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GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



May 15 



Our Homes 



By A. I. Root 



Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a re- 

 proach to any people.— Prov. 14 :34. 



May God be praised for Ray Stannard 

 Baker; and may he be praised again that 

 this man who has not been afraid to rebuke 

 sin in high places has turned his attention 

 to the study of the Uquor-traffic. We clip 

 the following from the Union Signal of 

 April 27: 



In his study of the liquor-traffic in a modern 

 American city, entitled "The Thin Crust of Civili- 

 zation," appearing in The American Magazine, Ray 

 Stannard Baker thus characterizes the folly and the 

 futility of our American civilization in its treat- 

 ment of the saloon evil. While he uses as the sub- 

 ject of his study the town of Newark, Ohio, where 

 was perpetrated last July the awful tragedy involv- 

 ing the death of Carl Ktherington In an effort to en- 

 force the law. he well says that. In thus describing 

 Newark, he has described also thf- typical American 

 town — indeed, has described the essential charac- 

 teristics of our modern prosperous, intelligent, ma- 

 terialistic American civilization. 



Below is a quotation from his talk, taken 

 from the American Magazine: 



THE THIN CKDST OF CIVILIZATION. 



In 1908, just before the local-option election, New- 

 ark had over eighty saloons. Think of if— in a town 

 of less than 25.000 people! In other words, it had 

 one saloon lor every sixty or seventy adult men. 



Think further what this meant to Newark. With 

 the best intentions In the world, but with a plenti- 

 ful lack of imagination, the people of Ohio had 

 sought to check ihe evils of the saloon, which they 

 had begun to see so clearly around them, by the 

 easy money method — by taxation. Each saloon 

 was forced to pay -SiOOO into the public funds. 



What was the result? Why. it made the poor 

 devils of saloon-keepers scratch harder than ever; 

 for a saloon-keeper is a human being who has to 

 eat three meals a day, wear clothes, and often sup- 

 port a family and a home. 



Think, then, what his problem was. First, he 

 had to sell enough beer and whisky in a year to pay 

 the .?1000 tax: after that he had to sell enough more 

 to pay his rent and his other taxes. If any. He had 

 to pay the inevitable and often enormous profits to 

 the big brewers who stood behind him— all this be- 

 fore he could make a penny for himself. Is it any 

 wonder that he had to push his business? Is it any 

 wonder that he began to break laws right and left 

 in order to increase his sales ? A man must live ! 



It became necessary, then, for saloon-keepers at 

 all hazards to stimulate trade. They must not only 

 keep all the old drinkers and induce them to buy 

 more liquor and become more drunken, but they 

 must get in plenty of fresh young clients — fresh 

 young boys from the schools and factories. 



DRUNKEN SCHOOLBOYS. 



"You have no idea," wrote Supt. Simpkins, of the 

 Newark schools, on Nov. 30. 1908. just before the lo- 

 cal-option election, " How difficult It is to raise a 

 girl or boy in Newark! At every turn, day or night, 

 he faces one of the eighty saloons. Great signs 

 stretch across whole buildines, or shine out in elec- 

 tric lights from the roofs. Is it any wonder he is 

 caught? Only a lew nights ago 1 saw schoolboys 



drunk behind one of the school buildings 



If I dared tell you all I know o' some of the doings 

 of the young men in this city, some of them yet in 

 school, you would not believe me." 



What a farce it all is! Spend thou.sands yearly 

 in schools, boast about enlightenment, and turn 

 boys and girls loose for amusement in a town in- 

 fested with eighty saloons and thirty or forty 

 houses of prostitution ! There were half a dozen or 

 more schools in Newark, sixteen churches, one 

 feebly supported Young Men's Christian Associa- 

 tion building, no playgrounds, no library building 



at all. and — eighty saloons occupying the best busi- 

 ness sites In town, and working day and night! 



When I saw those young boys in jail (the young 

 fellows who participated in the Newark tragedy) I 

 thought to myself that they were as truly the vic- 

 tims of the civic and moral indifference of Newark 

 as was young Etherlngton last July. What earthly 

 chance had they? A little smattering of learning 

 in the school, and this sort of immoral teaching In 

 the greater school of life ! 



Were these boys, then, to blame? Or was the 

 town to blame ? the business men who supported 

 the lawless saloons and helped elect the lawless 

 mayors? the preachers who placed profits above 

 humanity — were not these to blame ? 



I wish the whole United States of Ameri- 

 ca could read the above again and again. I 

 wish especially that the fathers and mothers 

 would read it; and last, but not least, the 

 people generally who vote on the question 

 of wet or dry. How is it possible that, with 

 facts like the above before our American 

 people, any voter, no matter how stupid, 

 should vote to have the open saloon? 



And now, friends, if you will excuse the jl 

 sudden "jolt," I want to talk about some- | 

 thing else. I have sometimes felt that most 

 of us, if not all of us, especially during the 

 last few days, are getting into a habit of se- 

 vere criticism. We criticise the grafters, we 

 criticise the government of the United 

 States, and we criticise the Postoffice De- 

 partment; and perhaps this is all right; but 

 in our vehement criticisms let us not forget 

 the good and commend ible things that our 

 government is doing. I suppose what I am 

 going to talk about now should come under 

 the head of High-pressure Gardening, or, 

 perhaps, " High-pre&sure Farming^ Ray 

 Stannard Baker, in the above, has put in a 

 tremendous plea for the boys and girls of 

 America — for the "fresh young boys from 

 the schools and factories," as he terms it. 

 And now I want to call your attention to a 

 most glorious work that has been conduct- 

 ed and carried on by our government while 

 many of us knew but little or nothing about 

 it. I allude to the "Corn Clubs," or " Boys' 

 Demonstration Work." P"'or some reason 

 or o her, I do not know just why, the work 

 seems to have been started about 1904 in 

 some of our Southern States. In 1909, lo,543 

 boys were enrolled. In 1910 (last summer), 

 the number had increased to 46.225. Each 

 boy had an acre of ground. The general 

 government not only furnished him printed 

 instructions clear up to date for growing 

 corn, but experts in that line were sent 

 around among the boys. If you write to 

 the Department of Agriculture you can get 

 a bulletin, or two bulletins, describing this 

 work. One of these gives a picture of a class 

 of boys out in the cornfield, with a teacher 

 in the midst of them. That picture alone 

 is an object-lesson. Oh, what a contrast 

 when you come to look in the bright faces 

 of these pure young boys, attired in their 

 farming clothes, with the beautiful green 

 corn as a background! By the way, I won- 

 der if there is any other plant in the world 

 that makes a more rapid growth than Indi- 

 an corn when all the environments are favor- 

 able to its growth. Last July, when I took 

 that trip from Ohio to Florida and back 



