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HEARST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN, ATLANTA, GA., SUNDAY, JULY 27, 1013.
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With a Proud Record of but Three Arrests in
Two Years While on Duty in Whitehall
Street, “Bob” Braselton Calmly Views the
World Through the Eyes of a Modern Omar.
By TARLETON
P OLICEMEN, you say, are stony hearted
creatures at best, dead to every human
emotion, unresponsive to appeals that
would touch even the heart of Judge Broyles.
Policemen, you are ready to swear, have no«
souls at all.
But then, maybe you don’t know Sergeant
Robert Braselton, who, although a member of
the Atlanta police force for twenty-three years,
has a heart no harder than a gumdrop would
be this July weather on Peachtree street at
noonday. With the twenty-three years of his
service, you can vtfy nearly count his arrests
on the fingers of your two hands.
Policemen have no souls, say you? Bob
Braselton, the hero of this story, writes good
poetry, thereby proving you wrong.
Poets are men who somehow understand.
It is but natural, then, that the policeman
who “just can’t help feeling sorry for every
poor guy that’s brought in” should write poetry
after a fashion, and almost any lowbrow can
twist off an ode to “Spring” or to “Snow” or
to “Her,” but who means it? Bob Braselton
does, and thereby is lifted out of the class ol
the casual versifiers, becoming a real poet—
and he a policeman at that.
Now that we have made Bob Braselton out
as sentimental and a poet, this, coming as a
bit of his verse written to “The Hoodoo Bird,"
won’t surprise you:
Thanks for your kind song, mg bird,
I care not'for the things I've heard;
Let gossips whisper, be right or wrong,
'Tis a pleasure sweet, to hear pour song:
“7 pity you! I pity you!”
And it won’t surprise you to know that he
has developed a philosophy, the Imrden of
which is that the world is mostly good, if
people would just leave It alone. This poet-
philosoplier-policeman can not get reconciled to
all these attempts to make the world better.
Things were not this way in the old days.
Better begin at the beginning. Bob Brasel
ton became a policeman in 1891, in the good
old days when there was glory to a job on the
force. For were you not elected, acquiring
thus the prestige of a statesman? Nowadays
the civil service, all old-timers contend, gives
your police force a sort of plebeian taint. But
Bob Braselton came on in 1891, attracted by
the dignity that was then a policeman’s, see
ing an opportunity for a helpful life-work.
For four years he was a patrolman. Chief
Beavers was a patrolman at that time, and .Tint
and Bob were friends on the force together.
Two years of the four Bob Braselton was
stationed on Whitehall street in a bustling part
of the city. In all that time he made three ar
rests. Then they made him a sergeant.
Right there he thinks he made a mistake.
“If I hadn't arrested anybody they might have
made me chief,” he said. He laughed. Bob
Braselton laughs as you imagine a policeman
with a heart would laugh. His face gets red
with it, his eyes close with it, and he enjoys it.
Then he sobered.
“But maybe I’m not a good policeman,” he
said. “I don't think I've got it in me. To be a
good policeman a man must be hard and cold
and maybe a little mean. I couldn't find the
heart to arrest ’em sometimes. There were not
doing wrong to hurt anybody else.”
But the commission made him a sergeant at
the end of his four years’ service. And for
years he worked as desk sergeant. But to "be
desk sergeant in a city police station, seeing
the tears, and being haunted by the sobs, and
hearing the appeals, is too much for a tender
hearted man. He resigned and farmed a while,
sold life insurance a while, and then went back.
Now he “runs on the wagon," that being the
technical description of his duties. He rides
with the driver of the automobile patrol to
take charge of the prisoners as they are ar
rested or transferred.
So much for Bob Braselton the policeman.
Policemen are things of the earth—made by
the Police Commission or by the civil service;
poets and philosophers are born. The one is
an affair of state, the other a state of mind.
