The Golden age. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1906-1915, September 27, 1906, Page 5, Image 5
young man came down, and told the story of his
singular adventure.
“He had been out hunting, he said, and late in
the afternoon, had gone into the water of the Sak
arang to bathe. On returning to the bank to dress,
he was seized by the arms by an orang-outang, who
made him follow her into the ravine. They arrived
at the foot of a tall tree, which the youth "was
forced to ascend until he had reached the animal’s
nest, where he found himself a prisoner in comfort
able lodgings. Day after day, he remained there,
the orang-outang graciously supplying him with
fresh fruits and vegetables, and even bringing him
water in a cocoanut.”
It is not a question of what you think, or what I
think about this story. You know, and I know,
there are just as strange cases of abduction going
on around us every day, especially among our girls.
I had a thousand times rather find them in the
woods, wooed and charmed by an orang-outang
than to see them tied up with some, even resepecta
ble looking and appearing men; or even keeping
business or social relations with certain men. There
are men in this city, some of them in this presence,
some of them prominent in business and social life,
whose influence is more damnable than all the wild
animals of Barnum’s circus.
Oh, the wreck of their charming! God only
knows how in that hidden world of secret sobs,
wails are going up at all times, because of a failure
to flee before the charmer became too charming.
Young women, would you be saved, and keep
saved? Then, in the strength of God, through Jesus
Christ, your sure salvation, break that power that
will lead to wreck and ruin. Be your best self.
Let the world about you see, and know, for a fact,
that your mission is too sacred and your life too
priceless to be stained and stunned by deeds of sin.
Won By Her Song.
I was talking with a friend of mine from the
city of Cincinnati the other day, and he gave me
this story, which I wish to give to you. He said in
his city there was a pretty young girl, a member
of the church, who, on one occasion, was invited
by a friend to accompany him on Wednesday eve
ning to the theater. It was nothing new, but some
thing’ whispered, “0, don’t go, Jennie!” That
peculiar something continued speaking to her, “0,
don’t go.” She wrote him a letter, and said: “I
can not go to the theater tonight. There is some
thing that tells me not to go.” There came a let
ter saying, “It is an excellent play.” She wrote
him another letter saying she would go. Then, she
dropped down for an evening nap. She dreamed
that the angels came that night, and found her in
the theater. She got up, and wrote, “I am sorry
to tell you, but I shall have to break my engage
ment. I cannot go.”
That night Jennie found herself in the church. She
had been going to the theater on Wednesday eve
ning. The pastor walked up to her, and said, “Jen
nie, I am so glad to see you at prayer meeting. I
feel that the Lord has something for you to do
tonight.” She said, “I tell you, I have made up
my mind I am not going to another theater. I do
not believe it is right.” The pastor congratulated
her upon it.
In the course of the service, the pastor said: “I
am going to ask Jennie to sing. Jennie, what will
you sing?” Said she, “I believe I will sing ‘Jesus
Lover of my Soul.’ ” And she came, and stood at
the piano, and sang sweeter than she ever had. Her
heart was set on fire. The congregation was dis
missed, but there was a young man who lingered
about the door, and the stranger said: “That was
the sweetest singing I ever heard. It carried me
back to my boyhood days, when mother used to sing
it to me. lam a bad boy, but I have made up my
mind I am going to accept Christ right now.”
This is what a woman can do when she sets the
power of her influence against that which is wrong,
and yields her life to the service of Christ.
A single bank in Naples receives half a million
dollars a year sent out of the United States by tem
porary Italian residents. The same bank has re
ceived from Italians in Argentina and Brazil $828,-
(OOQ and $450,000, respectively, in one year.
The Golden Age for September 27, 1906.
J T A f 'T’J-JTJ CIT V. A Protest Against the Pros-
1 -A-/C/ CV-Z-X 1. V JL JTJI 1 j L j/Y I • titution of the Bryan Badge
The following communication was given to
The Atlanta Georgian by the editor of The Golden
Age at the same time it was prepared for this
paper, in order to give it immediate circulation in
Atlanta. It is needless to say that Mr. Bryan de
clined to wear the badge that connected his face
and name with a liquor advertisement.—Editor.
I am not looking for clouds on a beautiful day,
and I experience no pleasure in finding “spots on
the sun.” But I am sure I saw one on the other
wise “unclouded day” of the William J. Bryan
reception. And lam just as convinced that I ought
to warn the people against this moral danger as
Mr. Bryan was convinced that he could not be true
to his conscience and his countrymen without speak
ing his honest convictions concerning ultimate rail
road ownership. I believe in wholesome enthusiasm.
I like music and mirth, badges and banners. And
so, while “the band played on” and enthusiastic
Americans jostled each other in the arcade of the
Piedmont, a friend handed me a pretty little Bryan
badge, all enameled and shining, decorated and
glorified with a dainty American flag. I took it
eagerly and pinned it on my coat and felt a quicker
pulse-beat of genuine patriotism. Suddenly an
other friend stood before me and said: “Do you
think it is quite right for us to be wearing those
badges?” “‘Why not?” I answered. “I am 21
years old and a free-born American citizen—of
course, I ought to wear it!”
Then he looked at me significantly and said:
“Ask the revenue officer.” I snatched the badge
from my coat and read to my startled senses the
pet advertising phrase, known all over the land, of
a prominent liquor house in Atlanta. And there I
.was—unconsciously acting as a walking advertise
ment of liquor. I confess to a feeling that bordered
on horror. Two thoughts stirred me—my honest
wish to honor the Christian character and the moral
grandeur of a great American citizen had been im
posed upon, and a sacred occasion of high and beau
tiful patriotism had been prostituted to worse than
mercenary ends.
