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ANALYSIS OF LIFE 
 
 OR 
 
 EDITORIALS 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN L. MEANY 
 
 COPYRIGHTED 19n 
 
5 Ay 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 It has given me pleasure to read a number cf the edi- 
 torial essays which constitute the text of this volume. 
 They evidence broad culture and a familiarity with im- 
 portant themes which far transcend in interest the prob- 
 lems that rise to confront us in the course of current every- 
 day life. 
 
 They deal in the main with questions which concern 
 the higher aspirations of men, without being tainted with 
 that destructive spirit of utilitarianism and materialism 
 which seeks to reduce every human proposition to a physi- 
 cal equation. When the author touches an instant subject 
 he shows a most accurate conception of the question 
 involved; and in every instance his conclusions are de- 
 ducted from a sound, consistent treatment of the premises 
 and ideas advanced. The reciprocal obligations of the 
 judge and lawyer in his story of the "Bench and Bar," 
 depict with clearness the two most important agencies 
 known to us in the administration of justice. 
 
 Whoever, as author or editorial writer, calls attention 
 to those matters, which disconnected from commer- 
 <^ialism affect the higher interests of society, renders a 
 public service; and this service Mr. Meany has well per- 
 formed. It is not necessary that assent to or endorsement 
 of every argument made cr conclusion reached by the 
 writer should be given, and I do not mean to be under- 
 stood as doing so; but it is but just to say that every argu- 
 ment is fairly and forcibly stated in the editorial essays of 
 this work, and the whole trend of every subject dealt with 
 is in the direction cf the betterment of human conception 
 as viewed from the standpoint of an educated and intelli- 
 gent observer. 
 
 NORMAN G. KITTRELL, 
 Judge of the Sixty-first Judicial District of Texas. 
 
 ©CI.A289607 
 
AN ANALYSIS OP LIFE. 
 
 Wealth and education are the two main avenues 
 through which man soars to the heights of public 
 and social influence. He who possesses neither is 
 scarcely ever recognized, even though he may have 
 other very valuable assets. A person then, having 
 any ambition to become favorably known, should 
 endeavor to have one or both of these two essential 
 advantages in life. To desire one or both is not 
 enough. Effort must be made, and persistently kept 
 in action during the entire struggle of the individual 
 effort. But the amount of money or education needed 
 in this accomplishment can be neither figured nor 
 imagined in the general conception of any one per- 
 son. Ambition, alone, must do this in proportion to 
 the measure of each one's anxiety. Some men, though 
 anxious to be rich, do not care to be too rich; while 
 others have no limit to the measure of their ambition 
 in this respect. In like manner, there are men in 
 the literary fields of life, who, though anxious to be 
 scholarly, are only desirous of becoming proficient 
 in their own special literary pursuits, while there 
 are others who are attempting daily to learn things 
 that can never be known. 
 
 This is human nature in its diversity of environ- 
 ment. All men were conceived and born as the au- 
 thor of all things decreed; but all men do not pos- 
 sess the propensities of feeling that natural instinct 
 would alike have given them if they were born in 
 the same sphere and bred in the same manner. As 
 water flowing from the same fountain has the same 
 ingredients in all its particles as it emits itself into 
 
4 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 motion, so did human nature have the same anxiety 
 in every thought of Adam and Eve. But as the water 
 undergoes chemical changes on the bed of its natural 
 activity, so do human feelings undergo natural 
 changes peculiar to the sphere in which each one is 
 bred and matured. 
 
 It is then as natural for man to differ from his 
 fellowman in the anxiety of ambition as it is for par- 
 ticles of water to differ from one another in the 
 stream of their existence. In fact, as all the organic 
 and mineral things of the world undergo the changes 
 peculiar to the laws that govern them, severely, so 
 does the human mind become subject to the touch 
 of the laws that govern breeding and environment. 
 And in this respect it can be said that if the am- 
 bitions of all men were alike there would hardly 
 be any noticeable distinction of race, people or fam- 
 ilies; and the world would be a thing without a bot- 
 tom, middle or top, existing in a dead atmosphere 
 without a living aim. The fact, then, that there are 
 some men who desire to become enormously rich 
 and others who try to become exceedingly wise, may 
 not be so great a misfortune to the world as many 
 people think. Yet, it must not be here said that 
 those classes of over-ambitious people are leading the 
 best kind of lives for their own happiness. Neither 
 must it be said that the Avorld would be better and wiser 
 withjout them. But it can be asserted with much 
 confidence that they are very much alike the man 
 who is always eating too much and still anxious to 
 eat more. 
 
 Here the question presents itself as to whether 
 it is a greater fault to be over-greedy in the desire 
 of acquiring wealth and wisdom or too indolent in 
 the getting of either. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY O 
 
 The answer J however, conies of itself: Out of 
 nothing can come nothing; while from much, much 
 is always expected. 
 
 Summing up the whole as a matter of thought, 
 men in pursuit of riches and wisdom should neither be 
 considered an evil to the world nor to the community 
 in which they live, because they inspire others to 
 move in their footsteps to some extent, if not en- 
 tirely. And though this inspiration is not always 
 the best whispers of human ambition, it is neverthe- 
 less the motive power that moves the commercial 
 and social wheels of life. 
 
 As has been already said, a man must be either 
 rich or educated before he can take his seat in the 
 world at any station of notice. But this question 
 is different when we consider life from a moral 
 standpoint. Riches and education are not calculated 
 to bring the soul nearer to God. The greater per- 
 centage of the human family are limited in means 
 and, in many instances, entirely void of the higher 
 literary culture which the scholar enjoys. Yet, 
 within themselves, a large percentage of this class 
 have a happiness that the world can not take away. 
 Social anticipation gives them neither the imaginary 
 pleasure nor the painful feelings of discontent and 
 worry that generally come to those who make social 
 greatness the god of their happiness. They are sat- 
 isfied with the peace of mind they enjoy in being 
 permitted to live for and with their families. An 
 opportunity to make all ends meet, financially, is 
 all they seek; and to know one another rightly is 
 all the literature they care to read. For what they 
 have and have not, they are always willing to thank 
 God with hearts that are sincere. The world is 
 to them, as it should be to all, a place to work and 
 
6 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 live in the fear and love of Him with whom they 
 hope to be in a happier hereafter. 
 
 With some of the rich and wise it is often dif- 
 ferent. Such of them as may be here considered 
 think of God as a matter of custom, and of them- 
 selves in the most serious matter-of-fact way. We 
 have, however, among the rich and educated another 
 class of men and women who dispose of their wealth 
 and education so usefully as to be pleasing to the 
 world and to themselves. Instead of piling their 
 gold into vaults, banks and pots buried in the ground, 
 they put it into useful circulation, and love it only 
 for the good it may do. In the same manner those 
 of this class who are gifted and educated enlighten 
 the world within the sphere of their reach without 
 submitting themselves to imagine that they are gods 
 of wisdom in the display of their earthly knowledge. 
 
 In summing up this argument at this point it may 
 be said that it is not only advisable to become rich 
 and learned, but rather highly commendable in any 
 man to have the ambition of becoming so. With 
 this ambition the wealth and civilization of the past 
 has been made, and with it the wealth and civiliza- 
 tion of the future can be promulgated and main- 
 tained. But in the future, as in the past, ambition 
 will be largely inspired by necessity. Boulevards, 
 factories, ocean boats and steamships have peeped 
 into the commercial vision of man from the breast 
 of necessity. There was a time when the human 
 mind had no conception of electricity, steam power 
 or navigation. Today they are as familiarly used 
 and handled as if they had been naturally and prac- 
 tically known to man from the beginning of the 
 world. It was necessity, of course, that shaped their 
 usefulness; but it was money, education and genius 
 
JOHN L. MEANY / 
 
 that brought them into existence upon the back of 
 ambition. 
 
 In view of the self-evident truth of this assertion, 
 it must be admitted that the lazy, self-satisfied pray- 
 ing people of the world would have never attempted 
 to do anything that would disturb the sleeping 
 energies of their peaceful, happy manner of living. 
 And, hence, but for ambition, necessity would be 
 still sleeping on the hard bed of painful regret. True, 
 indeed, that preachers, pious people and self-satisfied 
 souls, are much needed to make up the moral glory 
 of life; but without the wheels of money and genius 
 the commercial world would not move fast enough 
 to meet the daily needs of men. 
 
 This being true, the inactive population of the 
 world should not be jealous of those who become rich 
 and great. On the contrary, men of wealth and 
 genius should be praised, encouraged and appreciated 
 as people destined from the beginning to do that 
 which they have done and are doing for their fellow- 
 men. 
 
 In like manner, young men of ambition should 
 not be harassed by the tongue of envy and slander. 
 Any word, move or deed that impedes progress on 
 its way to financial or literary success is a menace 
 to society and a detriment to the better end of the 
 nobler aim. For, as the perfection of piety and 
 moral achievement belongs to the preacher's earnest 
 determination, so does the perfection of commercial 
 progress depend upon the energy of the rich and 
 learned. Yet we hear from time to time the sneering 
 voice of some indolent fool casting insinuations of 
 disrespect upon the conduct of some industrious, 
 educated and intelligent young man. And for no 
 reason except the reason of begrudging people they 
 
8 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 know the pleasure of being more prosperous, or as 
 prosperous, as they may be themselves. 
 
 But such is the diversity and selfishness of the 
 human makeup. One man plows the field to win 
 for his home and family bread and a bed to sleep ; 
 another gives his life to some commercial vocation 
 selected by him to pursue, while, from either neces- 
 sity or through ambition, others devote themselves 
 to the building of nations and to the shaping, mak- 
 ing and promulgation of the finer arts on the re- 
 fined and more artistic side of life. 
 
 Into so many classes and into many times more 
 is the world divided. And so divided, not because 
 men plotted and planned to the divisions of this kind 
 made, but because divine Providence gave the dividend 
 and necessity found the divisor, and all men together 
 make up the quotient, whether differently or alike 
 carved out, either by fortune or by personal ener- 
 gies. Or in better and more accurate words, every 
 one of us, outside of that which fortune gave, has 
 made the life, name and position that ambition has 
 given in the distribution of its own peculiar action. 
 But, as already referred to, environment, or the local 
 influences of cause, make up in part if not in whole 
 the merit or demerit of individual career, subject, 
 however, to two causes that never manifest them- 
 selves nakedly to the mortal vision of man. One of 
 these is the inherent perversity of instinct, ever pres- 
 ent with the individual; the other, the continuous 
 stream of grace naturally flowing from divine super- 
 vision in rivulets of overflowing mercy, in and 
 through the most perverted valleys of human thought. 
 The first can only be destroyed by the latter. Good 
 influences alone can overcome the evil that is in- 
 herited by us. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 9 
 
 Here, however, comes a thought too much for man 
 to shape into any definite conclusion. And in it 
 the visible and invisible worlds appear in the mirror 
 of 'the soul, but not in the spherical features which 
 can be neither surveyed nor pictured by any effort 
 of the intellect within the limited vision of imagina- 
 tion. As the north pole commands the magnetic 
 needle of the compass, so does divine grace move the 
 feelings of man. But as the compass is affected 
 by local influences that are inadvertently or directly 
 mtercepting the magnetism of the pole, so is environ- 
 ment in a similar measure interfering with the action 
 of human feelings in their relation with God. 
 
 This simile is, of course, inferior in the compara- 
 tive degree of nature, because mortal observation 
 is unable to form any idea of the things that are 
 divine. 
 
 In measuring human action within the lines of 
 this effort the conclusions submitted are not asserted 
 as infallible, but simply written with the hope of 
 giving its readers some thoughts which may develop 
 in them the true philosophy of life. The rich, the 
 poor, the learned and the unlearned, are alike de- 
 pendent on God. To have money is not to have all 
 that the soul needs. Neither will the most finished 
 education show us true happiness in the absence of 
 divine light. But riches and education are necessary 
 auxiliaries to the Creator ^s will in the management 
 and distribution of human things. Lighted visions 
 from the dim rays of misconception may sometimes 
 lead us into the pathways of other thoughts; but 
 the purely whispering inspirations of truth will never 
 be too far from us to hear if we only desire to paint 
 the right conception of life within the canvass of 
 our souls. 
 
10 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 Without being inconsistent with the conclusions 
 here offered it may be said that all nature is so 
 mysteriously constituted as to leave it impossible for 
 human intelligence to make any attempt in solving 
 the puzzle of life. From chemical analysis and 
 through the deductions of natural philosophy, stim- 
 ulated by the science of electricity, we are some- 
 times able to see nature with a vision that is al- 
 most divine. But in summing up the affairs of the 
 soul we should go step by step through the scenes 
 of moral glory without questioning the motive of God. 
 