“I have always wanted to write, and have
always been grinding away at it,” said Bob Bra
selton the poet. Ih consequence of his appli
cation to literature he has acquired more than
a local name. A1 Field and Lew' Dockstader,
minstrel men of fame, have sponsored Brasel-
ton’s songs, and have made them w'ell known.
One song especially, a pretentious, antepenul-
tiniate affair, was popular nationally at one
time. True Georgian, the policeman-poet wrote
his first line of this song, "Down in Sunny
Georgia, Where the Watermelons Grow',” and
made that the burden of his song. The music
was written by Professor Doremus, at one time
a prominent musician of Atlanta, and the com
bination of w'ords and melody was plaintively
appealing.
Newspapers more than once have published
his verses, and magazines occasionally. Many
of them were jingles descriptive of current
events in the city, but most are songs of nature,
of the seasons, of birds and flowers. And all of
them have the note expressive of sympathy
with all the world.
In many of the verses and in much of the
prose that he has written there appears a strain
of humor and of satire—particularly satire at
the existing condition of affairs. For Bob
COLLIER.
Braselton does not fear for it to be known that
he is opposed to too rigid laws regarding the
moral conduct of men, and advocates frankly
a more “open" town.j
“Not disorderly nor lawless," he explains,
“but freer and wider in the latitude which it
gives its citizens in their choice of recreation
and enjoyment.”
One of his more elaborate prose sketches is
a story called “Civic Pride.” It represents the
dream of a policeman, in which it seems that
the police force of Atlanta is about to be abol
ished. In the course of the story a number
of policemen are singing pleasantly and con
tentment hovers everywhere, when a stranger
philosopher to guide you: Have the gods given
him a government? Then it is to be hoped
they also have given him proper opinion. Have
they given him a magistracy? Then it is to
be hoped that they gave him also the power
to be a good and a wise magistrate.”
Police Sergeant Robert Braselton, talking to
you, sometimes will apologize that he should
entertain such ideas.
“Maybe they are not the ideas of a good po
liceman,” he will remark.
But Bob Braselton, the man, the poet, the
This Good Natured Disciple of the Golden Rule
Dreams Good Verses, and Scatters Real Gems
of Logic, Though Daily Rubbing Shoulder*
With the Sin and Sorrow of a Big City.
enters. After a little palaver he announces
to the policemen:
“I have always taken a deep interest, in po
lice affairs, and while here I-should like to ask
a few questions. Do you mind?”
"Fire away, sir, and let’s see w'hat you seek,”
the policemen answered.
"Are you all Masons?” he whispers.
“We are,” the chorus answers, growing some
what excited at the other's peculiar manners.
“Masons and Beavers, too.”
“Fine! We can now talk without restraint.
What is the population of Atlanta?”
"One hundred and sixty thousand, not includ
ing Dr. Broughton.”
“Who is your Chief of Police?”
“Beavers, visibly.”
“Is be an American?”
“He is now. He was an Englishman.”
“How is he elected?"
“Board of Commissioners.”
“How are they elected?”
Y
“Hold, stranger,” one of the policemen cried.
"Now you are on dangerous ground. Why
don’t you ask who wrote the letters of Junius,
or was it Cook or Peary? It would be just
as easy to answer. loot’s turn back—the ice Is
too thin, and I’ve a large family to support.”
“Well, then,” asked the stranger, “is it true
that Judge Broyles is to resign and go on the
stage?"
"Nothing to It,” said Driver No. 2, “while
His Houor has made a big reputation as an
amateur comedian and would no doubt make
a hot one on the professional stage, he is a
man with a mission, and not even the glare
of the footlights can lure him from what he
considers his duty. Have you seen him act?”
“Once, in a play called Robinson Crusoe.’ He
was Crusoe, and Judge Preston was Friday. It
was a great hit.”
“We all think so, though we see it every
day.”
And so on the story goes for much more of
the same kind of pertinent froth.
At its beginning it has a significant allusion;
that is, significant in the analysis of Bob Bra-
selton’s own character.
“For hours not an arrest had been made for
any cause, nor a ease of any character dock
eted. The Golden Rule was in full force in
the police department.
