The morning call., 1895-01-21
STILL MOVING AHEAD.
The Great Reform Agitation
Ceases Not.
GOOD BIRTH AN ADVANTAGE.
50 Said the Rev. J. Cumming Smith
Yesterday.
THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB All WORK.
Election Frauds Have Been Investigated
and Damaging Evidence Has
Been Secured.

doctrine in sociology. In fact, Mr.. Smith
made the undemocratic statement that
good birth outweighs nearly all other
factors in the making of good men and
women. To be we'll born, of good, sturdy
moral stock, is, according to his views, half
of the battle of life won; and it is to the
well-born young men and young women
that this great community must now look
for real measures of reform, both in private
and public ways and by-ways.
Mr.. Smith spoke earnestly on the subject
of the present reform movement to large
audience in the lecture-room of the Young
Mems Christian Association yesterday aft
ernoon. He is an active member of the
Civic Federation and will be more active
than ever before in the work of the CONSOLE
dated improvement clubs, so he says. The
organization will probably be perfected to-
day.
Mr.. Smiths address yesterday afternoon
was directed chiefly to young men. After
reading a few passages from the Bible the
speaker selected as his predicate 'Of him
to whom much is given much shall be
required"
1.-THE air is hot and electrical with a
passion for reform, he said "Men look
here and there and everywhere for means
by which to purify the social and political
structures of this city. They seem to lose
sight OF the real basis, the proper basis on
which to begin the work. The most i'm
portant work of reform at the present
time is the regeneration of manhood
among young men. Thousands of these
seem to have lost sight of their glorious
heritage of manhood and their duties to
the world that gave them so much. They
waste their substance and their physical
and mental forces in riotous living and
wild debauchery.
'Many of these young men-I may say
most of them-are well born" he went on
"There is great deal in being well born
and well bred. 1t is splendid heritage to
be well and completely born There is
nothing better than good and strong and
moral grandfather and father and grand
mother and mother. Heredity is every
thing in the making OF life. Good birth
and good breeding are sure to tell, unless
these forces are willfully driven aside and
misapplied This age needs the aid of a
regenerated manhood. 1t needs the aid of
the rising young men. Great as the age in
which we live is, it needs much.
GA great many men have to pass many
years of their lives before they learn that
there is demand for them. They say this
is an age of young men. Very well, so be
it. In a sense it is the age of young men.
But there is also a demand for old men,
for without the knowledge and experience
of the elderly men there can be no effective
work of reform. They know the evils and
can point out the remedies. 1t remains
for the young men to marshal their forces
and their strength and apply the remedy.
''The duty of the young men is to absorb
and put to practical use the wisdom of
their elders. The greatest trouble is that
some are too lazy to do anything in re-
turn for what has been given them by a
bounteous world. There are many men
who, like Ben Jonson's burglar, believe it
is necessary that they should live some
how, but who really are of no use on
earth. 1t is not necessary that they should
live at all. The greatest service they could
do to their fellowmen would be to disap-
pear and be seen no more.
"Men must go into movements of re-
form with determination to do good to
their fellowmen, and not merely for self
laudation or to have their names fiared in
the papers or themselves paraded for
show. All such reformers will peter out,
and [ am afraid that many of our so-called
reformers in the present movement are
men of that kind they will peter out. If
all the young men in this city were banded
together for reform under the principles of
the Young Mems Christian Association,
the people would quickly learn that the
present reform movement had something
more than idle talk at the back of it.
People talk about the wickedness of
San Francisco" he continued. "They say
that it is far worse than either New York
or Chicago; that the latter places cant
hold candle to this city in the way of
immortality. want to say right here that
such talk is all bosh, 1t has no founda-
ton in fact. | have travelled all through
the Eastern cities and / find that the bot
tom of morality in all of them is about on
the same level. San Francisco is neither
better nor worse than the great cities in
the East"
The reform movement has struck re-
sponsive chord in the Union League Club.
appointed to investigate the election
frauds and assist in the prosecution of the
malefactors, yesterday said:
"Our committee have been industriously
at work during the last forty weight hours,
and the outlook seems to be that some of
the scoundrels viii be brought to account
by our efforts. There is one case-1 cannot
mention the name just now-in which we
have secured the strongest kind of evil
dence, and this we will present to the
Grand Jury when that body reconvenes
next Wednesday. There will be several
more cases in the near future.
1.-THE committee of seven appointed by
the club to draft amendments to the pres
ent election laws will meet in General
Dickinson's office this afternoon at o clock
and again in the club rooms this evening at
o'clock.
''This committee, as well as the COM
mittee on election fraud prosecutions, will
Tuesday night. The committee on prose-
cutions will meet in the clubrooIns to-
night"