 LIMITED PERCEPTION. 
 
 Since man is a creature of limited perception he 
 should never try to survey the unlimited regions of 
 divine thought. God lives by and in Himself; man 
 from and in the life that God has given him. His 
 thoughts begin at his first dawn of reason. Until 
 then he is a creature of existence without perception. 
 Day by day, thereafter, his imagination expands in 
 proportion to his material opportunities and intel- 
 lectual development. Beyond this, his percep- 
 tion can not reach. The measure of his conception 
 is, and must be confined to, the limits of his material 
 knowledge. Place him where you may and he will 
 never be able to trace origin beyond the sphere of 
 material existence. If you ask him why the rose 
 buds from its stem he will tell you that the stem has 
 by its nature the power to bud the rose. But that 
 which he calls nature in the stem is a mystery f.o 
 him. To say that the spring and summer are, re- 
 spectively, the seasons of vegetation and flowery life, 
 would be only to tell what the histories .of these two 
 
JOHN L. ME ANY 11 
 
 seasons teach. True, that natural philosophers give 
 material causes for the bloom and placid beauty of 
 summer, but they have yet to teach what puts into 
 nature the aetion of cause. Even the great science of 
 chemistry fails to disclose the nature of the process 
 that teaches the chemist to know how many elements 
 a certain compound may contain. The process itself 
 is to him simple. He can very easily tell, not only 
 the number of elements in the compound, but also 
 the proportionate quantities of the body analyzed. 
 Yet, he is unable to explain the analyzing power 
 of the formula with which he works. Man, being 
 thus unable to see the divinity which puts into action 
 the philosophy of natural things, should not hesi- 
 tate to say that he is less able to see the mysteries 
 of God in the things that are divine. 
 
 Yet, we have in the w^orld today, men and women 
 who read, within the pages of deluded imagination, 
 secrets that angels are not given to know. Fortune 
 tellers disclose the future, spiritualists the secrets of 
 the grave, and some ministers of the gospel, things 
 which God Himself may not care to know until the 
 day of judgment. The first are cunning, Avicked 
 Avretches who rob the curious ; the second, people w^ho 
 j)ermit themselves to imagine that they are mediums 
 of divine invention ; and the third, light-brained min- 
 isters who forget that God's word is simple and plain ; 
 that the pulpit is not a stage, but a place from which 
 the divine word should be preached without osten- 
 tation and by lips which speak from a heart that is 
 sincere ; that those who think they are holy should 
 take heed, lest they become wicked; and, lastly, who 
 forget that the gray matter in their heads is a good 
 deal like that in the heads of those to whom they 
 preach. 
 
12 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 BENCH AND BAR. 
 
 If the layman had a true conception of the bench 
 and bar, litigants would have less trouble in persu- 
 ing their legal rights. Unfortunately some people 
 imagine that the judge and lawyer are susceptible to 
 petty feelings in their discrimination between right 
 and wrong. This is an error that can hardly be ever 
 corrected in the general deduction of human thought 
 within the mind of the uncultured layman. And this 
 because his mind is unable to conceive the noble 
 instincts that are inculcated in the heart through 
 the judicial and professional practice of the law. No 
 matter how a judge may feel toward a litigant in 
 the case before him, he will never lose sight of the 
 judgment he should render from the law and the 
 facts. True, he may sometimes err, on account of 
 being a creature of limited perception like every 
 other mortal of the human race. But he is always 
 ready to correct his mistakes when he sees them. In 
 like manner, the lawyer will be true to his client, 
 no matter how untrue his client may be to him. And 
 though he may sometimes fail in judgment, and in 
 legal knowledge, he will never go into court with- 
 out believing he has a just cause, if he is a lawyer 
 worthy of the license that gives him the right to rep- 
 resent his fellowmen at the bar in a court of justice. 
 In mental trouble, agitated through the machinerj^ 
 of human acts, give me a lawyer before you send for 
 a minister or a doctor. The minister and doctor are, 
 however, in their respective places, needed in every 
 sphere and walk of life ; but he who has in his mind 
 and brain the trained skill and experience of an at- 
 torney-at-law, is the onlv man who can serve vou 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 13 
 
 when you have a legal right to determine. No 
 stretch of imagination in the whirlwind of slander 
 will be snecessfully able to deny this assertion. Its 
 truth has maintained itself through every page of 
 human philosophy. Intellectually surpassing, noble 
 and fearless in every professional act, stands always 
 the lawyer of honor. Without him the world would 
 be yet imprisoned in the dungeons of ancient tyran- 
 ny, with the weak kicked down by the strong before 
 the throne of kings, who permitted their helpless 
 subjects to be persecuted for and in the name of the 
 God they hypocritically adored in prayer, while their 
 words and acts cried to heaven for vengeance. 
 
 This was the condition of man before the bench 
 became the custodian of human rights, and this 
 would be yet his condition, if narrow-minded con- 
 ceit and monarchial tyranny had not been conquered 
 by nobler thoughts, and by a more humane and bet- 
 ter judgment. 
 
 Our conclusions here drawn may not, however, be 
 satisfactory to every reader unless we offer proof 
 to sustain them. This is easy, because it will not take 
 a Solomon to understand that the judge of a court 
 of general jurisdiction is nearly always selected 
 through the judgment of the lawyers who practice 
 before the bench upon which he presides. In fact an 
 attorne}^ must show some marked legal ability before 
 his fellow practitioners will consider him as a can- 
 didate for the bench. And above all, they must 
 notice in him these pronounced instincts of stability, 
 integrity and honor that show in him the qualities 
 of a gentleman and a lawyer. Besides this, he is con- 
 tinuously before them in the naked light of his 
 judicial acts, without having a single place to hide 
 himself from the most scrutinizing of the most intel- 
 
14 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 lectual members of the bar who have already read, 
 compared and digested thousands of opinions given 
 by other judges upon questions which are daily 
 decided by him. Like pure water made still more 
 pure by chemical and refrigeratory processes, so is 
 the mind of the judge made nobler, purer and more 
 able through the watchfulness of the bar and through 
 the judicial application and practice of his daily 
 studies. 
 
 The lawyer in like manner, but with a different 
 view from a practical standpoint, becomes daily more- 
 faithful and more proficient. Self -pride and the 
 repeated confidence reposed in him brings him up, 
 step by step, to the highest pinnacle of professional 
 perfection. Then, when once up there, he faces every 
 legal battle with a pride of honor and faithfulness 
 that surpasses the patriotism of the soldier who is 
 willing to give his life for his country. Nothing less 
 emphasized than this could explain the fidelity, 
 honor and feeling of an upright laAvyer. Think of 
 him as you will, slander him as you may, but he will 
 always remain true to his client. Yes, true, even 
 when the client may be either plotting to betray, 
 cheat or deceive him. 
 
 This is our story of the bench and bar. This is our 
 experience with, and our conception of, the judge 
 and lawyer. 
 
 THE CITIZEN, LIQUOR AND FANATICISM. 
 
 The liquor problem is today the most important 
 question of the Texas people. It has been discussed 
 at various times the last half a century by able and 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 15 
 
 sincere writers. But it seems that it is now as big a 
 puzzle to some as it was when first brought into 
 issue. This happens because we have too much agi- 
 tation without the proper thought. People can not 
 arrive at a sane conclusion of any discussion unless 
 they begin to think rightly. To argue one-sidedly 
 without reasoning, and with prejudice for or against 
 any question, is simply making an agitation that 
 will do no one any good, except those who make it 
 their aim in life to profit from the troubles of others. 
 And even they, w^ill, in the end, lose out, because 
 the truth of any issue will sooner or later assert 
 itself, no matter how ably it may be denied by the 
 narrow-mindedness of the falsifier. 
 
 Feeling our obligations in this respect to the read- 
 ers of the Advocate, we believe that it will not be 
 amiss to make this editorial longer than our usual 
 ones. Yet we shall be careful not to extend our 
 imagination beyond the reasonable endurance of the 
 reader who has the sense and fairness of being will 
 ing to submit himself to conviction if persuaded by 
 fair arguments. 
 
 With this view in mind, we shall open our discus- 
 sion by advancing the main reasons of the great 
 issue, namely, moral and commercial achievement, 
 both in country and in city life. 
 
 The preacher, in behalf of the prohibition party, 
 says from the pulpit, and sometimes at the street 
 corners, that the saloon is a menace to virtue and 
 to social happiness. But the statesman, who has 
 studied the affairs of his country with anxiety and 
 with patriotism, will speak long and loudly against 
 prohibition, because of the evil he sees resulting 
 from it in states where the people made it a law 
 
16 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 before they were able to see the impracticability of 
 their act. 
 
 Who is right or wrong, is a question for argu- 
 ment; who is sincere in his efforts, is another thing. 
 True, both men may be, in point of conviction, 
 morally right; but in point of fact, only one of them 
 can be logically correct. 
 
 Those men who are inclined to be fair will neither 
 question the sincerity of the preacher nor the hon- 
 esty of the statesman. But they will, if they con- 
 sider the matter at all, use their best judgment to 
 learn who is right. And this, of course, is a duty 
 which every citizen owes to himself and to his state. 
 
 Now, we come to our editorial's highest summit of 
 reasoning: Does the brewing of beer and the dis- 
 tilling of liquor menace virtue and make homes un- 
 happy? We think not. Yet it must here be said 
 that the saloon, in its badly managed order, is an 
 evil which should be suppressed, while on the other 
 hand, it must be confessed that it is a commercial 
 blessing Avhich should not only be maintained, but 
 appreciated if properly managed. 
 
 In writing thus, the reader will expect an argu- 
 ment that will sustain every assertion we advance. 
 This is easy, because the reasoning powers of any or- 
 dinary mind can not help but perceive from the 
 beginning that an ale house is not of itself an evil, 
 and that everything in this world, whether in the 
 abstract or tangible existence, had, and has, its origin 
 from and in the divine conception that brought all 
 creation out of nothing. 
 
 If this is true, as naturally it must be, who will 
 be so unreasonable as to urge that sitmulating bev- 
 erages are of themselves an evil which must not be 
 put on the market for sale as a commercial com- 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 17 
 
 modity? At least, we do not fear that any fair- 
 minded, sane man will make an issue with us on this 
 point. But in the distributable and particular 
 division of this question, it is quite different, be- 
 cause every commodity has its own peculiar meas- 
 ure of value in the proportionate application of its 
 regular powers in the formula that takes from any 
 or all of the remaining whole its needed attribute of 
 usefulness. The people then should put by their votes 
 into the different cities and villages of Texas, just 
 enough of beer and liquor to meet the natural needs 
 of the people. And by doing this, they will give 
 to the citizens of their state, just what they want 
 without deteriorating in the least from the social and 
 general morals of the Texas people. But let them 
 take what we ask them to give, and they will not 
 only impair the commercial facilities of the people, 
 but they will, also, lower the social standard of citi- 
 zenship. We make this assertion with some timidity, 
 because we know that it is almost impossible to de- 
 duct from the general, an answer which should be 
 specially premised before absolutely made. Moral 
 conception, whether in the advance or in the decline, 
 is in the abstract, a normal condition of the human 
 mind, and measured generally by the enchantment 
 of daily environments. For instance, if a young man 
 will continue to associate himself with boys who will 
 not conduct themselves properly, he will, sooner or 
 later, become more or less susceptible to conduct him- 
 self as they do. In like manner, if the same young 
 man will begin his early life with associates who will 
 speak and act with the taste and politeness of gentle- 
 men, he will, himself, in time, even though he may be 
 of a rougher nature than they, learn to speak and act 
 like them. 
 
18 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 As the young man has been taken from class to 
 class in this diagram, so will every citizen of our 
 state find himself, from time to time, either unex- 
 pectedly or by intention, associated with people who 
 may or may not be helpful to him in shaping his 
 character beneficially to his future career. 
 