It is just because of Boh Braselton’s inter-
•pretation of the Golden Rule that he /eels he
will never be the best policeman.
“I always have a world of sympathy for the
unfortunate fellows that come into the hands of
the police,” he said. "Especially do the young
men make me sorry. Women under arrest are
pitiable. All persons of this class appeal to
me as unfortunates, rather than as criminals,
and there are times. It seems to me, when a
rigid enforcement of the strict letter of the law
would be cruel when a policeman, commis
sioned to maintain order and decency, to protect
life and property, can conscientiously look the
other way.
"All men are brothers. There is no law or
code above the requirement that a man remem
ber his brother’s happiness and security and
welfare. What is it the old Greek philosopher
says—Epictetus, I think It was? Something
like this: That if a fig falls to you, and is good,
then eat it. But if you must stoop to get it.
or must throw down another in getting It,
then it is best that you let it lie, for all the
figs are not worth that.
“And as to pride of rank, and pride of of
fice, and arrogant forgetfulness of the individ
ual’s happiness In the thought that you have
the power of the State behind you—in all such
selfish and unreasoning administration of the
laws—why there is the utterance of the same
chair, so that he talks to you In the^most inno
cent and naive pose in the world. His face is
red and round, with a chin that perpetual
laughing at the world and tts foibles has thrust
forward. His smile Is ready and disarming.
Altogether he looks his record—three arrests
In two years’ service on Whitehall street.
gentle philosopher, will tell you that he Is glad
he feels as he does about It. Too much se
verity is to be cold and seeming cruel. This
Bob Braselton can not be.
Even as a police sergeant he Is not timid
about expressing his views about the control
of the city. He has his own ideas as to the
means of getting the coveted 500,000 population.
He would not “restrict” so much, he says, for
one thing. He would have the laws liberally
Interpreted, to provide recreation and pleasure
for all men when they desire It, and In the
form they desire It—Sunday amusements and
all that.
"There Is too much severity and repression
In the world as It Is,” he said yesterday.
Fifty-seven years old, Braselton will be eli
gible to retirement from active service as a po
liceman, and to be pensioned, in three years.
He will have served 26 years as a member of
the force. But he is not going to get out.
"I would dry up and rust, 1 reckon," he said.
“A man who retires is down and out by his
own confession. There is too much to see and
too much for a man to do, too many good folks
for a man to know, to help and be helped by,
to allow one to quit.”
He works every evening and night from 4
o’clock until midnight, running out with the
wagons, sitting meanwhile in his big chair in
the open courtyard of the station, talking to
his mates, or just thinking, his head down on
his chest. His muse is a homely and familiar
genius. He conceives his poetry and philosophy
as he rides on the clanging patrol wagon, or
sits in the stable yard. And he writes it when
he gets to his home, and, collarless, costless,
without frills or affectation, raises his feet to
a comfortable elevation.
No one would take Bob Braselton for a poet,
although you would realize at the sight of him
that here Is a man you should like to know.
He is short and thick and genially round. His
leg has a way. when he is sitting of swinging
around and hooking itself over the arm of the
The Boy Who Is
Going to Marry
-By ADA PATTERSON-
A
BOY who is going to be married has told
me about it. He is a tall, narrow,
muscular lad of the sort that Gibson
likes to draw. He has a wealth of long legs
and of thick, junglelike fair hair, and eyes that,
deep-set and gray-blue, may some time grow
shrewd and a bit hard, but just now are lake
like candor and full of happy dreams.
There is a promise of a superb manhood In
the boy, who is 22, and still crude and awk
ward as a colt that is a bit unsteady on his
legs, but that every day Is nearing the state
of the heavy-boned, strong-spirited, tireless,
steady-going horse.
I haven’t seen the girl, but, of course, he
tells me there is no girl on earth who is in
any respect her equal. His mother doesn’t want
him to marry. His father has offered to pay
him the equivalent of a year’s salary If the
youth will wait a year. The boy won’t wait,
and this is the reason he gave me;
“She Is the right kind of girl. Last year
and the year before I only worked long enough
and hard enough to pay for a vacation. I had
no interest in life except in enjoying myself.
