The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1909-09-04
ICE CREAM JOINTS
ROAD TO HE'LL

to say will have about as much effect
on the ears of the astute mother and
the hinky-dink father as a SNOWFALL
would in quenching the sulphuric
flames in hades, yet l am going to
say it.
Every Idaho town has a lot of
small boys as surely on the way to
the penitentiary, and girls on the
downward path to dens of prostitu-
ton, as that the sun rises in the east
and sets in the west.
Dissipation, lust and prostitution
among the elite caused the downfall
of France preceding the Commune.
Nero, in avaricious lust fiddled while
Rome burned. Will Idaho fathers and
mothers do the Nero stunt while their
boys and girls are running the streets
till eleven and twelve o'clock nights,
educating themselves in the evil ways
that lead to prisons and the red
light district?
Parents may take exception to this,
but the plain, unvarnished fact re-
mains, nevertheless. The first great
duty of the father and mother is the
proper home training of the boys and
girls. Children with proper training
do not get mixed up in bad affairs
barring a hereditary faint from for
mer generations born with them. But,
when the father is too busy in his po-
litical aspirations and greed to gar
ner the almighty dollar, and the moth
er mounts astride the saddle of pro-
hibition hobby horse, or some other
imaginary reform, to be at home eve
nings and see to it that their boys and
girls are home at the proper time and
in bed, then the devil gets in his work
on them, and the result is that the
boys and girls are out about town
meandering the ways that are dark
and learning tricks that are vain.
In the great prohibition campaign
the slogan of the war cry is: "The
saloon is the stepping stone to hell"
Grant it. Now let me give the dear
mothers a new slogan, viz: The ice
cream soda joint is the downward
path leading to prostitution, prodigali-
ty, sickness and disease, and should
as surely be abolished as any other
saloon which leads to excuses and
the downfall of humanity and cult
Yates a disposition in the young to
spend every nickle they can scrape,
borrow or steal, to buy the inno-
cent looking, frothy adulterated grog
that ruins their little stomachs and
paves the way for doctor bills.
Suppose, for instance, some Idaho
mother would happen to meet me
about an ice cream soda saloon and I
asked her to shave a glass" We
chat during the process of sucking
the frothy germ-diseased fluid
through the straw, about the frivo-
lous society topics, styles, politics, re-
ligion, etc., and when we have done
with the cooling stomachaching bev-
erage, we walk out along the streets,
so engrossed in the topics of the day
that ere we know it we are seated on
an out-of-the-way sidewalk among the
weeds in the, outskirts of town, what
is the result going to be? Explana-
ton is unnecessary. Boys and girls
know more about the sexes at IL to
Is years than you and / did at 40.
Now when your girl primps up and
sneaks away from home, after you
have gone out TO lecture on show to
enlighten the benighted foreign hea-
them" to keep "date" with the
young son of your neighbor, whose
greed for dollars causes him to forget
that he has a son to slip out nights
to meet your little daughter, and they
meet at the aforesaid soda joint, fill
up, stroll off into the shade of the
alleys, stairways, weed patches, and
hold their indiscrete seances, what is
the result going to be?
If you want your boy or girl to get
on the straight and broad way to hell
and damnation, prostitution and
crime, just turn them loose to their
own childish wishes, and they will
beat 2:40 horse with head up and
tail over the dashboard-just turn
them out nights to roam the streets
and never question where they have
been nor what they were doing. On
the other hand, if you would have
them grow up honest men and virtu-
Gus women, for Gods sake pull
down some of your political and So
cial air castles, with wine and whist
accomplishments, and keep them al
home and separated.
Social leprosy is destroying the sa.
cred precincts of home and domesticity
while neglect and proper home train
ing of the boys and girls is filling