 If we will take ourselves, with this self -evidently 
 deducted conclusion to any of the dry cities of Texas, 
 we will immediately begin to see the difference be- 
 tween it and the prosperous cities where fanaticism 
 has not yet made its inroads into the minds of the 
 majority of the voters. At first sight, we shall have 
 no difficulty in perceiving that the tone of pros- 
 perity is fast fading away from the energy of its 
 citizens. Here, and there, the eyes of the visitor 
 will have but very little difficulty in noticing, 
 placarded, everywhere throughout its main streets 
 and byways, ''houses for rent." At every street cor- 
 ner, some old attaches are disreputably lounging, and 
 almost begging for w^ork and money. But worse 
 still, to go into the back alleys and see the blind 
 tiger hiding to devour its victims with poisonous 
 doses of its own manufacture. In this last view, it 
 is doubly deplorable to see the law sleeping in the 
 bosom of its own forgotten watchfulness, and the boys 
 of eighteen and twenty, staggering to their homes, 
 with rough words in their lips, and with envy in 
 their hearts. This happens because it will never be- 
 come possible for any person or people to stem the 
 natural and persistent tide of legitimate and heridi- 
 tary appetites. So long as man lives, so long will 
 he have, in spite of every invasion of his rights, those 
 things Avhich w^ere put into the world for him. 
 
 Hence the blind tiger, with its self-made poisonous 
 imitation, supercedes respectable ale houses which 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 19 
 
 used to give happy, pleasant hours, and wishful, 
 needed stimulants, to those whose pleasure it was to 
 mingle and mix, where, according to social habits, 
 the young and old, alike, would meet and talk, with 
 the man who served them over the counter often, if 
 not always, as much a gentleman as any other citizen 
 of the state. 
 
 But perhaps the preacher and other leaders of 
 the prohibition party do not understand the great 
 injury their efforts might do to the farmers and 
 business men, generally, if they should succeed in 
 making the voters of Texas believe that the perma- 
 nent sale of liquor is a menace to society and an evil 
 to the wives and homes of the land. In fact, we 
 believe that they have not studied the question in 
 this respect. For if they had, we are nearly sure that 
 this agitation would not have been brought into so 
 unreasonable an issiie. And we say this because we 
 can not begin to think that pious ministers of any 
 church would, in so absolute a manner, be so ve- 
 hemently attempting to destroy an industry that is, 
 in a very great measure, a most invigorating portion 
 of the life blood of their state. At present the farm- 
 ers of Texas are annually selling to their home brew- 
 eries for brewing purposes over 25,000,000 pounds of 
 rice and about 1,000,000 bushels of grain. Take this 
 item of industry away from the farmers of a state 
 like Texas, with only a population little more than 
 4,000,000 people, and you will not only make them 
 feel there is a panic, but you wdll also make them, 
 within a few years, as poor and as poverty-stricken 
 as those of Louisiana who were, before the foolish- 
 ness of the prohibition craze, as happy and as well 
 fixed as were the farmers of any other state of our 
 Union. 
 
20 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 But this is not all. Between the breweries and 
 liquor dealers of our state, we have nearly 25,000 able- 
 bodied men at work. If prohibition should happen 
 to cloud the skies of Texas with its ungodly misty 
 waters, w^hat would become of this body of 25,000 
 men? Perhaps the leaders of the prohibition party 
 will tell us that they should go into the fields and 
 grow rice and corn for a market that is already 
 depreciated by reason of the very act that puts those 
 men out of homes and out of work. 
 
 This won't do. They must suggest some other oc- 
 cupation for men who must make a living at some- 
 thing. But some of those leaders are long-winded 
 and may preach unto those men that they could be- 
 come painters, carpenters, blacksmiths, tinners, well 
 diggers, bootblacks, merchants, doctors and lawyers. 
 This suggestion is equally as unphilosophical as the 
 other, because Texas has already an ample sufficiency 
 of these various classes of people. So there is 
 scarcely any other vocation for them to suggest but 
 that of preaching. And heaven knows that this field 
 is already more than sufficiently worked. The college 
 man, in the pulpit has, in many instances, been long 
 since superceded by ignoramuses who are, by their un- 
 godly conceit, persuaded to tell the people that the 
 word of God is in their lips, through and by an inspi- 
 ration divinely telling them that they are purely and 
 specially servants of God, ordained for the purpose 
 of driving out of the state, and even out of the 
 world, the most heinous evil known to them, namely, 
 the licensed sale of beer and whiskey. 
 
 Now, having nearly exhausted the entire legitimate 
 vocabularly of vocations, we are persuaded to believe 
 that the leaders of the dry sided part of this issue 
 are willing to concede that liquor in the commercial 
 
JOHN L. ME ANY 21 
 
 world was, at the beginning, contemplated in the 
 divine mind just as much as any other feature of 
 industry known to man. To them we hope it will 
 appear, as it does to us, that each man is in his heart 
 the measure of his value to God; and that he who 
 strikes his breast in exaltation of his own merits 
 should recall the parable of the Pharisee in the Gospel 
 before he would condemn either the business or the 
 acts of his fellowman. 
 
 AVe now pass from the facts advanced, pro and 
 con, into those one-sidedly asserted by the leaders 
 of the prohibition party. They tell us that liquor 
 is the stimulant evil of the nation, and premise them- 
 selves by saying that ninety per cent of the poverty 
 of the land is attributable to it; that the women 
 of our country are driven to a sphere of unhappi- 
 ness and destitution, because of this great evil. But 
 all this they say, in the shape of an assertion, with- 
 out giving arguments or reasons that would back up 
 their conclusions. To say a thing does not make 
 the saying true. Who will be so susceptible as to 
 believe that this great nation is a poverty-stricken 
 land? To be sure, we meet with stringencies which 
 make us feel the depression of the times. But how 
 can the preacher attribute spasmodic depressions to 
 the steady sale of beer and liquor ? And this we ask, 
 notwithstanding that one Reverend George Stuart 
 said repeatedly in his sermon at Atlanta, Georgia, that 
 it is the liquor traffic, and not tariff, trusts or na- 
 tional banks, that bring stringency into the land. 
 And in support of this asserted proposition, he said, 
 without a single premise of reasoning, that there is 
 just a little over 1,200,000,000 of money in the United 
 States, and that the nation could move along smoothly 
 if every cent of that money was put out of circula- 
 
22 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 tion and buried in one hole. And he adds in the same 
 breath that the American people pay a great deal 
 more than that much money, annually, for drinks. 
 
 How foolish and how inconsistent ! What in the 
 world would we do if we had no money in circula- 
 tion ? And how in this world could any people spend 
 more money than they have? 
 
 But this is a good deal like all of the other un- 
 reasonable asserted sayings quoted to have been ut- 
 tered by this reverend gentleman in that famous ser- 
 mon of his, at Atlanta. 
 
 It is indeed strange that so learned a man would 
 be so devoid of every sense of justice in a matter so 
 important to the entire nation. Imagine that a man 
 of letters, and of the church, would preach to his 
 fellowmen a doctrine which is not only inconsistent 
 with the theory of things, but incoherent in its ill- 
 founded premises of non-logical conclusions. 
 
 For how can a man say with any reasonable hope 
 of being credited, ''It seemed to me that the cracking 
 of the glass beneath my feet at Weatherford was but 
 a prophecy of the day when the American people 
 will dash the saloon to the earth and tramp it back 
 to the hell from which it came." 
 
 This idea of endeavoring to make intelligent 
 American people believe that the saloons came from 
 hell is preposterous in conception and idly idiotic in 
 expression. Ninety per cent of the brewers, distillers 
 and liquor men of the nation are gentlemen of a 
 very high moral and social standing — prominent in 
 the state and pious in the church — supporting the 
 preacher and relieving the poor, as well as being gen- 
 erally instrumental in bringing about conditions of 
 financial success which would never have been ef- 
 fected if such men as thev had lost their existence 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 23 
 
 on earth. And yet Mr. Stuart would have us be- 
 lieve that these gentlemen are agents of the devil, 
 importing from the bowels of hell, beer and liquor 
 for the saloons. 
 
 This is too much in the order of Pagan philosophy 
 — Saloons coming from hell and those w^ho make beer 
 and whiske}^, agents "of the devil ! The gentleman 
 may as well say that God gave the earth the natural 
 productive power to grow rice and other things for 
 the purpose of aiding the devil in building resorts 
 peculiar to his own pleasures from one end of the 
 world to the other. 
 
 But perhaps the preacher of prohibition is getting 
 tired of God/s way of doing things, and may be 
 able to succeed later in making Old Mother Earth 
 grow, instead of rice and corn, some other kind of 
 grain that will not permit itself to ferment into 
 either whiskey or beer. Or perhaps he may be. by 
 his prayers, able to induce God to take from man 
 the formula which gives to beer and whiskey the 
 peculiar taste, strength and liquor-charm, that makes 
 some men feel how necessary it sometimes is, to take 
 a little of them for the stomach's sake. In this, how- 
 ever, he is not very likely to succeed, because it has 
 been written that God is a divine being who never 
 listens to selfish prayers put into lips by inspirations 
 born of whimsical insanity. 
 
 But again to cold facts, because we have yet to 
 fear that the resourceful preacher of prohibition 
 might say that the farmers of Texas could sell their 
 rice and corn in other states of the Union. But if 
 it is well to have prohibition in Texas, who can argue 
 that it is not well to have it in other states? And 
 if prohibition is in other states, or in all of the 
 states of the nation, where would we, here in T(^xas, 
 
24 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 get a market for our rice and corn, now consumed 
 by the breweries at our own fireside? The answer 
 must natural]}" be, '^No place.'' And worse still, if 
 prohibition should reign every place, there would be 
 no market in any place for the rice and com now 
 consumed by all the states in the manufacture of 
 beer and whiskey — the non-consumption of which 
 would mean, to the farmers of the United States, an- 
 nually, the loss of a market for 3,800,000,000 pounds 
 of rice and for over 100,000,000 bushels of corn. 
 
 DavcU for a minute on these figures and you will 
 get sick and tired of listening to the prohibition 
 preacher. And while you are thinking thus, consider 
 also the 2,000,000 of men who would be put out 
 of employment within the walls of the United States, 
 if the prohibition craze should become the insanity 
 of all. 
 
 Now to the ideas of great men upon this question. 
 Caesar, in the Latin tongue, called wine the sooth- 
 ing syrup of the tired soldier; Napoleon exhorted 
 his Cossacks, in the French vernacular, to moderately 
 administer to their stomachs some stimulant in time 
 of worry ; and our immortal Washington, in the 
 American language, did not hesitate to tell his lieu- 
 tenant, on one occasion, to keep a little of the best 
 whiskey always in his tent. 
 
 On the other hand, Richard III, of England, re- 
 duced the rank of some soldiers of the Royal Guard, 
 because whiskey was found in their possession. 
 Catherine, of Russia, had two of her best castle guards 
 transported to Siberia, because of being found drink- 
 ing some of the Russian national drink on the birth- 
 day of the Queen. And more co-incidental still: the 
 never forgotten wicked Nero, in one of his hypocriti- 
 cal spells, suspended the use of wine in his palace, 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 25 
 
 some few years before he died, for a period of sixty- 
 two hours. 
 
 Here the reader who draws the line between the 
 daring courage and noble standing of Caesar, Na- 
 poleon and Washington, to separate them from the 
 cowardly, murderous and dissipated Richard, Cath- 
 erine and Nero, will readily begin to think that some 
 people who favor the use of liquor are, in many 
 instances, much more noble and virtuous than many 
 of those who sometimes condemn it with a vengeance 
 which would make some easy minds believe they are 
 saints. 
 
 Preachers are, however, a much needed class, and 
 should be listened to whenever they preach the gospel 
 in the purity of its doctrine. But they should not 
 be permitted to rule the people in secular affairs, 
 contrary to the w^elfare of the citizens. And for 
 politeness sake, if for nothing else, they ought to 
 slack up in preaching to their congregations things 
 that are inconsistent with every philosophical idea 
 of good government, and deadly dangerous, in many 
 instances, to the peace and prosperity of the nation. 
 
 In conclusion to this editorial we would like to add, 
 as a matter of justice and pure reasoning, that the 
 saloon should be regulated in America as it is in 
 other countries of the world. In Germany, Spain, 
 Prance, England, Italy, Holland, Switzerland, Aus- 
 tria, Belgium and Sweden the applicant for a license 
 must be a man of first-class reputation and of the 
 best moral character, fitted in every respect to mix 
 socially with the best people of the land. 
 
 As it is in these countries, so should it be here; 
 and so it will be when our legislatures and officers 
 of the law will come to the proper sense of their 
 dutv. 
 
26 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 Then, when this governmental purity is effected, 
 the preacher and the citizen will be alike satisfied, 
 and the natural time, long drink will be sold without 
 a murmur from either home or pulpit. Even those 
 interested in the making of this commodity will thank 
 God for having the question settled satisfactorily at 
 last. And it might be added that they are possibly 
 more anxious than the preacher to have this reform 
 made. 
 
 But until this is done, a certain portion of the 
 world will cry out for prohibition without effecting 
 anything, save a useless agitation that will always 
 end in discontent. 
 