And then when their attention was called to it,
I saw such men as that grand old Christian soldier,
General Clement A. Evans, tearing the whiskey
badge from his coat; Judge Beverly D. Evans, that
astute Christian jurist, kept the badge, but efface 1
the distiller’s device; Mr. J. J. Maddox, Atlanta’s
beloved Christian patriarch, said he never dreamed
what the badge had on it besides Bryan’s picture,
and he speedily threw it away. And Judge W. A.
Covington, whose keen wit and magnetic eloquence
electrified everybody at the Bryan banquet, found
himself caught for a time in the same way, and
he declared with a vigor almost vehement, that such
a thing was “nothing less than a shame!”
Out at the auditorium at Ponce de Leon these
badges were being handed out by the thousand to
those who crowded through the door to hear the
great Commoner speak. I saw them shining on
the dresses of hundreds of ladies even in the vast
audience who had been attracted only by Bryan’s
picture and the United States flag, not seeing for the
moment the distiller’s words between.
And I’ll venture the assertion that they—these
fair women, some of whom have suffered in heart
and life too much from the debauchery of loved ones
—never dreamed until they reached home and their
husbands or sons or brothers or sweethearts told
them—that they had been caught on a wave of pa
triotism and made to advertise liquor.
Os course, the enterprising distiller counts it a
great joke, and if it were not so serious in its bale
ful effects, we would all be inclined to laugh at the
clever trick—but alas! I believe in my soul it was
“a trick of the devil.” “Oh,” says some one,
“don’t be harsh!” I am not. Many otherwise
good men are often tempted of the devil.
My own nephew, a youth of fifteen, came up to
me on the grounds “sporting” one of these badges,
and when I called his attention to it, I expressed
myself in rather vigorous English. “Don’t say
it,” said a bystander, “that distiller is a clever
fellow, has a legal right to do what he is doing,
and has more friends than almost any man in At
lanta.” “So has the devil!” I answered. All day
long the conviction lived with me that it was my
duty to call the attention of at least to
this danger through the daily press. But the “con
servative” answered, “This has been a great day
for the Great Commoner—don’t point to an cloud
on the sky.”
That night at Iho banquet where the Christian
salesman was honored by the Young Men’s Dem
ocratic League by having neither wine nor “strong
drink” at his board, I sat face to face with these
same distillers and enjoyed delightful converse with
them.
Personally, the father and the son are charming
men. They had the legal right to seize upon the
presence of Mr. Bryan to advertise their goods.
And their enterprise was worthy a better cause.
But I believe they had no moral right nor the
right of “the proprieties” either. I believe it was
a prostitution of a high and splendid occasion to
put the face of a man who never drinks on the
badge with a whiskey advertisement. I believe it
was a patriotic outrage to put William J. Bryan in
a whiskey barrel and lift the “Stars and Stripes’’
over his devoted head. In the name of his Chris
tian character, in the name of the wife of his
bosom, in the name of the children of his loins,
in the name of the youth of Georgia, in the name
of the homes and the citizens of America whose
President we hope he will come to be, and in the
name of the beautiful American flag, to which Mr.
Bryan paid that wonderful tribute in his Ponce de
Leon speech—the flag that ought to be the emblem
only of Light and Liberty and never drenched in
the barrel and bottle of debauchery and death—in
the name, I say, of all these sacred things, I lift
my voice—the voice only of a. plain American cit
izen who has tried in a humble way to help homes
and inspire youth—and enter my solemn and des
perate protest against this distiller’s insidious and
dangerous seizure upon the presence of William J.
Bryan!
True, the name of the liquor house did not ap
pear on the Bryan badge, but a daily paper revealed
what everybody knew, the name of R. M. Rose
Company.
This news item declares that “R. M. Rose Com
pany made a great hit and added greatly to the
enjoyment of yesterday’s memorable occasion by
giving thousands of Bryan buttons, etc.” Yes, IT
WAS A HIT! It hit the heart of many a mother’s
son who learned the awful lesson that liquor, en
thsiasm and patriotism, ought to be poured into the
same cup and lifted to the lips of American youth.
“I am not mad, most noble Festus.” I speak forth
the words of truth and soberness. I am sane—if
I ever was—and like the man described in the
Bible, “sitting, clothed and in my right mind.”
But I protest. Thousands of others who THINK
and FEEL will do Ihe same. And advertising like
this, with the liquor songs they are sending out,
inducing young women in their parlors, like sirens
of old, to sing young men to the shores of ruin,
will only hasten the day, pray God, when our own
Capital City with her “Atlanta spirit,” and our
own great Georgia, with her purity and her progress
will arise in their righteous wrath and sweep the
legalized liquor traffic from the face of our fair
commonwealth.
WILLIAM D. UPSHAW.
Atlanta, Ga., September 22.
P- S.—This letter was written Saturday morn
ing—before Atlanta’s awful horror and sorrow. To
day all saloons are closed because they are a menace
to the community’s peace at such a time as this.
Isn’t it a shame, 0, men of Atlanta, that you
should allow any place in the city that must be
closed in order to prevent rioting? Hear me, ye
friends of the saloon, the time was never so ripe for’
respectable citizens to rise and free Atlanta of every
place that is the natural rendezvous of rioters and
the hotbed of crime. W. D. U.
September ’ 24th.
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