958 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



have not seen for a long time. If socialism 

 makes people -cross and unhappy, sour- 

 faced, and always grumbling about the 

 wickedness of the great wide world, then 

 there is something wrong, I am sure, with 

 socialism. You remember Pollyanna told a 

 poor discouraged minister that the Bible 

 tells us over 800 times to " rejoice and be 

 glad." Yes, dear friends, it is a Christian 

 duty to rejoice and be glad, even if the war 

 in Europe has not yet ceased, and even 

 though our State of Ohio does not vote dry. 

 You will i^lease notice I am dictating this 

 paper Oct. 8 — three weeks before election. 

 Well, when I last visited that Sunday- 

 school in the little church up among the 

 hills I was asked to take charge of the 

 Bible class. I shook hands with all the 

 friends I had not seen for some time back, 

 and received a genial hand pressure and 

 smiling faces and pleasant words from 

 almost every one. Years ago it was my 

 pleasure to get quite a number of these 

 friends to come forward at a revival meet- 

 ing. There was one young man of consid- 

 erable ability who went forward at my so- 

 licitation, if I remember correctly. I ex- 

 pected a good deal of him; but if I am 

 correct he did not at tliat time unite with 

 the church, and I think he has not yet done 

 so. I plead with him, and wondered what 

 kept him back, but I could not get at the 

 trouble, if there was any. When I met him 

 in that Bible class he seemed a little reluc- 

 tant about taking my hand, or at least I 

 imagined so, and he gave me no smile, or at 

 least a very faint one. As he is a beekeep- 

 er, and takes Gleanings, and has for years 

 past, I wondered why he should hold me 

 off, as it were, at arm's length, for it was 

 something very remarkable and unusual 

 when I meet any one who takes and reads 

 Gleanings. Finally it came out where the 

 trouble was; and as T have his permission 

 I will give his letter below. You will no- 

 tice I kept it several months before deciding 

 to print it, and I do so now with a prayer 

 that good and not evil will come of it. Here 

 is the letter : 



A. I. Boot : — I am going to surprise you a little, 

 because you think you are trying to be such a just 

 man, by sending you something to read; and if after 

 you have read it you don't begin to see daylight in 

 some other direction than what you have been wont 

 to uphold (which is the present system of busine.ss 

 and Christianity), I shall not be afraid to bet my 

 soul (if I have any) that you will ever get even 

 within an imaginative distance of heaven. 



I have been reading your vi-ritings for some years 

 back, and expect to read them for some time to 

 come; but if it has taken you forty years to advance 

 as far as you are now on the problem of high cost 

 of living and Christianity, I might better quit' for 

 I don't believe, and, furthermore, I know you will 

 never live long enough to get down to bedrock. 



In one of your Home papers you made the re- 



mark that you were not a socialist yet. You could 

 understand electricity to some extent and predict its 

 usefulness, but you cannot understand socialism, nor 

 even see wherein it can be any good, and all be- 

 cause of that "dollar;" for if we had socialism you 

 could not shine so far above the rest by the amount 

 of wealth you can pile up. You have always been 

 harping for the laborer to have a back yard and raise 

 something for his own use, and thereby make a 

 short cut between producer and consumer. Vov/, 

 don't you know that, if you do that, somebody e'se 

 has got to lose just that much? Well, if that is a 

 good thing (and in some respects it is) why not 

 have the laboring man go to work and dig up some 

 of the dirt in the back yard of his brains and grow 

 a little common sense, and then use that common 

 sense for his own good by studying the different 

 political parties and the system they stand for; and 

 as he goes along he can learn the multiplication 

 table ; and when he gets down to subtraction, for 

 example, let him take the Republican and Democrat- 

 ic parties, and also the Progressive, and subtra<^t 

 one from the other, and vice versa, and he wll 

 find he has nothing left but the Socialist party. 



Haven't you got head enough on you, and a 

 heart big enough, so that you can see that a man 

 cannot be a strictly honest man and miko <:v be 

 come a millionaire ? If a man eats his bread in 

 the sweat of his face he doesn't eat it in the !sv,'e:it 

 of somebody else's. 



We are going to have revivals down at the little 

 church among the hills for a while, and I expect to 

 go some of the time, and invite the ministers up, 

 for I am wanting to tell them some things which 

 they don't seem to know. If you want to write any 

 thing about this in some of your papers, do so, and 

 don't be afraid to use my name. 



W. E. Boone. 



Traverse City, Mich., March 10. 



You will notice, friends, our good brother 

 (for I call all beekeepers brothers) seems 

 to doubt God's providence as well as to lose 

 faith in his fellow-men. The j^rinted matter 

 he asked me to read was much after the 

 style of the letter above. It did not com- 

 mend itself to me at all. If where he uses 

 the word " dollar " he means to imply that 

 I am myself giving my life in pursuit of 

 the dollar or the dollars, I appeal to the 

 readers of Gleanings if this is not unkind 

 and untrue. It is true that God has blessed 

 my labors in many ways, but I think I 

 speak the truth when I say that my life 

 has been silent in an effort to give employ- 

 ment to needy ones, more than to get the 

 dollars for myself. If you could see how 

 Mrs. Root and I live in order that we may 

 have more to give to the cause of missions 

 and other benevolent enterprises, I think 

 you would declare me " not g-uilty." So 

 far as wanting to " shine " above the rest 

 of humanity, I want to plead again not 

 guilty. Yes, friend Boone, I have been 

 harping on raising chickens, potatoes, and 

 garden stuff in the back yard; but it has 

 never occurred to me that by so doing we 

 could harm anybody else, as you put it. If 

 you mean that the middleman has been 

 thrown out of business, I reply that he 

 should get out in his back yard and grow 

 stuff as we do. There is a plea just now 



