1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



1155 



JtOMLS 



byAJ.ROOT 



Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather 

 give place unto wrath; for it is written. Vengeance is 

 mine, I will repay, saith the Lord.— Romajjs 12 : 19. 



On page 914, July 1, I expressed my belief 

 that the terrible calamity that overtook San 

 Francisco last year was a part of God's plan 

 to teach us some useful lessons; and, dear 

 friends, God is const^antly striving to teach 

 us useful lessons every day of our lives. 

 When we are dull, or, worse still, contrary 

 and disobedient, we are sooner or later pun- 

 ished for this stupidity, stiffneckedness, and 

 disobedience. As in olden times, when we 

 continually persist in breaking God's holy 

 law the punishment finally comes with a ter- 

 rible jolt, and a jolt that usually brings peo- 

 ple to their senses. The earthquake was one 

 of these jolts. The whole wide world looks 

 on and reads the lesson God would teach us. 



Recognizing what I have been trying to 

 tell, apparently, they shut down the saloons 

 in San Francisco for a few months; but the 

 brewers, with their reckless disregard of con- 

 sequences and contempt for every thing sa- 

 cred and holy, brought such pressure to bear 

 that the saloons were opened up again; and 

 to the shame, not only of San Francisco, but 

 to the whole of the United States as well, 

 they ai'e still running wide open, or at least 

 to a great extent wide open. 



When the State of Georgia just recently 

 arose in her might, and witn a mighty voice 

 broke loose from the thralldom of the liquor- 

 traffic, people looked on and wondered. Why 

 did Georgia push ahead and outstrip every 

 other State in the Union in her zeal for tem- 

 perance? The answer has come from many 

 different directions. I thought of quoting 

 some of the statements, but our space will not 

 permit. The disgraceful affair in Atlanta a 

 short time ago opened up the way. Perhaps 

 it was one of Xh^ jolts I have been telling you 

 about. It was God's warning; and we are 

 told on good authority that the terrible out- 

 rages on women and little girls throughout 

 that region had roused the people as they 

 had never been roused before. This name- 

 less crime was laid at the feet of the negroes; 

 but it soon turned out that it was not so 

 much the color of the skin of the demon in 

 human shape as it was his mental condition; 

 and the general conviction seemed to settle 

 down on people that the saloons and the sa- 

 loon business were not only the prime cause 

 of drunken negroes but of drunken parents 

 and drunken men in every nation. To put 

 it short, Georgia has banished the saloons be- 

 cause her people have made a declaration of 

 iniJependence, saying that their women and 

 little girls shall be protected in their liberty, 

 and freedom to go about in the open air, and 



to go at least a reasonable distance from their 

 home unattended, no matter what it costs. * 



I told you in these Home papers some two 

 or three years ago about a drunken colored 

 man in our neighboring city of Akron, 20 

 miles from here. This man carried a little 

 girl out into the bushes, but was compelled 

 to let her go on account of her screams. He 

 was well acquainted with the little child, and 

 would have been her friend and defender 

 had he not been crazed with liquor. Let me 

 explain that Akron has a population of about 

 60,000, and, as a matter of course, there is a 

 hoodlum element there that thought lynching 

 would be the right thing They would be 

 "right in the swim." and up with the times 

 by hanging this man up, or by burning him 

 at the stake as they do in other places. The 

 saloon-keepers of the city, over 100 in num- 

 ber, entered heartily into the undertaking 

 because they knew that at such a time they 

 could sell an enormous amount of liquor. 

 They were right about it; and when they got 

 the crowd. "gloriously drunk, " as they call- 

 ed it, because this crazy mob was not per- 

 mitted to get hold of that particular colored 

 man somebody yelled out, "If they can not 

 get that 'nigger,' give us 'any nigger.'" 

 The police were soon overpowered. The 

 mob held the city in a state of terror for one 

 whole night. They burned up the city hall, 

 costing many thousands of dollars. While it 

 was burning, and the fire company was try 

 ing to extinguish the flames, they cut the 

 hose. It is true that the police did in time 

 succeed in quelling the riot, and eventually 

 something like forty of the ringleaders in the 

 affair were punished by a term in the peni- 

 tentiary. 



The above is a terrible indictment of the 

 saloons, but we can rejoice in this case to 

 know that the mob did not get its victim, and 

 the law was finally permitted to take its 

 course. One would naturally think that with 

 the lynching, burning at the stake, and the 

 terrible punishment by law when it has been 

 permitted to take its course, not only every 

 tramp but even every man while he is 

 drunk would remember that swift death 

 would speedily follow by giving way to 

 his low and depraved passions in this di- 

 rection. I have been watching this thing 

 ever since it started up, and I am inclined to 

 think that every case of lynching we have 

 makes the matter worse. The crimes caused 



*We are told in holy writ that God, at least some- 

 times, "maketh the wrath of man to praise him." 

 Now. is it too much for our imagination to conceive 

 that God has permitted drunken negroes, and other 

 fiends in human shape, to assault our innocent little 

 girls just because he finds that no lesson less terrible 

 rouses us as a people to the fearful consequences of 

 permitting these dens of iniquity to run wide open, 

 not only every hour in the day and night, but all hours 

 on Sunday y By the' way. in several localities they 

 are taking measures to banish tramps entirely; and 

 our great railway companies have abundant reason 

 for coming ahead with alacrity to help get rid of the 

 tramp nuisance. I shall rejoice to see a law passed 

 that will arrest every man who attempts to go from 

 house to house, refusing continually the offers on al- 

 most every hand nowadays to set him at work. The 

 man who absolutely refuses to work should go to the 

 workhouse. If he is entirely unable to work, send 

 him to the intirmary. 



