The Tacoma times. [volume] (Tacoma, Wash.) 1903-1949, 1918-01-02
ADJUSTMENTS
Rev. Kid Wedge Tells How
To Keep New Year Resolution

ROCKFORD, ILL.,, Jan. Can
a New Years resolution be kept?
How?
Easy enough to keep a New
Years resolution If you really
meant to keep 1t when you made
it," replied the Rev. kid"
Wedge, former prize fighter, for
mer rowdy, former hard drinker,
and who now is doing Y. M. C. A.
work at Camp Grant here.
The Rev. F. II. Wedge points to
himself as one who made a resO-
luton to turn over a new leaf
and who turned IT over and kept
II turned over.
1T was a long and hard fight
to keep my resolution" said the
preacher who once delighted in
the roughest kind of fist battles.
But i wen out. ] made good,
and I'll never get over being glad
that / made the resolution and
kept it.
The trouble with most New
Year resolution Is that they are
made with fingers crossed, and
the maker doesn't really want to
keep them. Consequently he
doesn't back them up with all the
grit and will power he has,"
Wedge was born in the lumber
camps of northern Wisconsin
woods. His father was lumber
jack, and the kid" grew up
among the rough, liquor-drinking,
fighting men whose only fun
was found in barroom brawls.
The Lumber camp barroom was
the schoo. to which the kid"
went.
While still in his teens he be-
came the toughest fighter and
worst tough in northern Wiscon-
sin. He could drink more liquor
than any other and he could get
more vicious and dangerous when
drunk than any other. His great
est ambition was to get everybody
drunk, himself included, and start
a free-for-all, rough-and-tumble
scrap in which eye-goug,ng,
strangling, head-busting tactics
predominated.
From the barroom brawls he
emerged "roughneck" prize
fighter, and fought many ring
battles.
Then, one day, he asked him
self:
what does this boozefightin3
and tough reputation get me?"
And he answered that question.
too:
"Nothing!"
SO kid" Wedge made his IA
nous resolution. That was some
thing like 10 years ago.
He quit drinking and started
going to church and school. At
first 1t was hard shedding. The
good people didn't think him Sc
rious, and his former pals tried
their best to pull him back to
their low Level.
But he kept ON, making the
keeping of that good resolution
the biggest thing of his life. He
studied, conducting summer
training camp for rich mems sons
to defray his expenses. Four years
he spent at the Omaha Theolog-
ical seminary and was ordained
as Presbyterian minister and
given a church at Monroe, Neb.
Later he went back as pastor to
Rhinelander, Wis, where once he
had been the policies TOUCHES.
customer" Then he became an
evangelist and preached the dual
gospel of clean, healthy body
and q clean, Christian mind. For
the former he prescribes athletics,
outdoors and work; for the lat
ter, church, school and home.
The fight Rev. kid" Wedge is
most proud of is the one he
fought with the vice-stained
Chinatown and the vicious Bar
barry Coast of San Francisco,
neither of which is a tenth as
morally rotten as it was before he
got into the fray.
And IL he hadn't made and kept
that resolution he wouldn't have
done that. More than likely he
now would be a human derelict
In some big city's flop house.