 THE DEPENDENT RELATIONS OF MEN. 
 
 Creation in its visible features is a combination of 
 mutual activities. The human family, as a whole, is 
 composed uniformly of individual dependence. 
 Every man, woman and child of the human family, 
 is in some measure naturally dependent on, or a help- 
 mate to, some other person or persons of mankind; 
 and the universe, in its distribution of variety, is 
 the common province for the united existence of all. 
 The sun, the moon and the stars, together with the 
 atmosphere in its compound of numerous ingredients, 
 shines and falls upon the earth for the benefit of 
 him whom the Creator called Man. The monarch 
 who rules has no greater right than the subject he 
 governs in the natural division of things. Circum- 
 stances and human efforts, will of course, divide the 
 whole by the pencil of fortune upon the map of 
 earthly existence. And this, without argument. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY Zi 
 
 is in many instances meet and just. It is other- 
 wise, when the happiness of life is wrongfully 
 given to some in exclusion of others. Here, however, 
 it will not be understood that human happiness and 
 human influence should be equally divided. On the 
 contrary, it must be admitted that such a division 
 would not only be impracticable, but also contrary 
 to the laws of progress and civilization. 
 
 Just as men should differ in ideas in order to 
 get sound conclusions, so will the unequal divisions 
 of happiness and wealth measure their value to com- 
 mon existence in sympathies that play the moral ac- 
 tivities of human thought. 
 
 With this understanding, we proceed to reason the 
 daily relations of man with man. The farmer is the 
 first in the eye of deception. Those who want to 
 buy his product are nearly one and all using every 
 effort to purchase from him as cheap as possible, 
 without caring in the least whether or not he reaps 
 from the harvest of his efforts, sufficient compen- 
 sation for his labor. The wage earner in his demand 
 for better pay and less hours, is looked upon by his 
 employer as a creature who ought to be oppressed 
 rather than encouraged. And the merchant who 
 opens his store to supply his patrons with the neces- 
 saries they need in his line of business, is often looked 
 upon as a man who should sell his goods for the ac- 
 commodation of his customers and without showing 
 any anxiety to consider his own interest. The manu- 
 facturer in like manner has his own troubles. Many 
 believe that he is not only a menace to society, but 
 also an evil to industry. Yet, these different classes 
 of men are so closely united by the dictates of com- 
 mon need, as to make it impossible for either one 
 to live commercially without either one or more 
 
28 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 of the men pursuing the vocations here grouped. 
 In every community, there must be merchants, 
 and these merchants must be esteemed rather 
 than despised. In like manner, the merchant must 
 have patronage and in turn he should be anxious 
 about the welfare of the people who visit his store. 
 As he is useful to the customer, so is the customer 
 useful to him. And in this, it may be said that the 
 wage earner is much more than one-half the com- 
 mercial percentage of value. He spends every dol- 
 lar he earns to buy the necessaries of life for himself 
 and his family. Without him, the merchant would 
 be indeed poor. And this would be true, even though 
 he depended, and could depend, for a living upon 
 the patronage of people who were not wage earners. 
 This last assertion is apt to be disputed, because there 
 are some people who may be too blind to see that 
 no one would ha e any money to buy anything if 
 the hand of labor should fall from the tree of life. 
 For then the manufacturer, the high-toned citizen 
 and the thin-haired aristocrat would starve as well 
 as the merchant. Yet, notwithstanding this, there 
 are in many towns and cities of our nation some 
 people who ally themselves together for the purpose 
 of crushing the hand that gives them nearly every 
 happiness they enjoy. 
 
 This is the foolishness of human conception in the 
 mind of the man who has his head swelled and his 
 heart hardened against the welfare of a fellowman 
 who never did him any harm, except to earn his bread 
 by the sweat of his brow. 
 
 In the same manner, we often find some laboring 
 people who believe it is wrong to be rich and who 
 would, if they could, depreciate the commercial value 
 of the rich man's business. This spirit is, of course. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 29 
 
 limited to classes composed of men who have little 
 or no brain, because it is hard to think that any man 
 of sound mind would or could wish the poverty of 
 another; and especially if his existence would in any 
 way be dependent upon the man whom he would 
 wish to see poor. 
 
 Those of the latter class are, however, few when 
 compared with the great number of the former. It 
 can scarcely be said that there is one per cent of the 
 laboring class in this way disposed to the rich man, 
 while, on the other hand, there are quite a number 
 of rich men who are daily plotting and planning 
 how they might with impunity take from the king- 
 dom of labor the imperial crown of unity : A crown 
 which has once in the past saved for man the peace 
 of nations and which will in the near future save 
 the world from the butchery of war. Germany and 
 England have said ''No," because^ the men behind 
 the guns were brothers; and as these two nations 
 have said, so will other nations say when the brother- 
 hood of union labor will draw the sword of peace. 
 
 If the facts here stated "are true, as apparently they 
 are, there is hardly any need in saying that some- 
 thing ought to be done in every walk of life in order 
 that the eyes of men may begin to see how useful 
 the entire world are individually to one another and 
 how little and useless any man, or any set of men, 
 would be, if he or they would be isolated from the 
 rest of mankind. 
 
30 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 WEARING THE WRONG CLOTHES. 
 
 '^Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, 
 and to God the things that are God's." 
 
 These words of the Saviour to those who were try- 
 ing to entrap him, speak the reproach of their mean- 
 ing to the preacher who meddles in secular affairs. 
 The world is the kingdom of man, and he has ab- 
 solute dominion over everything placed thereon. The 
 beast, the fish, the vegetable and all the mineral 
 product of the earth, are by natural inheritance his 
 unquestioned property. But he, himself, is the only 
 thing or creature placed or living on earth that can 
 give glory to God. Life, then, is the only province 
 of God's pleasure in the action of man; and in the 
 action of man, only, is the Creator honored. 
 
 True, the world has in every feature of its mineral 
 and vegetable kingdoms, some evidence of the ma- 
 terial value which God has placed in every existing 
 thing, yet it is only the heart and lips of man which 
 can feel and speak with holy 'thoughts the gifts of 
 divine Creation. 
 
 This, of course, is man in the purity of his natural 
 existence. But follow him into the dejected vicis- 
 situdes of perverted nature and he will appear to the 
 eyes of pure thought in a vision that shows him con- 
 demned within the sphere of his own wickedness. 
 
 In this last thought the preacher's aim in life 
 should begin and end. The world, in its commercial 
 activity is no part of his mission. To preach the 
 gospel from the pulpit of his calling should be his 
 only aim in life. What other men do in the daily 
 pursuits of their different trades, is no part of a 
 minister's business. At best, he is a beggar at the 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 31 
 
 door of his fellowman, asking, because of the coat 
 he wears, the necessaries of life in the name of the 
 God he professes to serve. This, indeed, is com- 
 mendable in the pious minister who gives himself 
 entirely to his calling. But it is otherwise with the 
 preacher who tries to make the world believe that 
 he is a minister of God while his soul is seeking honor 
 and glory in the estimation of men ; and while his 
 tongue is engaged in denouncing the acts and deeds 
 of hardworking people who are trying to make it 
 possible for him to live at the door of their charity. 
 Hear a minister preaching commercialism instead of 
 the text of his calling and giving to Caesar the things 
 that are of God and to God the things of Caesar, 
 and you will be satisfied that the preacher who med- 
 dles with the natural rights of man in the daily pur- 
 suits of his common career, is a menace to the com- 
 mercial progress of the community in which he lives 
 and a disturber of human happiness in the com- 
 mercial and political relations of man with man. 
 
 This is not written with the view of placing any 
 preacher in the wrong light, but it is written for the 
 purpose of telling the meddling minister that he is 
 Avearing the wrong coat, as well as lessening to some 
 extent the usefulness of the man who preaches the 
 gospel in the fear and love of God, and who has no 
 other aim in life but the salvation of the souls com- 
 mitted to his care. The world outside of this, is to 
 him a place in which he once was and to which he 
 should never wish to return. Those whom he ]eft 
 there are individually pursuino- the vocation allotted 
 for each. To them the world has a value peculiar to 
 their different anxieties and the meddling minister 
 should not be permitted to play any part in their 
 affairs. When the Saviour said, '^Give unto Caesar the 
 
32 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 things that are Caesar 's, " it is evident that the world 
 was created for the pleasure of man. But when the 
 Saviour added ''Give unto God the things that are 
 God's," it is also evident that the souls of men are 
 the only trophies worthy of divine consideration. 
 
 From the conclusion here drawn, the readers of 
 this editorial will permit us to say that the preacher 
 should absolutely stay within the sphere of his call- 
 ing and quit meddling with men in things that per- 
 tain to their own commercial interest. 
 
 WHY DON'T YOUNG MEN MARRY? 
 
 "Why don't young men marry" is now a very un- 
 settled question. Some say that the cause should be 
 attributed to extravagance, while others maintain that 
 the ladies are to blame. Neither contention is, in our 
 opinion, right. The percentage of unmarried men is 
 greatly on the side of those who could very con- 
 veniently maintain homes, without missing the ex- 
 pense, and it must be conceded that the greater per- 
 centage of women over twenty are willing to wed if 
 they are properly suited. Fifty years ago nearly 
 one-half of the population of the United States over 
 twenty were married. Today, there is more than 
 seventy per cent over that age living a single life. 
 This deterioration of the marriage progress in the 
 human family is a condition which should immedi- 
 ately appeal to the American people. ''Husband and 
 wife" is the expression used when we refer to the 
 world within the sphere of moral thought ; ' ' lovers, ' ' 
 when we speak of people who may or may not care 
 to be married. In either sense woman should be 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 33 
 
 maji's fascination in every step and turn of his life. 
 She was made for him, and he should live for her. 
 No argument can controvert this assertion. It is as 
 old as man and as lasting as God Himself Time can 
 neither change nor dim nature's intendment in the 
 human heart. Men may travel through life with light 
 thoughts and with evil designs, but they will never 
 be happy until they begin to love woman as God in- 
 tended they should. As the child will fly from its 
 father's anger to the mother who will always forgive, 
 so will man turn from the troubles of the world to 
 the woman of his heart for peace, happiness and love. 
 Why, then, are there so many men and women liv- 
 ing single lives? The answer is easy. If woman had 
 still kept herself the charm of man's fascination as 
 she did in the days of her bashful reservedness, she 
 would be now sought in marriage with as much earn- 
 estness as she was then. True, she is yet man's first 
 thought and his last ambition, but she has long since 
 lost the charm that made her supreme in the estima- 
 tion of men. The bashful protest that kept her in 
 days gone by from mingling in the activities of life 
 is now lost in the ambition of the new woman who 
 is trying to move the world, not ''by the hand that 
 rocked the cradle," in the days when the babe was 
 the pride of woman's love, but by taking her place 
 among men in the field of commercial activit}^ 
 Woman was not made to work, neither was she made 
 to rule. But she was given a heart within which 
 should always live a mother's hope and a husband's 
 love. Fashion, beauty and a knowledge of her own 
 worth was and ever must be hers, but the desire of 
 self-independence should never be her ambition. In 
 this desire she loses the power that makes man timid 
 and respectful in her presence. When she remains 
 
34 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 within the sphere of her own timidity, man will cpn- 
 tinne to give her the sweetest conceptions of his ad- 
 miration, but as soon as she permits herself to out-step 
 the limits of feminine endurance, the charm that 
 brought man to the shrine of her love is vanished for- 
 ever from the vision of his first fascination. As re- 
 peated welcome will gradually make the unworthy 
 visitor bold, so will a continuous familiarity lessen 
 woman's fascination for men. 
 
 There is yet another reason why young men do not 
 marry. In the visions of anticipation, man is much 
 more observant than woman. Girls of eighteen and 
 twenty seldom appreciate the real value of the heart. 
 All they care for is to have it, for the time being, 
 entirely to themselves. It is different with men. 
 They, as a rule, look into the heart, not from curi- 
 osity, but for the purpose of learning if a wife's love 
 could permanently live there. And so soon as a man 
 thinks it would, he begins trying to make that heart 
 his own. And this he does, not because he wishes to 
 see some girl in love with him, but because he is 
 anxious to win a heart that will love him through 
 married life. Debutantes and visiting ladies from 
 other cities or places have no longer any fascination 
 for him. He now seeks, and seeks only, the girl 
 whom he believes born to be his wife. But most 
 girls of the age just mentioned seldom feel a fascina- 
 tion that is lasting. And before they know that they 
 have past the years of admiration the men who would 
 have before wedded them will no longer care to think 
 of them. Day after day this happens. Men of 
 twenty-five, or more, watch the debutante's move- 
 ments and anxieties. Of course, they will not be 
 too frank in their expressions, but they will be sure 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 35 
 
 to write everything they see in her upon the tablets 
 of memory. 
 
