THEY SANG A LIE
I went to -church last Sunday
and heard the congregation screw
up its voice to the Highest pitch
and sing:
' Take my silver and my golct';
Not a mite would I withhold,1'
and then when the service was
over I saw a poor crippled beggar
go through the crowd and try to
get ten cents to buy a snack to
eat, and he didn't get it. But I
saw several of those consecrated
singers go home smoking ten cent
cigars.
it
Not a mite would I withhold"
aw, shut up! Such a display of
brazen-faced hypocrisy makes me
boil with indignation. They didn't
mean a word of it, and if an angel
had appeared on the scene and
tried to separate them from their
money, he would have had the
most dickens of a scuffle that ever
you saw. They would have pulled
all his wing feathers out and sent
him hopping back to heaven on
crutches.
A DIRTY DEVIL.
In the course of its daily opera
tions among the. floundering fools
of creation The Fool-Killer is
called upon to apply the red-hot
branding-iron to one of the lowest
and meanest specimens of the hu
man devil that is allowed to live
outside of the sweltering hot
place. Whew! It's a nasty job,
but I musf sail into it.
I shall not defile these columns
with the name of the human beast,
but if he sees this he will no doubt
recognize his photograph.
In a certain town in North Car
olina there lives an aged mother
and her invalid daughter. The
invalid daughter has the misfor
tune of being the wife of the
nameless nothing-patch who is the
text of this sermon. Several
months ago the shameless scallo
wag hoboed his way into. the town
where the widow and daughter
lived. The daughter was not an
invalid then she was in average
health. So this human beast met
the daughter and began to make
love. The poor woman was cap
tured by his devilish tongue, and
because there seemed to be a man
needed about the place, she mar
ried him on short acquaintance.
She ought to have had more sense,
but she did just what thousands
of other girls have done married
a total stranger.
' Well, it was only a few months
after the marriage that the young
wife got down sick and became a
chronic invalid. Don't ask me why
she got sick., . You know as much
about that as I do. And any wo
man who has a beast for a husband
very likely knows more than either
of US. But let, that. rms The
point is,- she became an invalid.
And what did this great big
little seed-tick of a husband do
then? Why, bless your soul, he
boarded with his wife and her
mother until the provisions were
all eaten up and the necessity of
providing for the family stared
him in the face. Then he packed
his worldly goods in a snuff-box
and faded into the landscape. He
simply vamoosed the ranch. In
other words, he skiddooed, leaving
his helpless wife to the mercies of
the world.
A - ' il "1 1
js soon as tne airty oog was
gone, the deserted family received
word that he had treated another
woman the same way not long be
fore. He had married her in
health, and then left her because
she got down sick. Married again,
and left his second wife for the
same reason, bo there are two
poor helpless women living not
many miles apart, both bearing
the name of this nameless wretch,
while he is out in the world trying
to rope in another victim.
Heavens alive! Was there ever
a meaner man? Why, his infernal
heart is so black that the charred
cinders of a nigger rape-fiend
taken front the furnaces of hell
would mafre a white mark on it.
He ought to be chased into the
penitentiary with a brace of blood
hounds, and there compelled to
live on dirt and red-worms and
work sixteen hours a day making
white oak paddles to be worn out
over his western hemisphere.
COCA-COLA.
Thunder and blazes! But don't
some of these great- "reform"
journals get there with both feet?
Well, 1 should smile! For instance,
here is the Woman's World, of
Chicago, a magazine which claims
the largest circulation of any pub
lication on earth. It pretends to
stand for the moral uplift of its
readers, and it" has been simply
tearing its shirt off in its mad
campaign against the "white
slave" evil. It claims the honor
of starting the present war against
the inhuman traffic in girls a war
which Rocky D. Oilyfeller, Jr.,
has gone into with his sleeves
rolled up.
All of which is good so. far as it
goes, l give Tun credit to the
Woman's World for all the good
it has done. But I want you-to
turn with me to the outside back
cover page of the June number of
this great bulwark of moral and
civic righteousness, and see what
we will find.
Printed in two colors, with a
great, glaring red border around
it, is a full page advertisement of
the daddv of dones Coca-Cola.
Now isn't that a sight for angels
and men? The Coca-Cola com
pany, of Atlanta, Ga., has made
millions out of the dope business.
