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the; rukaIv nkw-yorkb;k 
August 21, 1915. 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
“Mighty Men.” —Some 30 years ago 
a passenger train was running between 
Providence, It. I., and Boston. The pas¬ 
sengers were occupying themselves as 
usual—reading, sleeping, or talking, when 
they were startled by a wild uproar. A 
big, red-faced man burst in through the 
door and went roaring through the car, 
shouting out challenges and shaking a 
tremendous fist at all who looked at him. 
Women fainted, men crawled under the 
seats, trainmen glanced at the giant, and 
then had an engagement elsewhere. He, 
or rather the liquor he had been drinking, 
was “master of the situation.” That was 
John L. Sullivan, the “champion.” He 
had been pounding some other human 
brute into insensibility, and here he was 
celebrating about as.some ancestor back 
10,000 years or so in the stone age would 
have done. Rum always takes a man 
back into barbarism—never ahead to 
higher civilization. “Bruiser” or “ath¬ 
lete,” (you may call them what you will) 
may come and go through history, but 
those who consider such things with a 
reflective or comparative eye will always 
accord the hardest punch and the ability 
to put most weight into a blow to John 
L. Sullivan. As he came through the 
car that day there seemed a blue flame 
bursting out all over him. One could 
well understand that when this thick- 
chested bruiser pulled off his coat and 
swung those great ham-like fists, the 
other man was whipped before a blow was 
struck. Tears ago I heard a minister 
say that Sullivan got the “psychological 
drop” on his antagonist. That minister 
sighed and wondered what great things 
Sullivan could have done for the world 
had he . pplied that terrible personality 
to uplifting people instead of knocking 
them down. 
A Mighty Change. —I thought of all 
this the other night when a crowd of us 
sat waiting for this same “Jphn L.” to 
march up the aisle and throw his hat on 
the table. The Hope Farm man had 
much to think of as he sat on a front 
seat and watched the same big thick¬ 
chested man of 30 years ago make his 
way up the aisle. And now I have 
shocked some of our good friends. What! 
The Hope Farm man at a prize fight ap¬ 
plauding that big bruiser as he climbed 
into the ring? I think I shall have to ad¬ 
mit it and on Sunday night at that. I had 
a good location and good companions. 
(hitxide on the beach at Asbury Park the 
ocean roared and pounded. The rain 
tinkled on the roof. Next me sat a man 
who was, I feel sure, a Methodist minis¬ 
ter. On the other side was a man who 
was, I think, a saloon-keeper. There 
were women who I am confident sang in 
the great auditorium at Ocean Grove, a 
great actor, a few farmers—men and 
women of all walks of life. As I sat 
there the strange significance of this gath¬ 
ering came to me for here was the great 
“John L.” putting up a fight with “John 
Barleycorn,” the only antagonist who 
ever “knocked him out.” The mayor of 
Asbury Park introduced “my friend John 
L. Sullivan, who will speak on Temper¬ 
ance !” 
An Expert. —With that there walked 
down to the front of the platform a big. 
thick-chested man who stood on one big 
foot and would have put his hands in his 
pocket if any pocket could have held 
them. Thirty years ago this man’s black 
hair was cropped short, his face was thin 
and hard, and his eyes carried a glare 
that would have made a lion pause for 
reflection. How time does soften the 
human picture! That bullet head was 
still squarely set upon those great shoul¬ 
ders, but the hair is now white and thin. 
The glare has been wiped out. It was a 
fat, kindly, good-natured face that looked 
down upon us. The big, long chest, the 
bulging shoulders and those terrible hands 
are still there, but no one would suspect 
that this kindly old gentleman had in his 
day frightened every human being who 
got within arm’s reach of him! Here he 
was to “speak” on. temperance ! M hen 
you come to think of it, this man could be 
called as much of an “expert” on his sub¬ 
ject as Edison is on electrical matters or 
Wright on flying machines. What is an 
expert but one who paints vivid experi¬ 
ence thickly upon genius? According to 
his statements Mr. Sullivan certainly was 
a genius for “punishing booze,” as he 
called it, and without question he daubed 
on the experience in thick red paint. It 
is all well enough to listen to the fine 
argument of one who never got drunk or 
even tasted liquor. Here was a man who 
in the palmy days of his great power 
spent at least half a million dollars for 
liquor in the meanest and most debasing 
way, and then finally braced up and “cut 
it out,” as he expressed it. Surely, we 
have here an expert- whose opinion ought 
to be worth something. 
No Orator. —Mr. Sullivan is no orator 
and he knows it—thus having the advan¬ 
tage over various gentlemen who think 
they are orators when everybody else 
knows better. This man who, in his 
prime, could drive his fist through a 
board, cannot handle his verbs and some 
of the big words master him. He stands 
on one foot, sits on the table and acts as 
if he were talking to a group of friends 
rather than to an “audience.” lie said 
he was no evangelist, and there was noth¬ 
ing particularly religious or moral about 
what he said, except one thing. lie spoke 
of the time he stopped drinking. Some 
one had bought a fresh quart of cham¬ 
pagne. Mr. Sullivan said he held up a 
glass, and it suddenly came to him right 
there that this “booze” was the only thing 
he had not been able to whip. He said he 
put the glass down and turned to his 
friends with this pledge: “With God's 
help I will never touch that stuff again.” 