 In this respect man may or may not be mistaken. 
 The fact that a girl of eighteen or twenty permits 
 her thoughts to wander promiscuously is no reason 
 why she would not at some time center them per- 
 manently in someone whom she would forever truly 
 love. Immature thoughts in a young woman's mind 
 are entitled to every reasonable apology that man's 
 charity could make. In fact, when woman is de- 
 cided she is much more stable in the execution of 
 her affections than he who would condemn her fickle- 
 ness. And in this connection, it must be said that 
 woman 's heart when once won is the purest and great- 
 est solution of divine intendment in the creation of 
 man. Nevertheless we must write with regret that there 
 is today a large percentage of the unmarried men 
 over twenty-five who would be married if the per- 
 centage of girls were more solicitous in the selection 
 of their first determination. This assertion, though 
 deplorable, can be verified, if we compare the coun- 
 try with the cities. Nearly every young man over 
 twenty-five, and a large percentage under that age, 
 in the country, is married, while it must be noticed 
 that it is very much the other way in the cities. This, 
 in verification of the assertion just made, is almost 
 self-evident in point of philosophy, for the reason 
 that young ladies in the country have but few oppor- 
 tunities to lose the charm which familiarity will gen- 
 erally destroy. The country young man meets and 
 woos his neighbor's daughter while she is yet un- 
 sophisticated and young. The Creator's intendment 
 is concentrated in the fascination of a feeling that 
 has from the beginning of human existence mani- 
 fested itself in hearts that love without the aid of 
 
36 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 artificial manipulation. Even poverty can not keep 
 apart two young people who sigh for one another's 
 love with hearts that feel the propensities of nature 
 emitting from a passion which is not only pure but 
 divine. 
 
 MIXED MARRIAGES. 
 
 Mixed marriages are today a question of much 
 discussion in the circles of the different churches of 
 the Christian faith. Some maintain that young men 
 and women should marry wives and husbands of 
 their own religious persuasion. The truth or falsity 
 of this doctrine seems to be a question too much for 
 human intellect to decide. And perhaps it is a mat- 
 ter with which churchmen should not meddle with- 
 out being first prepared to say that the human heart 
 is able to submit itself to the opinions of the dif- 
 ferent churches in matters of love. As a rule, a 
 husband and wife of the same religious persuasion, 
 have less difficulties in understanding each other, 
 generally, than would the husband and wife who dif- 
 fer religiously in their manner of adoring God. This 
 being true, leaves no doubt of the advisability of 
 people marrying wives and husbands of their own 
 creed, unless the love-action of the heart is diverted 
 from its religious affinities in determining where the 
 life of its affection can most happily live. To tell 
 a man whom he should love and marry, is simply 
 telling him that his heart should have no part to play 
 in the selection of his life-long companion. 
 
 It is here, then, that the churchman fails to be 
 supreme in his advice to young men and women of 
 his congregation. If they can not naturally and spon 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 37 
 
 taneously begin to make marriage selections among 
 themselves, it is, in our opinion, wrong for their min- 
 isters to try and make them do so. All that he 
 should do, and all that he has any right to do, is to 
 preach unto them the gospel in the purity of its do(i- 
 trine, without side-stepping in any manner the nat- 
 ural affinities of the heart. True, he may, and in 
 fact it is his duty to, picture the great danger which 
 is to be apprehended in making marriages that are 
 adverse to the congeniality of consistent thought and 
 the divinity of persistent love. For without his ad- 
 vice in this respect the young heart may often mis- 
 lead the will in determining the soul's true solu- 
 tion of the marriage problem. To tell man that he 
 should not wed a woman who would not be in every 
 respect worthy of his love, whether she loves him 
 or not, is not to tell him that he should marry a 
 person because she kneels with him before the same 
 altar under the doubt just expressed. Neither can it 
 be said that a minister of the gospel outsteps the 
 privileges of his calling when he tells a young lady 
 that she should not permit her heart to love a young 
 man whom she does not believe to be entirely worthy 
 of being her husband. But a minister of any church 
 is very apt to be mistaken whenever he tells two 
 young people who love one another that they should 
 not marry because they differ in religious opinions. 
 
 In support of this last assertion, we may be per- 
 mitted to speak of human acts in the sum of their 
 diversity without making an issue which may be dis- 
 puted by those who differ from us in philosophical 
 conclusions. The sum of life, outside of the path- 
 way to salvation, is added as we pass, act after act, 
 into the last drama of our earthly existence. And 
 in this last scene, the soul will see at her separation 
 
38 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 from mortal vision, that the same heart she animated 
 in this life, will go with her in thought into the bosom 
 of eternity. This happens, because the heart is the 
 seat of hnman feelings and destined from all eternity 
 to have in itself an independent sphere of action 
 that can not be either swayed or stemmed beyond the 
 endurance given it at the time it was ordained to 
 exist. He, then, who tries to intercept the natural 
 affinities of the human heart, will lose his efforts in 
 the vain glory of his conceit, and find himself, when 
 he thinks his day's work is done, without having any- 
 thing to show for his labor but the mockery of a 
 prejudice that was bom in the sin of his own nar- 
 row^-mindedness. 
 
 WOMAN IN HER BEST AND WORST. 
 
 Woman, in the sphere of her beauty and love, sur- 
 passes in value the most ardent imagination of man. 
 But, in her adventurous and degraded condition, she 
 has lost all the charm that would make her fascinat- 
 ing to him. True, woman is, and ever shall be in 
 every sphere and walk of her existence, man's sweet- 
 est thought and the highest aim of his ambition. Yet, 
 whenever she walks outside of the sphere of his con- 
 sideration, she has no longer any right to claim his 
 respect. 
 
 Man's heart is by nature endowed with an inher- 
 ent anxiety to love and esteem some woman of his 
 fancy. But his heart has no propensity born of na- 
 ture to love but one woman. He, therefore, who 
 tries to woo and win within one thought two hearts 
 which beat to love him with a nature that is pure, 
 should never live to mar with dissipation, visions that 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 39 
 
 beamed into woman's mind from God's own wisdom 
 on the day He created Eve. In like manner is 
 woman destined to love only one man. And as man 
 should only love lawfully, so should woman only love 
 when it becomes her to love, and where her love robs 
 no other woman of the love she ought to have. 
 
 If these assertions are true, as naturally they must 
 be, how deplorable is it to see some ignoble woman 
 pursuing without love the weakness of some poor fool 
 for the lands he owns and for the money he has in 
 his pocketbook. 
 
 True, man is originally to blame for nearly every 
 fault that woman has. Yet, this is no excuse for 
 worthless and ungodly creatures to rob wife, creditors 
 and children of money which should be theirs, because 
 it has come within the sphere of their reach to play 
 upon the demented condition of some unfortunate 
 creature who is unworthy of being called a man. 
 And worse still when they attribute to themselves 
 the right of being able to do that which, not only 
 should make them blush, but which should make their 
 sex feel that heaven is almost wrong in permitting 
 them to live with a Avoman's face amidst and with 
 the human family. 
 
 Thus is woman in her speculative and adventur- 
 ous condition. The kiss of nature no longer touches 
 her soul with the touch of love. The fire that burned 
 her feelings into sweetness and sympathy, before the 
 whispers of cupidity made her desolate and barren 
 of womanly thought, is no longer warming her soul 
 with those aspirations of fineness with which she 
 was by God so richly endowed. Yes, aspirations which 
 bud so divinely, as to make man feel that the Creator 
 could not have made anything more nobly perfect 
 
40 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 than that which He put into woman's soul at the 
 time He created her heart. 
 
 How disappointed then must man feel when he 
 begins to see God's noblest work destroyed in na- 
 ture 's purest vision of heaven 's design. 
 
 Here let us pause for a minute and view with pain 
 the picture which imagination will draw. Then, when 
 we have seen all that we can endure, let us begin 
 to pity rather than condemn, for, perhaps after all, 
 that the picture painted is not as black as it appears 
 to us. And, even if it is, let us hope that the same 
 mercy will be extended here that was extended by 
 the Saviour when he said to the multitude as they 
 brought before him the woman taken in sin, ^'He, 
 of you, that is innocent cast at her the first stone." 
 
 This consideration, however, should not make us 
 stop here. It is within man's power, if he will, to 
 make fallen women better than they are. No de- 
 pravity of her who is born to be dependent upon 
 him will warrant him to put her deeper into the 
 gulf of her folly. Yet, it must not here be said that he 
 is bound by either the state or moral law, to bring 
 back into former beauty, love and grandeur, a woman 
 who has, in the unnatural feeling of dissipation, de- 
 stroyed everything that nature had made great in her. 
 
 Bearing in mind all the thoughts within the scope 
 of this editorial, we may be able to extend our imagi- 
 nation far enough to reach the boundaries that en- 
 compass the limits of woman's endeavors. She is 
 good and holy when man loves her as he should-, 
 but she is a dissembling creature of the lowest ebb 
 when once made ignoble by his deception True, she 
 will sustain herself long after she has become a vic- 
 tim to the first persuasions of his deceit. But so 
 soon as she falls a prey to the susceptibilities of her 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 41 
 
 own infirmnesses she is, in nine cases out of ten, 
 passed forever beyond man's redeeming possibilities. 
 The world knows this, and yet the world pities not. 
 Nay, less than pity has the world always had for 
 those in trouble and in wrong. It never needs a 
 tongue to speak the evil that might be stemmed by 
 kinder words. In streams of thought the world 
 passes into each succeeding phase of life. And as 
 each minute waits upon the dial of time to bury all 
 life's past eternity within its own fast passing exist- 
 ence, so should the thoughts of past fated memory 
 be forever dead in the better thoughts that the new 
 life is always willing to give. 
 
 THE UNTHINKING VOTER. 
 
 Ninety per cent of the voters of Texas, like those 
 of other states, are more or less inspired by the other 
 ten per cent in the matter of casting their ballots on 
 election day. How this happens is easy to explain. 
 , Men who pursue their vocations honestly have but 
 little time to study public affairs; while those who 
 do not have to work with their hands, or apply their 
 brains, to make a living can, if they choose, devote 
 a portion of their time to public thought. This, of 
 course, is commendable, for who would be able to 
 guide those who have no time to guide themselves, 
 unless some one would stop to think for them in 
 matters concerning the public welfare. Yet, it some- 
 times happens that the greater number of the think- 
 ing people do not care whether they lead right or 
 wrong, provided they lead into their own pockets 
 the object of their studies. Those, then, who have 
 
42 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 no time to stop and think are very often victims of 
 other people's thoughts. 
 
 This condition of affairs in Texas, as well as in the 
 nation, is leaving us, today, in a state of useless agi- 
 tation. Most of the men with political brains, w^hom 
 we meet on the streets, will tell us how important 
 it is to know whether or not candidates for the next 
 legislature voted for or against Bailey. Thus giving 
 us to understand, if we do not stop to think, that 
 we have no other vote to cast but one for or against 
 a friend or enemy of Bailey. Again, we meet, a 
 few minutes later, another class of men who have 
 either the corporation blues or the prohibition craze. 
 The former of this latter class, wall speak long and 
 vehemently of the wrongs committed by President 
 Roosevelt upon the innocent bosom of the combined 
 trusts of the United States, while the other division 
 of this same class will try to tell us at the street 
 corners, and sometimes from the pulpit, that the 
 sale and barter of strong beverage is bringing deso- 
 lation upon the land, breaking up homes and sending 
 thousands of souls daily to the perdition of Eternity. 
 
 Prom a moral standpoint, the citizens who approach 
 us in this manner may or may not be right. But, 
 from a public and logical standpoint, no man of 
 sense will permit himself to be guided to the polls 
 by whimsical ideas which were inspired either by ig- 
 norance or prejudice. Whether Mr. Bailey is or is 
 not a man w^orthy of the confidence of the people 
 of Texas, is not the question of today. What the 
 voters should now do is to elect people who will w^ell 
 and truly perform the duties of the offices to which 
 they may be elected, regardless of the merits or de- 
 merits of a man who has practically passed out of 
 the history of our state politics for at least three 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 43 
 
 years yet to come. In fact, Mr. Bailey never was 
 to the people of Texas but their representative in 
 the congress of the United States. And whether he 
 was or not worthy of the confidence reposed in 
 him by those who sent him there^ is a matter to be 
 talked of if he puts himself before the people ^of 
 Texas for such honor in the future. 
 
