Arizona republican., 1918-04-15

IredcHerS need sympathy, so many of them in their most earnest work, in the effort of their lives, appeal to a cold congr fEation who listen and go away without word of encourage ment
 l do not count among my friends only people who thing as I think; my paper IS a dry paper in a wet state Some of the best friends I have are among the booze fighters. The point IS not always to agree but to honestly hear each other, and be great enough to remain friends. A man in my town was killed while drunk in saloon. A woman, leader of the W. c. T. U. came over with the crowd and wanted me to roast the saloon keeper. T. wouldn't do it. but I told her I would roast the community who had fostered the saloon and the conditions that caused the crime There is no use in this reform uplift work in attacking the effect or the victims or bad con- dltions; strike at the cause of the root or the evil, and stand Loyalty for right principle, or don't strike at all. There IS only one way of being on the right side, and that is to begin at the begin- nlnS, and stand for moral conditions all along the line; then it is glorious privilege to be fighting for the com mon cause. Now, I do not believe in perfection. I never got into a perfect community but one, and I never found such a perfectly uncomfortable place In my life. Oh.these sants and evan gelists, they were perfect past all par allel. Once they even put an apron on the statue of Venus when some noted evangelist was coming, as if that evangelist hand't seen everything there UQl fr 4t- men, how l have seen some of these fellows duck under the cellar when the time came to put their promises into performance. I have never yet found perfect man, fit to tell other teople now to live and meet all moral require ments. When 1 meet such a fellow I hope to get him and have him stuffed. and put him in a museum and charge $1,OOO admission. Now, 1 know a lot of fellows who can run a newspaper; I want one now, capable and efficient, just one, but in my town there are 3l,0OO people, each one of whom thinks he can run paper better than all the others. l thought so too, some years ago, when 1 came out of college with sheep skin" and sheeps head" too.
 Fortunately, in seeking remedies for vice conditions, l began by striking at h. temperance and immortality I want you to wake up to the study of prosti tuition, ugly thing that it is, it is a biological problem. It is the condi- tions that lead to these things that must be remedied first of all Some people want to begin by putting the lid on. l was one of that kind; I was the Champion Lid Putter on," and vet I thought was working in the name of Him, who said Let he who is without sin cast the first. stone" Who are these so- called tough people? They are people whose lives and vices are known; they are those who have split their fines with the police, and often city officials. They are not of the crowd who go quietly out of town. In the work in my. town 1 often defended the drunk man from the persecution Of city officials and policemen, who were the real culprits, and yet who de- clared dividends on his misery. So- ciety should care for the keep the drunkards and prostitutes as victims of 1 its own neglect.
 They said how dare you spring this sprinter fire philosophy on us? Then 1 put all the names in the paper peo- pie who owned the houses, saloons, and all the property that yielded profit from immoral conditions. There was one fellow there that was such a nice church man, ohl he was sanctified and petrified, and purified. The pastor said in one sermon that he had sat in pew every service for twenty two years. Oh phew. Now this worthy churchman had retired. No good man ought to ever retire; he should keep COW or Ford, or something, to keep in touch with the common herd. This mans family was dressed beautifully, and his wife and daughter lived in luxury from the income yielded from the worst red light house in our town My, but some of them howled when I published in the paper that he re- ceived $125 per month from one house known as the Long Green" There was a woman too, who was kind; she gave to charity whenever she had a chance; her husband who had been a man of the world died and left her large sum as fire insurance. This woman too was receiving dividends from lost humanity. Do you think the people stood back of me when I pub lished these names? No, it was too new a thing for them to vision I honestly believe that many men who make mistakes may be better able to help humanity than those careful cold calculators who never leave the beaten path. l know many men who have made mistakes, but now are among the most wonderful servants to humanity 1 like the spirit of this brotherhood l don't care if man is Jew, Catholic or what his religious principles may be, if he is willing to get together for the common good. I have never seen a man get so low down but what there is some element of good in him. I have never seen a man that would not lean, even if he did not leap, toward the kindly light. This is an altruistic age No man has a right to use his own brain for selfish purposes. It is a su- preme duty to use his mental powers for the common good; to do some thing to make the world better, cleaner and sweeter for his having lived in it.
 No man has fulfilled his duty until he has learned to think more of posterity than prosperity.
 l never understood that epigram un- til knew such man in my own town great, big, splendid fellow, fine body and brain, but he walked apart, a man with a private conscience, living in a public age. Even in death he tried to dramatize his life by selecting the highest point in the cemetery for his burial ground, emphasizing the fact that he lived a cold and selfish life apart from his fellowmen. I saw his monument and his proud isolation, and I thought of his oldest son, broken, crazy degenerate, victim of drinking drugs, wandering like an imbecile about the great house.
 And 1 thought of his other son, gen. tlemanly, good fellow, but an inne- briate, and I said to myself, I wonder when Brooks Fletcher sleeps here, will l the hovS and girls who ride na st here