He did not express any particular regret 
for what he had done in the past. There 
was little if anything said about the sin 
of drinking which fills so many temper¬ 
ance lecturers. This “expert” discussed 
the folly of drinking as it ruined a man’s 
life, broke him down in mind and body 
and “made him a has-been before his 
time.” Naturally this “champion” went 
to the prize ring for his illustration. He 
said the only safe way to fight “booze” 
is to jump out of the ring and run for 
your life. He said, and he ought to know, 
that the man who says, “I can take a 
drink when I want to and quit when I 
want to” is a fool and a liar! I was im¬ 
pressed with what Mr. Sullivan said 
about the growth of prohibition senti¬ 
ment everywhere. I had to rub my eyes 
as I recalled that railroad scene of 30 
years ago, and now saw this white-haired, 
earnest man waving that great hand with 
something of prophesy as he said that 
within a few years the sentiment against 
the useless folly of “booze” would be so 
great that decent men will not stand 
for it. 
The Audience. —It was not large. The 
night was wet and gloomy, and I think 
most of the people who go to Asbury 
Park and Ocean Grove want their tem¬ 
perance and their religion served up to 
them with dignity—in a wedding gar¬ 
ment. Mother and my daughter were 
quite embarrassed when I publicly an¬ 
nounced that I was going to hear John 
L. Sullivan lecture. There are still many 
thousands who cannot believe that any 
good can come out of Nazareth, out of 
the prize ring or any other place of which 
their limited experience does not ap¬ 
prove. It seems to me that a man like 
Sullivan with his prize-ring talk, his 
shrewd observation of life and his un¬ 
questioned experience, will appeal to 
thousands of just the sort of people who 
are not likely to be convinced in any 
other way. “Cut it out.” Why, there 
are thousands who would accept that ad¬ 
vice from the “champion” who would not 
listen to a sermon. We need them all. 
I saw dozens of them at that meeting. 
You should have seen how they followed 
this crude “orator” and took in what he 
said. The most significant group to me 
was a little family gathering just behind 
me. The man was evidently a Greek or 
an Italian, or at least a member of some 
wine-drinking race. His wife was evi¬ 
dently an American girl. Between them 
sat their two little boys—black-haired, 
bright-eyed, alert-looking—outwardly like 
their father, yet showing in their faces 
that they had their mother’s thought and 
view's of life. I could read the story of 
that little group as if it were printed in a 
book. That man’s hope lay in those two 
boys. He saw in them something of the 
ideals of American citizenship, of which 
he had dreamed. He had given them tin* 
imagination of the European, while their 
mother had given the hard sense of the 
American farmer. And at the strong ar¬ 
guments of this rough, unlettered man on 
the platform, the father -would nudge 
those boys, that they might understand 
how impossible it is for any young man 
to walk arm in arm with honor, charac¬ 
ter or success—and “booze.” 
So the Hope Farm man sat on his 
front seat thinking of many strange 
things. When it was over he w r ent up 
and shook hands with the' great "John 
L.” and then walked slovMy down the 
board walk to Ocean Grove. The ocean 
growled on the sand. Under the electric 
lights the board walk was crowded with 
people walking up and down in the very 
joy .and comfort of living. They were 
mostly plain people of the middle class, 
W'ho had come down out of the hills tor 
a few weeks to smell the salt air, listen 
to the growling ocean, or look off across 
the sparkling waters in imagination to 
the other side. They were all here, the 
strong, the sick, the weary, the despon¬ 
dent, and the hopeful, all gaining fresh 
spirit and new visions to take back to 
the old task. The Hope Farm man 
walked slowly on through it all, wonder¬ 
ing if, after all, the world is not getting 
a little better and if the men and women 
who live in it and make it are not slowly 
making it a better place to live in. I 
think they are—I am sure of it. H. w. c 
Purifying Water ; Rain Bombs. 
1. Is there any feasible way in which 
the water in a small cistern can be puri¬ 
fied by the hypochlorite method ? 2. 
What success did the experimenters have 
with the rain bombs used in the West 
some years ago? c. R. G. 
Germantown, Pa. 
1. The hypochlorites, or bleach, are 
not used to purify cistern water for dom¬ 
estic purposes but to rid potable waters 
of disease germs and make them lit for 
drinking. The use of hypochlorites in 
connection with filtration make water 
doubly safe and the combined method is 
much in favor, though a modern method 
of using chlorine gas instead of the hypo¬ 
chlorite of lime has been found simple 
and efficient. 
2. My recollection is that no practical 
results of value followed the expei'iments 
with “rain bombs.” M. B. D* 
Cement Posts. 
I am making concrete posts of a mix¬ 
ture four parts limestone grits to one 
part cement reinforced by four No. 8 
wires. The posts are 5x5. Will you advise 
if this mixture is too rich and if I could 
consistently use a five to one mixture, 
and if it would strengthen or weaken the 
posts if I would fill in with small field 
stones? f. J. F. 
Phoenixville, Pa. 
The proportionate amounts of cement 
and of the other materials, known as 
aggregates, needed in cement construc¬ 
tion depends largely upon thq fineness of 
the particles of the aggregate. Coarse 
sand requires less cement than fine, and 
the addition of a coarse aggregate, like 
gravel or crushed stone, gives a stronger 
structure with less cement. The stand¬ 
ard mixture for fence posts, recommended 
by cement manufacturers, is one part ce¬ 
ment, two parts clean, coarse sand 
and four parts crushed stone or gravel. 
If finer materials than these are used, 
more cement, proportionately, will be re¬ 
quired. If your limestone grits, which I 
take to be limestone screenings, are fine, 
like sand, your mixture is probably not 
too rich ; if a proper proportion of them 
are of the size of gravel or crushed stone, 
less cement may be used. Anything pass¬ 
ing a screen of one-fourth inch mesh may 
be considered as sand, or fine aggregate; 
the coarse aggregate used for fence posts 
may vary from one-fourth t- three-fourths 
inch in size. Where both fine and coarse 
aggregates are used in proper proportion, 
cement is saved and the structure is 
strengthened- It would be inadvisable to 
use field stones in so small a structure 
as a 5x5 inch post; in heavy walls such 
stones save material and do no harm. 
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r A u 
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