 In like manner, why should a candidate be asked 
 whether he is for or against the sale and barter of 
 liquor at and in an age when the young and old of 
 Texas, as well as those of the nation, are considered 
 by the powers of the earth to be a most temperate 
 and most intelligent peiople. And especially when 
 church men, lawmakers and scholars have for nearly 
 two thousand years of the Christian era, permitted 
 themselves to witness the sale of liquor without a 
 murmur. Even the Saviour of the world, at the feast 
 of Galilee, w^as pleased to see the guests of that 
 feast, drink the wine which he himself had made. 
 
 If Mr. Bailey were now before the people for of- 
 fice it would be well for the voters of Texas ti) learn 
 whether or not he would be the right man to repre- 
 sent them, in congress. But since he is not a candi- 
 date for any office, in the coming election, it is not 
 too much to say that the people of Texas are paying 
 him and his opponents too much honor when they 
 make the merits or demerits of some worthy or un- 
 worthy candidate dependent on his or his opponent's 
 merits or demerits. 
 
 The wise thing then for the voters of Texas, is to 
 let Mr. Bailey stand upon his own merits for office 
 if he should ever seek one from them again, and 
 to ask those who are now seeking office to stand 
 before them upon their own merits. This, however, 
 they will not do, unless they begin to study the in- 
 
44 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 justice of punishing the innocent for the sins of 
 the wicked, or of believing the unworthy are made 
 good because they say they are vouched for by men 
 of honor and integrity. 
 
 With this wish in mind, in summing up the politi- 
 cal situation of the coming election^ it must be said 
 that thought should be the meat of individual per- 
 suasion. And if the voters of Texas will not eat 
 this food, they may learn w^hen it is too late that the 
 stomach, brain and sinew of the state may have lost 
 the rich blood of life in the wake of prosperity. 
 Or, more directly speaking, they may find themselves, 
 after the votes are counted, in a day or two after 
 the election, the victims of men w^ho made them be- 
 lieve that Bailey and prohibition should be the land- 
 marks of their discretion at the polls. 
 
 The safe thing then is for each voter to say to 
 himself, ''I shall ignore the right of any man to 
 instruct me how I shall cast my ballot at the com- 
 ing election. My interest is in Texas because I am 
 a citizen of it, and I shall not permit myself to 
 be blinded by the mist of political prejudice that is 
 now dimming the political vision of the Texas peo- 
 ple. What care I about personalities which concern 
 only Mr. Bailey and his opponents for political 
 honor. His fight with them is only a matter that 
 will concern me when he and they will stand before 
 the people of Texas for an honor which neither he nor 
 they can begin to seek for four years yet to come. ' ' 
 
 If the majority of the voters of Texas will speak 
 thus to their conscience, they will be able to blot 
 out local prejudice from a civil right which should 
 be exercised by every true and upright thinking man. 
 
 As the voter should study the question of not vot- 
 ing for or against the wishes of Bailey or Bailey's 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 45 
 
 enemies in the coming election, so should he study 
 the question of not voting for or against the wishes 
 of the people who pretend to have the right of tell- 
 ing the voters of the state how they should vote 
 when the time comes, upon the liquor question. And 
 as we have above said, relative to Mr. Bailey, so say 
 we now, relative to this question, that the men of 
 Texas should say to themselves, ''We, the voters of 
 this state, here proclaim ourselves to be for putting 
 into office people who will, to the best of their abil- 
 ity, uphold and maintain the law in every feasible 
 respect as it now stands peremptorily made upon our 
 statute books. Yes, put into office men who will 
 neither be for nor against those interested in the 
 sale of natural stimulants which have been in the com- 
 mercial world from the beginning of time.'' 
 
 If the people will so proclaim themselves much 
 agitation and unnecessary stump-speaking will be dis- 
 pensed mth, and the voters will come to the sane 
 conclusion that they are voting for men who will 
 not try to do that which they can not do, but who 
 will do that which they ought to do — namely, to sup- 
 port, maintain and enforce the law as reasonable, 
 sane and unprejudiced minds would have made it. 
 
 In like manner, also, should war be made against 
 the hair-brained, street corner orators, who urge, 
 with the vehemence of their kind, that the financial 
 stringency of the nation has been brought about by 
 the inhuman sword that Colonel Roosevelt has 
 been driving to the hilt into the poor, crippled, help- 
 less bodies of the trusts. 
 
46 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 WOMAN'S REASON IS IN HER HEART. 
 
 ''I have no reason but a woman's reason. I think 
 him so, because I think him so." — Shakespeare, 1st 
 Act, 2d Scene, in The Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 This is what Lucetta said to Julia. And this is 
 nearly all the reason that a woman gives in assert- 
 ing her likes or dislikes in matters where her prefer- 
 ments, without decided cause, are concerned. But it 
 is not all she can say in asserting what is right or 
 wrong in scales where human conduct is weighed 
 with a view of ascertaining what is morally good or 
 bad. A woman in the one, is a creature of the heart, 
 without reason; in the other, a Solomon, without a 
 heart. Man is generally the other way. In shaping 
 his likes or dislikes, he dispenses with sentiment and 
 uses his judgment. While, on the other question, 
 he is nearly always wont to submit his better judg- 
 ment to the decisions of his worst feelings. 
 
 This happens, because woman is morally purer and 
 man intellectually stronger. As the hot rays of the 
 siui will melt the icy crust of the frozen snow, so 
 will a woman's wishes melt into feeling every thought 
 to the contrary that judgment may try to inspire 
 in her heart. But as the purity of gold will not 
 be perverted by the ordinary process of chemical 
 invention, so will not woman's moral convictions b(^ 
 subdued by the weaker methods of man's intrigue. 
 
 Again. As a boat well manned will top the billows 
 of the ocean, so will man's judgment master the sen- 
 timent of his heart. But as the self -same billows 
 will roll under the well manned boat to their watery 
 break, so will the evil passions of man's soul break 
 into their own pleasures against the protest of his 
 better judgment. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 47 
 
 THE WAGE-EARNER, TREACHERY AND IN- 
 JUSTICE. 
 
 Treachery is the greatest crime in the calendar 
 of human error. It lives to kill the efforts of hon- 
 esty in every walk and sphere of life. It visits the 
 store of the merchant, as well as the field of the 
 tfarmer. And it is unscrupulous in robbing the 
 wage-earner in the commercial and political fields 
 of human strife. In it, there is no love, no mercy, 
 no brotherhood of thought. The preachers may 
 preach condemnation, children may cry for bread, 
 and yet it will not resign its place in the heart of 
 the man who once gave it a home within the visions 
 of his imagination. In ancient times, as well as in 
 recent years, streams of blood have flown from the 
 wounds that treachery made. Kings, queens and 
 prophets have fallen by the hand of those in whom 
 they placed their most filial love and trust. In a 
 word, and more strictly speaking, nearly every evil 
 pertinent to the confidential relations of men and 
 women might have been averted if treachery could 
 be driven from the human heart. 
 
 The labor organizations of the state may then stand 
 in need of the warning which comes from this edi- 
 torial. In their different and various bodies, treach- 
 ery is always active. "With them, it plays its game 
 from within as well as from without. But more es- 
 pecially from within, because it is there it can destroy 
 the vital organs of union prosperity. He who has your 
 confidence, is the man who can best disclose your 
 secrets; and your secrets once disclosed leaves you 
 without a weapon in the hands of the enemy. Besides 
 he uses your secret as a sword which will raise him- 
 self and defeat you. 
 
48 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 This conclusion needs no argument to prove the 
 meaning in it contained. From time to time, it is 
 self-evident in the lives of men who have placed 
 themselves in good positions at the expense of or- 
 ganizations to which they belonged. The politician 
 of any body is dangerous unless he is sincere. And 
 for the reason that his aim is at all times in the 
 direction of himself. This, the body to which he 
 belongs, will hardly ever see until it is too late to 
 prevent the harm he has done. 
 
 To almost the same extent, but in a different 
 way, the schemer on the outside steals the harvest 
 of union labor by making its members believe that 
 he is the savior of their cause; or by proving to 
 them that he is the man who can either give him- 
 self or get from others, the advantages which would 
 be beneficial to the cause of labor. In fact, the 
 wage-earner has been at all times the target of some 
 politician or false leader. His vote is needed, and 
 it must be gotten by the designers of his downfall, 
 if possible. 
 
 But it must not be understood that the employer 
 is the designer here referred to. On the contrary, 
 the employer is generally a friend to his employes. 
 The question then is, who is the designing enemy 
 of the wage-earner outside of the organization to 
 which he belongs? 
 
 This again is self-evident, because it does not take 
 a Solomon to know that the hypocritical politician 
 is the laboring man's wickedest designer. Yet, it 
 often happens that labor organizations pay more 
 attention to the lurings of the designing politician 
 than they do to the appeals of a well-meaning em- 
 ployer. 
 
 Of course, it will not be here understood that a 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 49 
 
 heartless corporation has any part to play in the 
 meaning attempted to be here conveyed. In this 
 connection it will however be conceded that there 
 are some corporations so kindly considerate as to 
 have some feeling for the welfare of the men who 
 work for them. And it must also be here conceded 
 that the most heartless corporation has its own spe- 
 cific value in commercial life; and inasmuch as its 
 commercial value is needed it deserves some con- 
 sideration from the laboring man, as well as from 
 the people in general. But such a corporation, or 
 in fact any corporation, should not in the exercise oi 
 its rights, take away the rights of the laboring man. 
 
 In this connection it can be also urged that the 
 people should be always on the watch, and ready 
 to force from any corporation the service and bene- 
 fits it promised to give at the time it became a 
 body incorporate. This is the attitude the govern- 
 ment should take in the administration of justice 
 to all. 
 
 And yet it must, unfortunately, be said that the 
 government has often failed in the making and in 
 the promulgation of the proper laws in this respect. 
 In fact, there are many instances, here in our own 
 state, where the corporations have been by law given 
 certain legal privileges which work to destroy the legal 
 rights of the individual. For instance, the law which 
 gives a defendant corporation the right to take the 
 deposition of an unfortunate plaintiff who might 
 have lost his leg, or have received some other in- 
 jury, is a farce in the face of justice; because it 
 gives the unscrupulous claim-agent a chance to de- 
 velop and devise that which never would have been 
 thought of, if all heads concerned had not been given 
 plenty of time to think. And still, notwithstanding 
 
50 EDITORIALS OP 
 
 this, it is feared that some of the framers of this 
 unjust law will appear again before the people of 
 Texas for suffrage in the next state campaign. Be- 
 ware. They will deceive you again as they did be- 
 fore. Other laws of like interest to you are yet 
 to be made; and other laws of like magnitude are 
 ripe to be repealed. Frame your own laws within 
 the halls of your definite bodies ; and when you have 
 framed them, use your best judgment in electing a 
 state ticket which will make them under the super- 
 vision of a just decision. 
 
 But in making your selection for the state ticket, 
 you must not draw your inspiration from them. Nor 
 must you permit yourself to be governed by the 
 ambition of someone else. Discuss, argue and digest 
 the question well; and then upon the motion before 
 the house let the majority rule. Unless you do this, 
 the treachery of someone in the minority will be 
 prejudicial to the rights of the majority. 
 
 MORAL PROGRESS. 
 
 Men of the present day seem to forget that moral 
 progress means more than financial success. He 
 who pursues life's journey with the aim of becom- 
 ing rich, loses the happiness of being at peace with 
 himself. The ambition of becoming rich overtides 
 his conscience with waters of discontent. The soul 
 is not a thing of earthly creation; it is immortal — 
 a spirit of divine origin, born in the flesh to give 
 human existence. Man's highest aim should then 
 be the possession of that to which his soul is heir. 
 
