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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 1 



When I met our attorney for the Anti- 

 saloon League in Columbus I was again 

 surprised to find /ii7ti so glad to see me. In 

 a little time I was introduced to members 

 of the House and Senate who were fore- 

 most in pushing our temperance laws. Per- 

 haps I might mention here that, when the 

 bill went through the House, there were 72 

 votes for it and 36 against it. When it 

 came up before the Senate there was a tre- 

 mendous determination on the part of the 

 brewers and saloon-keepers to block its 

 passage. Unfortunately, Governor Herrick 

 seemed to be on the side of the wets — at 

 least he announced publicly and privately 

 that the bill was not fair. This was a 

 profound surprise and a deep regret, not 

 only to temperance people but to the press 

 generally throughout our State. Let me 

 digress a little. 



When I approached the Haj'den building 

 I inquired of a bright, clean looking, mid- 

 dle-aged man if he could direct me to the 

 rooms of the Anti-saloon League. He re- 

 plied, " They are on the sixth floor. As I 

 am going right up there I will gladly di- 

 rect you." 



As the elevator started he said, "You 

 are one of the temperance folks, I take it." 



'* I sincerely hope I am. Are not j'ou one 

 also? " 



" Why, yes; I believe in temperance to a 

 reasonable extent. " 



" Well, my friend, is it not a ' reasonable 

 extent ' to ask that the majority may rule?" 



" Why, I suppose so. But you temper- 

 ance people want the whole earth." 



I was astonished at this, but I tried to 

 hold him down to my point, and I replied 

 again: 



" But, my good friend, is it not according 

 to the spirit of the institutions of our coun- 

 try that we should have the whole earth if 

 the majority is on our side? " 



He looked so bright, intelligent, so gen- 

 tlemanly, and so well educated, that I be- 

 lieved him to be reasonable; but I had evi- 

 dently provoked him without meaning to, 

 for he replied: 



"Yes, yes; I know you folks got a big 

 victory through the House, but it was by 

 fraud and unfair means.* Now, I occasion- 

 ally want a drink of beer myself; but I do 

 not want to be obliged to go half a mile 

 after it." 



By this time we were up at the top. He 



* As there may be those among our readers who lake 

 the position that this man did. please let us consider it 

 a little. It would be quite reasonable to .'■uppose that 

 the brewers might stoop to fraud or unfair means. 

 They are afler the money — nobody disputes that ; but 

 thost who are working for temperance are quite a dif- 

 ferent sort of people. First, they are a class that 

 would be very unlikely to be willing to use fraud or 

 any thing unfair. Second there is no money in it for 

 us at all. The temperance cause means moiiey out of 

 pocket, and that continually. I hope it is true ihat our 

 ambitions and our aims are above tho.se of a sordid na- 

 ture. We are using our strength and our money to 

 protect our wives and our children that our boys and 

 our girls may grow up intell gent, God fearing men 

 and women. And yet this man looked me in the face 

 and charged us with gaining our victory by "fraud." 

 It was a revelation to me, especially to find a bright, 

 -well-educated man give utterance to such logic. 



courteously pointed me to the Anti-saloon 

 rooms, and his natural good breeding pre- 

 vented him from showing an uncivil spirit. 

 It seemed to me, however, that this conver- 

 sation gave me a key to the situation. There 

 are a good many rather nice people in Ohio 

 who do not relish the idea of letting the ma- 

 jority rule when it comes to blocking the 

 way toward their accustomed drinks. 



It was one of my happy surprises to find 

 such a nice lot of clean men, not only in the 

 House but in the Senate. Some eight or 

 ten years ago I made a similar visit to Co- 

 lumbus on a like errand. At that time the 

 whisky element seemed to have the upper 

 hand almost everywhere. I said again and 

 again in my heart, "May God be praised 

 for the new order of things. ' ' The men who 

 had been elected by the people of Ohio, 

 both in the House and Senate, were, as a 

 rule, not only temperate but temperance 

 men; and, I think I may truthfully add, 

 gentlemen and scholars besides. Mr. Fish- 

 er, the Representative from this county, 

 seemed to be a pretty fair sample of all the 

 rest. W^hen I asked Ernest what had hap- 

 pened to make such a change in the man- 

 agement of our State, he replied, "Why, 

 that is the work of the Anti- saloon League, 

 the W. C. T. U., and other temperance or- 

 ganizations. The Anti- saloon League has 

 especially declared that no man who favors 

 the saloons or the liquor-traflfic shall get a 

 place among our law-makers, and they are 

 just beginning to make themselves feared." 



Tuesday afternoon, about three o'clock, 

 the fight was opened. The champion of the 

 temperance people was Senator Chamber- 

 lain, of Lorain Co. As my hearing is a 

 little defective I got in early and chose a 

 position on the seats saved for the audience, 

 pretty near the speaker's stand. In doing 

 this I did not notice I was quite near Sena- 

 tor Chamberlain s desk. I had shaken 

 hands with him before dinner; but owing 

 to the confusion incident to being introduced 

 to so many different men, all of them bright, 

 clean (and, I think I can safely say, good- 

 looking), I could hardly remember one from 

 another. As the session opened. Senator 

 C. , looking round, caught sight of me, and 

 gave me a pleasant smile of recognition. 

 Now, I did not know who it was until I hap- 

 pened to notice his name on his desk. He 

 probably saw my look of embarrassment, 

 and watched my face while I slowly caught 

 on to the fact that he was the one I was 

 most interested in — our advocate. Let me 

 digress a little right here. 



I have several times spoken of the won- 

 derful power there is in a woman's smile. 

 I have mentioned its dangerous power for 

 evil, contrasting its power for good in up- 

 lifting humanity. When I was a -younger 

 man I sometimes almost feared the power 

 of a woman's smile — that is, if a real smart 

 bright woman should set seriously about 

 showing me what she could do. And now 

 I wish to say something about the power 

 and uplift that may come from a pleasant 

 nod of recognition from a fine- looking man. 



