The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1914-01-23
VOX POPULI.
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TO FATHERS AND MOTHERS
OF THE CITY OF PENSACOLA

| Editor Pensacola Journal.
| I would that I had The pen Of a
ready writer or the gift OF a silver
| tongued orator that | might in some
hway impress upon your minds and
hearts that which burns within my
own heart; that l might awaken with
in you broader view of your divinely
appointed Office as fathers and mothers
Of the boys and girls of this city.
Where are your boys and girls
spending the hours when they are out
of school or off from their work? l
ask you, where?
If you will stroll down Palafox dur
ing those hours, or any other of the
leading streets of this city, you will
soon be able to form a fairly correct
idea of where they are. We constantly
hear and read, that from the age of
infancy until full manhood and wo-
manhood is reached they are passing
through the formative period of life,
when their lives are being nodded INTO
the men and women they are to be-
come.
In what kind of a mold are we the
parents Of this city nlolding our chill
dren's lives? Are their surroundings
there of the class which tend to de-
velop the highest and purest and best
types for the coming men and women
of our land?
Let us see what their environment
are.
To the right hand and to the left as
We pass along the principal streets of
our boastedly beautiful city, we find
the air becoming polluted with the
fumes floating out of our licensed sa-
looms
and a post there, we see the products
of these places. Are they inspiring
examples for our children to follow?
Many will follow them, whether you
think so or not, for old King Alcohol
demands yearly over $4,000 recruits for
his army from the boys of our boasted
free 90 land of America. Is it going
to be your boy or mine who is going
to enlist during 1914?
We all are interested in the many
improvements that are being made in
this city where our homes now are;
and it Is right we should feel so. We
love to think and talk of our blessings,
but let us not forget that so sure as
there is a God in Heaven, if we trans
gress His laws, He will as surely, and
justly, too, pronounce His curse upon
our sin. I know people do not like to
hear the Woe unto them pronounced.
Only the boldest of our preachers dare
mention them, yet the Holy Bible gives
the promises Of them as surely as it
gives promises of blessings.
We find there, this. "Woe unto them
that call evil good, and good evil; that
put darkness for light and light for
darkness; that put bitter for sweet and
sweet for bitter. Woe unto them
which are mighty to drink wine, and
men of strength to mingle Strong
drink; Which justify the wicked for
reward and take away the righteous
ness of the righteous from him.
We may think We can, but we can
not get around these curses if we do
try. They will meet us in ruined and
blighted lives and broken and aching
hearts and desolated homes. The
Brothel, justified for a reward stand
wide open to destroy the purity of our
boys and our girls, too. Our hearts
have been touched by the heartache
OF a father whose home has been
blighted by this cursed traffic in hui
man souls. Will yours or mine be the
next to ache? Are you ready to well
come such a state in your home? You
are bidding it welcome to attempt to
entice your boy and girl, just SO long
as you do not lift your hand and voice
against it.
1 think / hear number of you say
"Oh, but my home is different, we live
in a very select neighborhood, and as
sociate only in Il carefully selected set,
and, really now, there is no danger
for our children, you see.'
So q lady told me in a distant city
when 1 asked her to join with our Wo-
mans Christian Temperance Unions
Mothers meetings to help guard
against the dangers and pitfalls in the
paths of our boys and girls. A few
months later she called me up on the
telephone one day, and asked if l
would be at home that afternoon, l
told her | would be: she said she must
come and see me on a very important
matter. When she caIne, she told ME
with sorrow that the cursed evil had !
entered into her own home and had
come by way of one of those other
very select homes.
tell you plainly. neither your child
nor mine is safe so long as we allow
these evils in our midst. and then with
all this, you let your boys and girls
both large and small spend their leis-
ure hours in the very lap of these
monsters.
AS we look back over the lives of |
the greatest and grandest men and
women of our land, where do We find |
that their early leisure hours were |
spent? Did Francis E. Willard, Louise |
May Alcott. Harriet BeeCher Stowe, !
Julia Ward Howe, T. Dewitt Talmage. |
Henry Ward Beecher, or our noble |
president spend their early leisure |
hours walking I'M and down the streets |