 The truly happy people are men and women who 
 
JOHN L. MEANT 51 
 
 see in the vision of their anxieties God's eternal 
 image in the soul that gives them life. True, maii 
 must make himself useful in the commercial world 
 before he can say that he is useful to society. To 
 be active in our industrial pursuits, is not to be 
 active in the doing of something that is commanded 
 not to be done. But to make the getting of money 
 the only pleasure of one's life, is to make one's 
 self a slave to the possessing of a thing that has 
 only a transitory value and which will vanish as if 
 it were nothing just as soon as the vision of death 
 dims the eyes of those who possess it. Immense 
 wealth is generally a source of inevitable worry and 
 trouble. The rich man may go where he will and 
 see what he may, and yet he will not be happy un- 
 less his thoughts rest in peace with his conscience. 
 Material things are only material for material pur- 
 poses. The necessaries of life are always to be had 
 and he who is indifferent in that respect should 
 never have been born. Industrial energy and an 
 accumulation of wealth is also commendable and gen- 
 erally needed in order to make a country prosper- 
 ous and great. But to be energetic for the sole pur- 
 pose of having money, is nearly as unprofitable as 
 to be indifferent. This assertion may not meet with 
 the approval of every philosopher. Nevertheless it 
 is true, because he who persists in the doing of some- 
 thing which does not add to his happiness, is doing 
 something which will sooner or later take his happi- 
 ness away. Money is worth only what it can buy, 
 and enough of anything is all that a man wants. 
 Enough to buy enough is all that man in the way 
 of necessity needs to have. The laws of nature 
 force us to have this; but the laws of perpetual 
 
52 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 and everlasting endurance bid the soul to be happy 
 when its wants are filled. 
 
 In order to exemplify ourselves in this editorial 
 we must try to illustrate our meaning by example. 
 Take for our first instance the man who devotes 
 his entire existence to the making of a fortune that 
 is too large for expenditure in the natural sphere 
 of use, and you will see a man who has done much 
 and accomplished little. The overplus of his for- 
 tune goes, in nine cases out of ten, to deteriorate 
 the useful ambitions of his offspring. The rich 
 man's son is seldom active in the footsteps of his 
 father. As a rule he spends the money he inherited 
 in the meshes of inspirations which come from idle 
 whims that bring to him dissipation and sin. Yes, 
 and sometimes worries which make his life a bur- 
 den to his existence. The same is true of the daugh- 
 ter who inherits a portion of the same w^ealth. The 
 man she marries may be some worthless fortune- 
 hunter who may lead her a miserable life and make 
 her rue the day she was born to inherit riches which 
 were put into the pockets of her father with fingers 
 of greed. Yes, with a greed that made him for- 
 get the duties he owed to God, to himself, to his 
 children and to his country. The anxieties he 
 wasted in filling the fleshpots of Egypt took from 
 his heart the divinely pure and holy thoughts of 
 a happy hereafter. Thoughts with which God en- 
 dowed his soul at the time he gave him existence, 
 and which would make him feel before, and at the 
 time he closed his eyes to see no more, that this 
 life is only a place where he was put to live, and 
 for no other purpose, but to serve and love him 
 whose breath he was and whose breath he is in what- 
 ever sphere his soul may live in eternity. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 58 
 
 Again, take for our second illustration, the man 
 who made money to live instead of living to make 
 money, and you will see a man who lived under the 
 divine beams of God's choicest pleasure. If he had 
 children, his first ambition was to teach them that 
 this world is only a place put into existence for 
 the purpose of giving man a chance to make him- 
 self worthy of an eternal home in a better land. 
 True, he did not think that it was a sin to make 
 money. No, indeed! But on the contrary, he taught 
 his children that it was good and holy to put some- 
 thing in the bank for a rainy day. And especially 
 he taught them that it is God's wish that men 
 earn, save and accumulate money without permitting 
 themselves to be actuated with the spirit of avarice 
 and greed — ^keeping always before their minds that 
 the purest and best happiness is found in the heart 
 while the soul is not seeking its pleasure in the flesh- 
 pots of life. 
 
 Then, when he is dead and in the home of his 
 reward, the children who survive him will, in nine 
 cases out of ten, follow in the footsteps of the father 
 who taught them, in his lifetime, those precepts 
 which instilled into their hearts the great virtue of 
 knowing that the human family was put into exist- 
 ence for nobler purposes than to adore with hearts 
 of avarice things that were only given them for 
 earthly use. 
 
 The picture painted in the diagram here drawn can 
 be only seen with eyes of moral perception. Those 
 who have already permitted their feelings to kiss 
 with anxiety the fancies of greed will hardly be able 
 to look into spiritual visions with eyes which have 
 long since been trained to see things that live only 
 in the flesh. But the man who has lived to make 
 
54 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 life the stage of a spiritual exhibition will have no 
 trouble in seeing the picture of moral conception in 
 the diagram herein exhibited. 
 
 To this effort we beg to add that preachers of the 
 gospel should exert themselves more diligently in 
 advancing the doctrine of Christ. Sometimes now-a- 
 days it is to be deplored that men of much talent and 
 devotion spend a very valuable portion of their time 
 in telling people how they should manage their pri- 
 vate business, instead of exhorting their parishion- 
 ers to love money less and God more. To live, eat 
 and dress rightly is not a crime, but a virtue. With 
 the doing of these things the preachers have nothing 
 to do. A man's stomach, bones, flesh and physical 
 appearance belong entirely to himself. But his soul, 
 the immortal word that gave him life before he was 
 yet touched by the air of earth, belongs to God, and 
 it is of it the preachers ought to take care. 
 
 MARRIAGE GENERALLY. 
 
 In a former issue we discussed the question of 
 why don't young men marry; in this issue, we shall 
 take up the question of marriage generally. 
 
 Years ago there was no need of writing upon this 
 subject. Today, it is the first apprehension of those 
 who have the advancement of civilization at heart. 
 To see how human morals have deteriorated in the 
 last twenty years, is a matter which makes the man 
 and woman of thought fear that the world is drift- 
 ing swiftly back to the days, when Nero unbridled 
 his shameless love within the walls of Pompeii. To 
 have a wife, as he put it, was to be a slave to a 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 55 
 
 virtue that could not be endured. Woman, in his 
 mind, was a creature to be fancied rather than to 
 be loved. 
 
 How will the Neroes of today compare with the 
 Neroes of those who lived in the days before Pom- 
 peii was yet in ruins? In number infinitely more, 
 in virtue infinitely less. Eefinement, to be sure, 
 has advanced. Shame takes the place of boasted in- 
 dulgence, and the modesty of woman is protected 
 while her heart beats to suffer the forgetfulness and 
 infidelity of the husband who seeks places of pleas- 
 ure which are too vile to be conceived where virtue 
 lives. This is life in its high-toned condition; this 
 is woman in her fidelity and love. 
 
 In the early ages of the Christian era she was 
 happy because man honored and loved her. The 
 king's court and the peasant's hut were lighted by 
 her smiles and made happy by her presence. Her 
 hand was sought in marriage before the tender 
 blushes of girlhood had yet left her cheeks. Then, 
 as it should be now, she did not live to woo, but 
 to be wooed. Smiles, blushes and feeling she always 
 had, but had them only for him to whom she gave 
 her will, life and love. Retaining nothing and wish- 
 ing nothing but her claim on him. 
 
 While those days have slowly, but surely, suc- 
 ceeded one another into the riper days of the pres- 
 ent century, man succeeds himself from age into 
 age, gradually leaving behind him in the wake of 
 his ancestors the best part of his inheritance — the 
 desire of having a wife to share his love. 
 
 With this loss of early feelings he begins his life 
 to make himself poorer in his respect for woman 
 and richer in his inclinations to dissipate and sin. 
 Day by day he fosters in his heart the desire of 
 
56 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 making Egypt his visionary home, until eventually 
 he loses in his rapidly growing selfishness every feel- 
 ing that woman would otherwise inspire in his heart. 
 All this woman sees. And she, too, loses, little by 
 little, her former timidity and beauty of soul, until 
 at last she permits herself to be wooed and won 
 upon terms of love that means but little more than 
 an agreement Avhich may be set aside at the will 
 of either party to a contract that was not made 
 to perpetuate love, but to make souls more unhappy 
 than they were before the sinful union was formed. 
 
 HOW TO LIVE HEALTHY. 
 
 The human system should be fertilized somewhat 
 like a garden growing vegetables in the spring time 
 of the year. Just as rich and poor soil should be 
 treated differently, so should healthy and sickly peo- 
 ple treat themselves, respectively, in their choice and 
 application of food. 
 
 This comparison is, however, somewhat wanting in 
 point of fact, because rich, moist soil will produce 
 good crops without being fertilized, while a healthy 
 man will nearly always require more food for the 
 maintenance of his system than will the sickly man 
 require for his. Yet, in point of deduction the inspi- 
 ration of the comparison will serve us in developing 
 ideas which may help in the solution of a proper 
 understanding about w^hat we should eat and drink. 
 When you see a man who has no special chronic 
 trouble of any kind, without either ambition or 
 energy, you will naturally feel there is something 
 wrong with either his mind or his system. In like 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 57 
 
 manner, you will know that rich soil has been in 
 some way neglected if it does not produce good crops. 
 It is different with a man who is really sick, and 
 with soil that is really poor. The man needs a doc- 
 tor, and the soil needs to be fertilized. But as fertili- 
 zation will not, without the aid of the gardener's 
 spade and hoe, bring from the poor soil the desired 
 crop, neither will the doctor, even with his medicine 
 be able to restore the sick man to health without the 
 aid of the proper food. And as the rich soil, in our 
 first premise, will eventually become poor if not 
 properly fertilized while under repeated cultivation, 
 so will a healthy man eventually lose his vitality 
 and strength if his system is not daily treated with 
 the proper food and drink. 
 
 Having thus stated our question, we hope the 
 reader will follow us into the details of our effort. 
 
 The first thing a man should do after getting out 
 of bed in the morning, is to stand erect, with his 
 heels as close as he can possibly bring them together, 
 but at an angle of forty or forty-five degrees. Hav- 
 ing this done, his next move should be to lift his out- 
 stretched arms in as nearly a perpendicular a posi- 
 tion as possible to the joints of his shoulders. Then 
 closing his fists as tightly as he can, let him raise 
 them gradually, but firmly, until he has brought 
 them parallel with his head ; extending his chest and 
 distending his abdomen and stomach at the same 
 time, and finishing by bringing his arms down, in a 
 backward direction parallel with his sides. This exer- 
 cise done gently two or three times will tend very 
 greatly to put in motion a proper circulation of the 
 blood. Besides this, it will give to the chest, abdomen, 
 limbs, stomach, muscles, lungs and nervous system, 
 an endurance that will be very valuable in older a^e. 
 
58 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 as well as an activity that can not be ignored in the 
 present time. 
 
 After this exercise he should fill his lungs with 
 fresh air and drink a glass of water before he leaves 
 his room. Then, if at all convenient, he should take 
 a glass of the best sherry wine immediately before 
 he begins to eat his breakfast. Of course, what he 
 should eat at this meal depends a good deal upon 
 what would agree with him best. But we can assert, 
 from a medical standpoint, that the stimulating and 
 nourishing forces of the wine will be very beneficial 
 to the membranes and digesting machinery of the 
 stomach, without in any way creating a false appe- 
 tite, such as whiskey might do. 
 
 When the noon hour comes he is ready to eat his 
 lunch. But, in doing this, he should be careful lest 
 he might eat too much of what should not go into his 
 stomach until after business hours. The Swedes, 
 Germans, and other European people, have long since 
 discovered that beer is the proper midday drink. 
 The malt and hops have a mild stimulating effect on 
 the stomach, which put in motion a vibrating action 
 of the blood as it goes into the re-actionary mem- 
 branes of the bowels and kidneys, and putting at the 
 same time the nutrition of the rice into the muscles, 
 limbs and body. 
 
 This, of course, is only true of pure beer, made out 
 of malt, rice and hops. Imitations will not serve the 
 system as above stated. But real pure beer, contain- 
 ing in every barrel, forty-six pounds of malt, twelve 
 pounds of rice, and one pound of hops, brewed in 
 pure artesian water, is, indeed, the most wholesome 
 drink that can be put into the human stomach. In 
 quenching thirst, it is much more effective than 
 
JOHN L. MEANT 59 
 
 water ; and in many instances, it is much more invig- 
 orating and nourishing than solid food. 
 
 Yet beer alone will not be sufficient for the mid- 
 day meal of a healthy man. In order to be strong 
 and enduring he must eat with it a small portion of 
 meat, one kind of vegetable and a little cereal food. 
 With this mixture, in process of digestion within 
 his stomach, he will find himself very active and 
 ambitious for the rest of the day. 
 
 When supper comes, which really ought to be the 
 dinner, he may eat anything and everything that 
 will naturally agree with him. But he should be 
 cautious in selecting his drink. A little tea or cof- 
 fee will not hurt him, but a moderate drink of wine 
 or beer would be much more wholesome and nour- 
 ishing. 
 
 Before going to bed, and he should go to bed early, 
 he might drink just enough of beer to make him feel 
 sleepy; but in no instance ought he to eat anything 
 after putting the beer in his stomach, unless he 
 should really feel very hungry. 
 
