choice for president, also on 

 government ownership of telegraphs, express com- 

 panies, also any other public questions of national 

 concern ? 



I am enclosing a letter, the fourth during the past 

 month from different Gleanings readers who have 

 invested their money with this man Degge, who is a 

 promoter of a score or more of enterprises, not one 

 as yet a dividend-payer. He has had fraud orders 

 issued against him several times, I believe. Our 

 local banker referred to his schemes as thirty-cent 

 propositions. What can Gleaning.? do to get these 

 people to write to me before they invest, and not 

 after ? 



Boulder, Colo., June 2. Wesley Foster. 



May God be praised for the good work 

 that is going on in Colorado. And, by the 

 way, it may save somebody's honest earn- 

 ings by presenting also the letter you men- 

 tion. 



Mr. Wesley Foster: — Would you kindly give me 

 some information regarding the enterprises in which 

 W. W. Degge is interested, in and around Boulder? 

 Do you consider him thoroughly reliable ? I am a 

 stockholder in his company, and should like to know 

 your opinion of his chance of making good. I am 

 an old beekeeper, and have invested my earnings 

 with him, and should like to know through a fellow 

 beekeeper his standing in the community in which 

 he lives. I have been reading your letters in Glean- 

 ings, and felt that I could rely on any information 

 vou could give me regarding M. Degge. 



Appalachicola, Fla., May 20. W. P. Dunlap. 



Just think of it, friends. A hard-work- 

 ing beekeeper, and one also, as we take it, 

 well along in years, has wasted his hard 

 earnings by listening to some wild schemer 

 and promoter. Every little while we hear 

 of somebody who has toiled hard for years 

 with poultry, bees, or market-gardening, 

 and then is duped out of it all by some 



421 



schemer. Is it because so many are crazed 

 to get a bigger interest than they can get at 

 their bank, or, say, of their near neighbors, 

 where it would be perfectly safe? Once 

 more, do not think of investing money with 

 anybody who talks to you about "dividing 

 his profits," "profit-sharing," etc. And, 

 above all, write to somebody you know and 

 can trust before you think of "investing" 

 any thing, anywhere. 



ST. CLOUD, FLORIDA, THE HOME OF THE OLD 

 SOLDIERS, ETC. 



Mr. A. I. Root's attack on Florida, and St. Cloud 

 in particular, is unwarranted and not sustained by 

 facts. I visited St. Cloud recently, and met and 

 talked with a score of citizens picked at random on 

 the streets, and I found them all happy and con- 

 tented. I noticed that not many of them were trying 

 to cultivate the soil, but they were getting fullest 

 enjoyment out of life. St. Cloud's population, as 

 you state, is composed of old soldiers. My father is 

 an old soldier. He enlisted in the 144th Ohio. I 

 brought him to this State three years ago. I located 

 him at St. Petersburg because there were quite a 

 number of G. A. R. men there. If I had known about 

 St. Cloud at that time, or had investigated any of the 

 other soldier colonies in the State, I would have lo- 

 cated him among his old comrades. My father is too 

 old and feeble to work. I suppose that 80 per cent 

 of the soldiers at St. Cloud are too old to get out in 

 the sun and plow and dig and harvest. I did not 

 expect my father to work; but I did want him to 

 enjoy the declining years of his life down here in 

 this "sun-kissed country where he could get out his 

 fishing-rod and spend hours on the shores of the bay ; 

 to sit on the threshold of his home, and, as the last 

 lingering rays of the sun tinted the skies into glori- 

 ous hues, smoke and ruminate, and retire with the 

 peace that on the morrow it would be another day 

 without care. 



And at St. Cloud you will find other fathers and 

 other mothers, bent with age. and with worry of 

 other days, crippled with rheumatic pains, some pal- 

 sied, some pitifully crippled, who are thanking God 

 that they are down in Florida, away from the ex- 

 treme cold and the extreme heat, where a generous 

 government's bounty is sufficient for their small 

 needs. I know what I am talking about. I know of 

 a mother who spent eight months of each year in- 

 side of a superheated home, and of a father who suf- 

 fered liemorrhages, and was thrice given up to die. 

 These two people were brought from Ohio to Florida, 

 and that mother to-day spends every day of the 365 

 out of doors, feeding and tending to her flock of 

 chickens. She in three years has become twenty 

 years younger ; and that father is taking on flesh, 

 and now laughs at the doctors, when before he was 

 in fear of them. Is not that worth more than mon- 

 ey? Is money every thing? Can you not talk Flor- 

 ida v/ithout measuring it in dollars and cents ? 



Suppose your brother-in-law had a brother who 

 bought a piece of property, as you say, for $100, 

 and was offered |400 and refused it, and is now 

 sorry he did not sell because he can not get an offer 

 of $100 for it. Does that signify any thing except 

 that he was grasping and greedy ? He wanted more 

 than $400 for the $100 lot — may be $600 or $1000. 

 He took a gambler's chances; and because he did 

 not win out he is a welcher. He is kicking that the 

 game was not played fair. 



Those who bought a $100 lot, and improved it, 

 and caused vines to grow about it, and oleanders 

 and hybiscus flaunting their colors in front of it, 

 and fruit trees in the rear yard, under which a flock 

 of chickens disport, would not sell for $1000 or may 

 be $2000, because it is home, and in that home there 

 are health and contentment, and every morning be- 

 gins a fresh day. 



I am not going to answer your general attack on 

 Florida nor that on St. Cloud. You can see a malig- 

 nant spirit in all of it. I am simply writing to you 

 to show you another view-point of the old-soIdier life 

 in Florida, and I trust yon will give this article the 

 same prominence you did the unwarranted attack. 



As I write a man brings me a photograph of a 