On my last vacation I met her, and four days
after we met I proposed and she said:
“ ‘You must go to work and prove yourself.
If you turn out to be the man I think you are,
I will marry you.’ ”
The boy has been working steadily, has
worked overtime in the evenings, has saved his
sglnry and is saving trading stamps to buy
the family silver. It seems a fair start on the
road to success and happiness. Will he reach
the goal? It depends in very large part upon
the girl.
Usually it’s a bit tiresome, even irritating,
to hear the failure or success of a man laid at
the door of a womnn. Usually the charge is
untrue, and it is a common, though not a uni
versal truth that a man worth "making” him
self and that the wort that, hears the stamp
of a woman isn’t much deeper than the trade
mark. But here’s a boy whose feet have been
placed in the lieginning of the right path. He
needs nothing, except thut the girl, who start
ing with her hand in his on the same path,
keep pace with him.
That is all. It sounds so little and is so
big an undertaking. I wish the gtrl who will
start on tiie path in the autumn conld know
a womnn who has been a pacemaker and gait>
kee[per on the matrimonial road longer than
the girl has lived, 32 years.
But since there is little probability of their
acquaintance. I shall tell the story of the wo
man who has been more successful in the busi
ness of being wife than anyone I know.
She tiegan the successful way when a young
mining engineer proposed to her and she ac
cepted him, but refused the ring he tendered.
“We can’t afford it now,” she said. “Wait
until we have lieeu married a while and are
more prosperous.”
When she had been married nine years she
reoetvi-d her engagement ring, one of the finest
diamonds in the world. Barney Barnato, the
diamond king of South Africa, helped to se
lect it.
“It was a beautiful ring,” she said. “Oor
children admired it very much.” It was a
good beginning, that refusal of the engage
ment ring he couldn’t afford. After some
quickly passing years she has the privilege of
helping him spend an income of >0.000 a year.
On the thirty-first anniversary of their mar
riage he cabled her from London:
“Work all right, but homesick. Love,
“JACK.”
She has been the mother of six children,
four of whom are youngsters full of the busy
business of living, two who are beautiful, sad
dening memories. She having obtained leave
from a hostile government to take her hus-
liand from his cell at a political prison, nursed
him back to life in a more friendly climate,
and when he insisted upon going back to be
tried for his life because he said his honor
demanded his keeping the terms of sick parole,
she journeyed back with him and waited all of
one night, anguished, within sight of his prison
walls for the dawn of the day set for his
execution, both ignorant that a pardon was
prepared.
Her husband’s quiet comment on his heroism
was: "If I were placed in a position of great
danger I should choose no man, but two women
1 know, to share it with- me—my wife and my
sister.”
While her husband was holding a confer
ence on one of the most important events of
his life, one in which his life’s ambition was
at stake, this wife sat up in lied knitting slip
pers to steady her nerves until he returned
to her with the news of the outcome of the
conference.
1 asked this successful wife her recipe for
success in married life arid she answered:
“My dear husband’s recipe is mine. Do
teamwork. Another has been to always be
lieve the best of him at all times. And for
husband training. I think a wife should first
look to self-training. She must so live and care
for herself as to keep her health, develop her
character and train her intellect, as far as it
can be trained. All women have not great
intellects, but if a woman has a fine, strong
character that will supplement an average
brain.
“Make the right choice and stand by it A
large part of successfully bringing up a hus-
Iwnd is to get the right husband material to
work on.”
The girl whom the boy Is going to marry
has the right stuff to work on. She has a clean,
fine past as background, a sturdy purpose to
make the most of their lives—earnestness,
honesty, • Industry, a love as sweet and fresh
as the morning dew on June roses. By fol
lowing the chart of unselfishness, by doing
teamwork, by keeping pace, she will travel far
,nd hapily with him,
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