Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1898-02-14

tens of thousands of volumes, absolutely
open to the public-man or woman, boy
or girl. black or white. We have at least
the beginning of parks, equally free. Is
this all? By no means. a man came to
my house lately who wanted money to buy
AN sm artiiifia nrd leg for bi s0m aid m n 7 5ern Of b hIs
worthy. j found upon inquiry that he was
now receiving free coal and free provis-
ions, and. linking himself entitled to some-
thing more. he concluded he would ask for
a cork leg. i see that in some states they
provide not only free schools. but free
books. In one. at least. a bill has been pre-
pared for free meals between the sessions
of the school. In New York a bill is now
pending for the m by the state OF
parents. to raise their children on. In the
meantime. somebody is spending these hun
! for that which is not food and wasting
upon criminal indulgences more than all
the charities of the republic can supply;
count lately. The question was. Where
are the men who are the heads of these
families in the districts reached by ,h our
a section of the the city for which a free
gospel was provided on account of the
it contained 800 families. OF these families
1G5 were widowed. The fathers in twenty
eight families were i'll and not able to go
to church. OF the other husbands, forty
four had work which ground them at the
wheel seven days i'll the week. They had
lost their Sunday. as all American workmen
atV CIVIL ~ w ~ lh'N = \ ~.
law. But among the rest it was found that
fifty-seven We're at church. and eighty-siX
habitually drunk on Sunday. Here was a
whole section too poor to pay for churches
or schools or books. but rich enough to put
up over four score cases of downright
drunkenness every Lords day.
But this is n lesson that can be taken
home. We have been having real hard
times for some years, but few persons
whom ] meet have really curtailed any Of
their personal expenses except their church
dues and their charities. Society keeps on
is pretty nearly empty. Boards of benev-
olence are in debt. but We manage some
how to pay for things we don't need. The
young man who has $50 n year for his club
finds IL imperative to drop his sitting in
church. Young women find it necessary to
benevolent: but they can still raise enough
to 90 to the vaudeville theater once or it
NAV be twice a week"
In conclusion Rev. DIR. Jenkins said he
thought it time to put a little manhood into
the race and to make men pay for the
lunch and to go without the beer. 1t was
a bad sign of the times when a people were
ready to accept all the most useful and
necessary aids TO living free. while paying
dearly for the things they could go without.
BE believed that people who could pay for
their pleasures could pay for their wor-
ship. He thought that it was a doubtful
policy TO tax the state for the support of
families whose natural support was all
sluiced into the saloon. He believed the
time would come when the policy of free
lunch and dear beer would be abolished,
and when the bar would be suppressed in
the interests. of the general public which
tired at last of bringing up the children |
of those who pour hundreds of millions into |
the open NAV of a traffic running the souls
and bodies Of men.