GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



103 



such terrible blows at the home, i-he did feel 

 called upon, in common with the mothers of 

 America, \.o protest against the saloon ; and in 

 behalf of the home she felt willing to speak, 

 even before public audiences. Many of our 

 readers are perhaps not aware of the fact that 

 our Catholic friends are very tenaci )us in their 

 love oi home. The divorces that disgrace the 

 members of our various churches are almost 

 unknown among the Catholics. I asked How- 

 ard Ru.=sell if he ever before heard of a wo- 

 man speaking in public who was a Roman 

 Catholic. I think he said he nevc'r had, and 

 that this was an innovation on the customs of 

 the past. Why, I felt as if I would have free- 

 ly given a ten-dollar bill lo have Mrs. Root 

 listen to Mrs. Lake's plea for the sacredness 

 and sanctity of the home, and for the boys 

 of our lanfl who are growing up, and going 

 out, not only from Catholic homes but from 

 ever} other hotne. I tell you, friends, when 

 temperance workers from all denominations 

 and from every political party begin to meet 

 in harmony and real brotherhood, then we 

 shall triumph. 



Judge Pollock, of Fargo, N. D., gave an ad- 

 dress on " The Saloon and the State." I hope 

 you will excuse my ignorance when I tell you 

 that I did not know before that North Dakota 

 as a State has no saloons. I think the judge 

 told us they never have had, although they 

 have had some hard fighls with the saloon- 

 keepers. Judge Pollock is a godly man and 

 an earnest Christian, even though he is a 

 smart an 1 successful lawyer. He said that 

 one of the difficulties in enforcing our laws 

 lay in the fact that the lawyers of our land, as 

 a whole, need a good old-fashioned Methodist 

 class meeting temper, mce revival. If the law- 

 yers could be revived, he said the public offi- 

 cers and the Governor of the State might be 

 expected to join in the revival very soon, es- 

 pecially so far as temperance is concerned. 

 In North Dakota they punish saloon-keepers. 

 For the first offense it is fine and imprison- 

 ment in the county jail or workhouse; and for 

 the second offense it is the penitentiary. He 

 said they had recently sent a man to the peni- 

 tentiary for selling a single gl.nss of whisky — 

 at least, that was all they succeeded in prov- 

 ing clearly against him. He said he knew the 

 man went to the penitentiar}-, because he him- 

 self made out the papers. 



A lady from North Dakota followed him, 

 whose name I am unable to give. She was 

 not what might be called a talented orator ; 

 but, oh how the honesty and sincerity of her 

 pure Christian spirit shone forth in all her talk ! 

 She said business men predicted that their 

 State would suffer from the loss of trade. 

 Along the line of an adjoining State, predic- 

 tions were made that the Dakota towns would 

 not get the business. She said she visited a 

 large number of business places on both sides 

 of the line to inquire into- this matter. She 

 conversed with a large number of business 

 men who had tried it under both conditions. 

 Now, kind friends, it is not aXviaystXie a iiionnt 

 of business that a grocer does that settles the 

 question of profit and loss. In one town, 

 when they had saloons they had to trust out 



until payday, for groceries and provisions; but 

 the saloon-keeper managed to get cash down., 

 while the grocer sold on time, and it seemed 

 so everywhere. The ready money went to the 

 saloon-keeper. When it was gone, the grocer 

 had to trust or see the families suffer. The 

 testimony was overwhelming in favor of no 

 saloon from a business point of view, and the 

 same rule holds good here in our town of Me- 

 dina. I have watched our place during a pe- 

 riod of from ten to fifteen j-ears with the sa- 

 loon, and I have watched during a like period 

 (bless the Lord !) after the saloon had gone. 



In a little private talk between the sessions, 

 a gentleman from a western city — I think it 

 was Minneapolis — said they had got so far as 

 to have the city divided into precincts, and 

 they had voted the saloons out of a little more 

 than half of the city. Right here the good 

 work seemed to stick and hang, and it was 

 dragging so slowly that many people were re- 

 fusing to live in the saloon districts. I need 

 not tell you which side of the city furnished 

 more criminals. Our friend said the differ- 

 ence in the two localities was simply wonder- 

 ful — nobody pretended to dispute it. Now, if 

 Minneapolis is not the city, let some one tell 

 me what place it was. 



I shall not have space to tell you in this pa- 

 per all I should like to tell ; but one of the 

 brightest and most interesting talks was from 

 a Mr. S. P. Thrasher, of New Haven, Ct. Mr. 

 Thrasher said in the outset that he was not a 

 lawyer, a member of Congress, a policeman, 

 nor any thing but an ordinary lay worker. 

 His talk was entitled "Enforcement of Law 

 in Connecticut." Some years ago God seem- 

 ed to call him especially toward this matter of 

 enforcement of law. He did not say that, but 

 /say it. I think God called Edison to lead 

 all the learned scientific men in electricity. 

 In the same way he called Moody to lead our 

 " doctors of divinity " in preaching the gos- 

 pel; for you know that oftentimes God chooses 

 "the fooHsh things of the world to confound 

 the wise ; and God hath chosen the weak 

 things of the world to confound the things 

 which are mighty." Well, Mr. Thrasher, 

 without any legal education, without any ex- 

 perience in politics, without any knowledge 

 of the ways in which detective policemen 

 should work, commenced working for temper- 

 ance. He very soon found out the difficulties 

 in enforcing law. Public officers told him his 

 ideas were good and right and proper, but that 

 they could not be carried out. If they could 

 get one single saloon-keeper off by himself, 

 with overwhelming testimony, they would 

 sometimes secure conviction.* Friend Thrash- 

 er's heart was ready to burst with righteous 

 indignation. He was, as I gathered, a man of 

 not very nuich means. Who is going to fur- 



*A little book has just been published, containing a 

 full account of this matter From it I extract the fol- 

 lowing from the first and second pages : 



Conclusive evidence has been piotl need that the garaWintf 

 inteiests of the State were handling- more than ten million 

 dollais annually. Illegal liquor-dealers were thriving in all 

 parts of the commonwealtn. Houses of prostitution were 

 rtourishinfc alonprthe stieets of our cities and highways of 

 our towns. The vilest sort of obscene literature was hein^ 

 distributed, apparently without fear of punishment Those 

 interested in these different lines of evil-doing appeared to 

 have .joined forces, thereby forming- a powerful alliance 

 against law and order. 



