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3 E HEARST’S SUNDAY AMERICAN, ATLANTA, GA., SUNDAY, JULY 27, 1013. - - ..... * - . - ...... % 1 Pol iceman-] roe! u Phi ilosop her—At lar star ias As n rt iree! Lin ider 1 Oi le I BI ue( uoa t 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, t ~ar