1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1593 



car, and he would get me near there. If I 

 did not find a Christian man on the street 

 or in the cars I did find one, thank God, in 

 one of the drugstores. 



While in session at St. Louis we were in- 

 terrupted by a telegram from Oklahoma, 

 telling of a great vii-tory. In fact, we had 

 encouraging telegrams from several localities 

 during our meeting. The State of Iowa 

 could not do any better than to send a wo- 

 man delegate, and I guess they were right 

 about it: for I doubt if any man in that whole 

 great State could have done any better than 

 this Miss Harriet E. Yeater, a young lady 

 less than 25 years of age. 



Rev. G. W. Young, of Kentucky, has been 

 called the Henry Clay of modern times. It 

 was largely through hisefforts that Kentucky, 

 West Virginia, and Tennessee have lieen 

 made almost dry. Yes. the region where 

 '•Kentucky whisky " has been so famous is 

 now all tlry except a few counties. In fact, 

 it is getting to be so unsafe for the railroad 

 and express companies to deliver liquors any- 

 where in Kentucky that the Louisville & 

 Nashville and the Illinois Central have just 

 asked Dr. Yonng to look over their list of 

 dry towns and cities and correct it for them, 

 and also to add any towns or cities that he 

 knows of where prohiljition reigns that is not 

 on their list. I mention this as an evidence 

 of wonderful progress, or I might say of a 

 grand awakening, on the part of the railroad 

 and express companies. 



Ihe brother who gave us a talk on Georgia 

 hung a map up before the audience, showing 

 the dry counties white and the wet ones 

 black. Several lilack spots had been cleared 

 off during the past year: "'and," said he, 

 "friends, we are still at it. We are growing 

 better and better every day. Yes, thank 

 God we are growing whiter and whiter ev- 

 ery day." 



Now. friends, wherever this journal goes, 

 how is it with you? Are^o.^ growing better 

 and Ijetter every day? and is your city, 

 county, or town getting "whiter"' and 

 "wAtVer" every day? 



Rev. Mr. Folk, brother of Governor Folk 

 of Missouri, told us that Tennessee is almost 

 dry — in fact, all but eleven cities, and these 

 cities will sooti be made "white " through 

 God's providence, thanks to the work of the 

 Anti-saloon League. 



Judge Ben B. Lindsey. of juvenile-court 

 fame, from Denvei', Col., was one of the great 

 speakers of the occasion. He was not a great 

 orator, but what he has done and is doing 

 for the boys is where the "great" comes in. 

 Like the mayor of London, of whom I have 

 spoken, he was not particularly a temperance 

 man, nor perhaps prominent as a Christian 

 worker, until he began to discover the injus- 

 tice that is being done to childhood, especial- 

 ly in our large cities. I will give two inci- 

 dents: 



One morning a mother came to his office 

 in behalf of a little boy who had been arrest- 

 ed with a crowd of other l)oys for drunken- 

 ness. The mother said, "judge Lindsey. 

 you may not think it possible, but this boj^ 



has been kneeling at my knee and saying his 

 little prayei's every night right along. I did 

 not think it possible that be coukl do any 

 thing wrong deliberately, and especially a 

 wrong like this." 



The judge promised to investigate. He 

 gained the lioy's confidence, and the boy told 

 him the whole story. A neighbor's boy had 

 been in the habit of going to a certain saloon 

 to bring l^eer in a little pail for his father. 

 As this boy was a constant visitor, the saloon- 

 keeper, without hesitation, gave him a Ixittle 

 of whisky when he laid down the price of 

 it. The iwy took the bottle out back of the 

 schoolhouse to a lot of other boys, and dared 

 them to take a taste of it. How many young 

 l)oys are there who would not hesitate when 

 "dared" Iiv the other boys? The conse- 

 (iuence was, they took a drink all around, 

 and then took some more Finally a ])olice- 

 man arrested the whole gang and shut them 

 up for drunkenne.ss. Judge Lindsej- remon- 

 strated with the father of the boy who had 

 been in the habit of .sending him to a saloon; 

 but the father insisted that it was his right, 

 saying that, when he came home tired out. a 

 drink of beer "rested" him better than any 

 thing else. The judge made investigation to 

 see if there was no law or ordinance forbid- 

 ding the sending of young boys into saloons 

 for a pail of beer. He said to that great au- 

 dience, representing almost every State in 

 the Union, "How many of you have laws or 

 ordinances in your own cities foi'biddingboys 

 from going into saloons for a pail of beer? " 

 Not one replied. He went on: 



"I venture to say the city of Denver has 

 the only law of this kind in the United States: 

 and it did not have that until I brought it 

 about. The saloon-keeper and the father 

 who sent that l)oy to the saloon were the ones 

 to be arrested, and not the c-omparatively in- 

 nocent boy," said the judge. The second 

 incident was something as follows: 



One morning one of the Denver papers 

 came out with l)ig headlines reading, "A Boy 

 Bandit." nai'rating how a boy in his teens 

 had held up and robbed a man. The judge 

 dropped his work, went down to the prison, 

 and found the boy handcuft'ed. He was a 

 fiaxen-haired boy about fourteen or fifteen 

 years old: and instead of being a tough. e(iual 

 to the task of holding up a full-grown man, 

 he looked like a boy w^ho would not hai'm 

 any one. His name was Christopher. The 

 judge could not get him to talk until he had sat 

 down and urged him and won his confidence. 

 The boy supposed that, of course, the judge 

 came there to get him sent to the penitenti- 

 ary or something of that sort. The boyish 

 story was something like this: He and some 

 other boys were having fun, as boys do, 

 when a couple of men came along through a 

 deserted alley, so fi^ll of drink they could 

 hardly stand up. This boy Christopher had 

 a piece of broom-handle in his hand: and 

 while one of the men was staggering. Chris- 

 topher put this broom-handle between the 

 man's legs in such a way as to trip him up, 

 and over he went. He was in just the right 

 stage of intoxication to fall into a drunken 