It advertises its great belly-wash
as "delicious, refreshing and
harmless," but a bigger lie was
never printed. We all know that
Coca-Cola is a dope, and that a
dope is dangerous. Like all the
other "soft drinks,''' it contains
enough of the fatal drugs to make
an appetite grow, and the more
the appetites grow the more the
business grows. If these popular
drinks were not doped they would
not sell, and nobody knows this
any better than the "people who
make them. Every soda-fountain
in the United States is a dope-mill,
and if it wasn't it couldn't run.
The dope evil in the United
States is just as great a national
crime as the white slave evil, if
not greater. And yet our great
moral aDd religious magazines
will cuss out one evil and sell their
space to the other. They will paint
theUiorrors of white slavery in the
most lurid colors and then in a
full-page advertisement they will
tell you how extremely nice and
altogether lovely it would be to
become a dope-slave.
If you want me to tell you what
makes the difference, I can tell you
in a jiffy. The white slave traders
do not buy full-page advertising
space in the magazines at $10,000
a, page. The Coca-Cola grafters
do. That is the difference and the
onlydifference.
SHE BURNT HIS LEG.
. Michael Kinsel, of Wilkesbarre,
Pa. , was the proud possessor of a
wooden leg. It was a birthday
present from his wife. Now Mich
ael loved that wooden leg almost
as well as a baby loves Castoria".
The only thing that he loved bet
ter than that wooden leg was old
corn likker. When Michael had
his leg and his likker he was hap
py. His love for the leg was per
haps due, in large measure, to the
fact that the leg was useful in
getting to the saloon. In fact,
Michael and the leg marched off
to the booze joint many a time
when the good wife thought they
ought to stay at home. And when
Michael pulled the latch string in
the early morning hours a wooden
leg or no leg at all was all the
same to him. He was in that
heaven of a drunkard's glory
where legs are only in the. way.
The good wife of .his bosom
stood it as long as she could. Then
one night when Michael -happened
to be at home in the bed, she very
quietly picked up that wooden leg
and placed it on the fire. It was"
soon reduced to ashes.
Then the trouble began. Mich-
eal indicted his wife for burning
his wooden leg, and she told the
court that she was. determined to .
eep him away from the saloon if
she had to burn both legs.
"I admire your pluck, Mrs.
Kinsel," said the judge, "but I'll
lave to bind you over to keep the
peace.- .
"Keep the piece?" yelled Mich
ael. "Why, there wasn't enough
of it left to make a toothpick!"
HE ISN'T A GOD.
As much as I admire Theodore
Roosevelt, I am not blind to his
faults. I am not a hero-worshiper,
and I don't believe in setting any
mortal man up as a god. That
seems to be what we're trying to do
with Roosevelt. We are about to
forget that he is human, and in
our blind enthusiasm we are try
ing to transform him into a deity.
Strange how people will lose
their heads. Roosevelt is indeed
the greatest personality that has
flashed across our horizon in a
century or more, but that is no
excuse for us to get down on our
r c on4 mo to
ing fools of ourselves. Let us ad
mire the man for his many-sided
genius, and let ns be proud of him
as the representative of our
national spirit. But let us hold
up our heads and show to the
world that we, too, are men, and
not fawning idiots. Let Europe
recognize Roosevelt as a typical
American and not as a lonesome
giant who sprang from a race of
dwarfs.
It will be a pretty pass if the
outside world gets the idea that
Roosevelt is the only great man
among us. And it is liable to get
that idea if we don't quit acting
the fool.
Let Europe crawl in the dust
and indulge her propensity for
hero-worship all she wants to, but
we can't afford to do it. Every
time we exalt one of our number
to dizzy heights7 we lower the
standard of the average. If you
magnify the contrast between the
hero and the average man, the
latter's hope of ever being a hero
is-lessened by just that much, and
his ambition getsa set-back.
So we had better be careful how
we lionize the distinguished Lion
Hunter. Too, much of it may not
be good for him, and it certainly
will not be good for us. Let us
be glad that we have produced
such a man, but instead of spend
ing all our time dancing around
him like wild Indians, let us set
ourselves sanely to the task of
producing other men just as great.
We can do it if we try.