 With this the business man of regular habits is 
 through. And he begins to compose himself for a 
 good night's rest in order that he may be able to 
 enjoy the activities of the coming day. 
 
 Now, in order to sustain ourselves in the compari- 
 son made we must recompare our conclusions by way 
 of similes. With the man of health, the morning exer- 
 cise and the activities of the day may be reasonably 
 said to have the same effect upon him that the spade 
 and hoe of the gardner may have upon rich soil. In 
 the same manner, what he drank will nourish his 
 body and general system in a good deal the same 
 way that fertilization may give productive endur- 
 ance to the soil in question. But as a sick man must 
 
60 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 more or less trust in his doctor, so must poor soil 
 depend largely, if not entirely, for its producing 
 qualities, upon the manner in which it is cultivated 
 and fertilized. 
 
 Yet, as a counter conclusion to the one just given, 
 it must be said that a man who is sickly can, in the 
 absence of a chronic disease, be very useful to him- 
 self if he will eat properly, and at proper times. 
 
 In every instance, a tablespoonful of sherry wine 
 should be his first food in the morning. Then, im- 
 mediately he might eat one fresh egg, well cooked, 
 with toast and a half-and-half cup of tea and cream. 
 
 In taking exercise, he should follow the instruc- 
 tions of his doctor. But in eating at the noon hour, 
 it might be well for him to follow our advice. 
 Another spoonful of sherry wine, then, a small cup 
 of well made pea-soup, with a biscuit and a fresh 
 glass of beer, should be his lunch, unless his stomach 
 is strong enough to digest a very small piece of 
 porterhouse steak. 
 
 AVhen supper time comes, he must be very care- 
 ful to eat what agrees with him. And above all, he 
 must not go to bed without either drinking a glass 
 or a half-glass of beer. We give this advice peremp- 
 torily, because we know from experience and from 
 study that the malt and hops will aid the stomach 
 in putting the nutrition of the rice into the flesh, 
 blood, muscle and general system. Besides this, beer 
 has just about enough of stimulating power to soot-h 
 the nerves and put the patient gently to sleep. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 61 
 
 SHORT EDITORIALS. 
 
 Insane love is a sign of mental weakness. It goes 
 into the heart from the head, and lives there by per- 
 suading the mind that it is a real, genuine, sincere 
 passion. 
 
 How foolish ! Why should any person love without 
 being loved? Love is the only price that can pur- 
 chase love. And without love, love should not be 
 sold. Yet there has been in every walk of life some 
 men and women who were mad enough to kill them- 
 selves for people who could not love them. 
 
 Is Texas chivalry dying away, or is it that custom 
 permits woman to be criticised and laughed at when 
 she passes men by? Years ago, woman was loved and 
 honored in Texas with more chivalry than that of 
 other states. Today, she is the downtrodden victim of 
 of gossip at the street corners, barber shops and 
 saloons. Strange that such conversations can be en- 
 joyed by men who would not care to live where 
 women would not be ! And stranger still that the love 
 man has for his wife and home cannot inspire him to 
 respect the homes and wives of his fellowmen. 
 
 In the latter part of last month, a doctor, who was 
 called to the bedside of a sick boy from the Prohibi- 
 tion Bureau, said in answer to a question asked by 
 the mother of the little fellow : 
 
 ^^Hypocritical insanity is very catching, and when 
 once caught, it is one of the most dangerous cases of 
 
62 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 lunacy known to medical science. In this instance, 
 however, there is some hope, because the boy is young. 
 Give him, regularly, about 300 drops of pure liquor 
 in water three times a day for six months, and, by 
 that time, the germs of the dread disease may be 
 eliminated from his mind." 
 
 The midnight home-comer may be always very 
 greatly courted and sometimes somewhat admired; 
 but she who stays at home to think of love in mar- 
 ried life will be much more intensely sought for a 
 bride. This happens because outside-door love has 
 airy notions that feel a wantonness of true thought, 
 w^hile that made under the protection of a parent's 
 eye partakes of a sombre richness which makes the 
 w^ooer feel that when he kisses, the kiss will be a 
 kiss of love. "Woman is not always what she thinks she 
 is, and man only means what he says when he loves 
 wath the intention of making the girl he wooes his 
 wife. 
 
 Labor Day is the holiday of labor union pride. It 
 comes once a year to inspire new thoughts and to 
 enkindle in the heart of the man of toil a vivid desire 
 of bettering his own condition and the condition of 
 his fellow man. It also comes with a mission from 
 heaven to show the rich that the poor should have 
 equal rights in the distribution of divine favors. The 
 cord of human relationship is on this day entwined 
 around the spirit of the God-fearing with a knot of 
 forebearance and love, and the selfishness with 
 which all human nature is imbued loses its poison in 
 the heartfelt greetings that come from the solemnity 
 which nature gives to the wishes and happiness ex- 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 63 
 
 pressed by the lips of the millions who participate 
 in the celebration and glories of this great day. 
 
 Prohibition might satisfy the thirst of people who 
 wish to drink the life blood of the state, but it will 
 never taste well to the palate of men who are 
 anxions to populate and cultivate the vast and un- 
 Imown acreage of ranch and land property in Texas. 
 Neither will it make a living for the 25,000 people 
 who are making a living by working for and in 
 places where beer and whiskey is sold. How foolish 
 and how wanton it is to make war upon an industry 
 that is as Godlike and as necessary as any other 
 business known to American commerce. But such 
 is life in an age where the broad-minded and noble 
 statesman is superceded by the conceited politician 
 who arrogates to himself the right of making a cam- 
 paign that is only agitating the minds of men 
 and women who would otherwise live in a peaceful 
 happiness that Texas is fully able to give. 
 
 It is strange that some parents, husbands and 
 brothers would not some time begin to see the same 
 images of their daughters, wives and sisters in the 
 faces of some ladies whom they would like to abuse, 
 and about whom they talk without scruple. Yet some 
 of these men would not hesitate to take the life of a 
 fellowman, who would in the least dare to insult 
 their wives, sisters or daughters, as the case might 
 be. 
 
 This happens because an ignorant man sees only 
 himself in all things that may become a part of his 
 own selfish anxieties. The sensitiveness and refine- 
 
64 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 ment of those who do not concern him mean but 
 naught in his feelings. Even he may look upon the 
 purity and sweetness that woman naturally has as 
 fascinations with which she is specially endowed to 
 please his selfish desires. And the feelings which her 
 beauty inspires in nobler minds beget imaginations in 
 his that cannot be here described. 
 
 In the British Isles the child has always a father 
 and the father has always a child. Here in America, 
 it is different. Just as soon as a son can live 
 without his father he asserts his independence. This 
 latter custom may be the best, but it is not as inspir- 
 ing as the former. A parent in the British Isles, with 
 a fortune of $25,000.00, and having, for example, 
 four children, will give each of them about $5000.00 
 just as soon as each one becomes of age. 
 
 In this country the father generally keeps what 
 he has until he dies, and until his children do not 
 need it. Thus severing the relation of parent and 
 son by the selfishness of the one and the inde- 
 pendence of the other. 
 
 To foreigners it looks deplorable to see men over 
 sixty active in business and controlling a large for- 
 tune, while their married children may be in poor 
 circumstances waiting for a division of the fortune 
 that generally comes too late to be rightly enjoyed. 
 This is the brutal and ungodly greed that the dollar 
 creates in some American minds. 
 
 The greater percentage of the laboring world are 
 creatures of circumstances. They work because they 
 have to work. But should they refuse, they would 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 65 
 
 die of hunger. In this assertion the wealthy, easy- 
 living people of the world are equally included, be- 
 cause if there was nothing for the poor there would 
 be nothing for the rich. Ponder, then, you who have 
 means, and you will readily see that the life of your 
 existence depends upon the conduct of the working 
 classes. If they should refuse to work, you would 
 have to work yourself or die of starvation. Yet many 
 say daily that they are independent of the laboring 
 man. How foolish and how inconsistent with the phi- 
 losophy of human existence. If this could be so there 
 would be no concession made in the field of human 
 rights. He who is rich would say to him who is poor, 
 ^^I do not need you;" and he who is poor would say 
 to him who is rich, ''I can live without you.'' But 
 since man is dependent on man there is no man 
 who can say this. The world is w^hat men make it, 
 and men make one another. 
 
 Men should never act when passionately excited. 
 Man's reasoning powers are given to him to solve 
 things and answers for himself from due deliberations, 
 and with reasonable assistance from the proper source, 
 when such assistance may be needed. Fanaticism is 
 not a conclusion of the reasoning powers. It comes 
 from a senseless anxiety w^hich was bred in the nar- 
 row-mindedness of ill-founded feelings. Sometimes 
 it is a religious craze, born of selfishness; and again 
 it peeps out in the actions of some men from the inspi- 
 rations of envy. See it as you will and it will 
 always wear the sword of condemnation. And, above 
 all, it will remain persistently unyielding to the 
 forces of any argument that do not agree with its 
 own understanding of things. The natural instincts, 
 
66 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 propensities and feelings of the human family, must 
 in every instance, either stem their individual cur- 
 rents, or be condemned by it. Beware of it, and do 
 some thinking of your own. But do not be too posi- 
 tive, lest you may become too self-possessed. The 
 wise man will see, hear and think before he acts in 
 personal, social or political matters of any serious 
 importance. 
 
 It is not the sale of liquor as a commodity, but the 
 sale of liquor where liquor should not be sold that 
 makes liquor a menace to society. This must be 
 admitted by the preacher, because the sale of liquor 
 under proper restrictions, is in the opinion of 
 wise men and physicians conducive to the health and 
 morals of the people. High license and the abolition 
 of the $1.00 bottle from the red light resorts will 
 make the sale of liquor like the sale of any other thing. 
 That is, if our officers of the law will keep them- 
 selves within the law and uphold the law as the law 
 should be upheld. But unfortunately for the people, 
 it is not always easy to get fearless, honest officers. 
 If we had them at all times, and in all places, we 
 would not have as many crimes and sins in the homes 
 of the fallen; and above all. little offenses would not 
 be so severely punished while the wicked crimes of 
 the privileged go invariably without notice. But un- 
 fortunately for the betterment of the American people, 
 this happens because there is a stepping stone from 
 which people without either merit or honor can some- 
 times jump into places where men of merit and honor 
 only should be ; and where the unfit become criminals 
 while making criminals out of some of those whom 
 they had sworn to protect in the innocence of a happy 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 67 
 
 sphere, where they might forever remain if the sleuth 
 hounds of selfishness and greed could be kept away 
 from their homes. 
 
 There has been some doubt in the minds of some 
 philosophers as to whether the miser or the spend- 
 thrift is the most undesirable citizen. Some argue 
 that the miser's money may be of some use to some 
 people in some future generation; and others urge 
 that the spendthrift's money does some good for 
 some people in some walks of this generation. As to 
 who may be right or wrong is the question given us 
 to answer in this editorial. The miser's money will, 
 of course, do some good for some people in some future 
 generation, but he who is destined to live in the future 
 has no part to play in either the struggles or pleas- 
 ures of this present life. And what he may then 
 do will not in any way aid or assist us in the doing of 
 the things that we must do now. Besides, the miser is 
 furnishing in himself what is of him here said, and in 
 the man who spends his money in the future, 
 the spendthrift of our argument. Thus giving us not 
 only a miser, but a spendthrift as well. Hence we 
 answer that he who spends his money now is a more 
 desirable citizen than he who stores it for the pleasure 
 of people, whose deeds of extravagance and ungrate- 
 fulness may haunt him in his grave through the ages 
 of eternity. 
 
 Men employed in the service of corporations for 
 the purpose of taking care of juries in our courts of 
 law bear the closest kind of watching. The court is 
 always unsuspicious, and for the reason that a judge 
 should assume, unless otherwise informed, that no 
 
68 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 one would be bold enough to take any privilege in 
 his court which would be in any way contrary to 
 the law. But if some of the things that are done 
 were brought to the knowledge of some of our judges, 
 there might have been some strange revelations 
 brought to light. It used to be that now and again 
 a lawyer had nothing to do in a trial court but to 
 try his case. Now he must either watch the corpor- 
 ation bribers or get someone to watch them for him 
 before he can hope for a verdict, no matter how able 
 a lawyer he may be. 
 
 In a recent case tried in a certain court some 
 place in Texas one of the jurors was then, before, and 
 since, in the service of the defendant corporation 
 for the purpose of taking care of it in the court room 
 with as many of the jurors as he might be able to 
 approach or talk with. 
 
 This is only one instance among a number which 
 could be here cited, and Avithout the slightest fear of 
 not being able to prove the accusation asserted. 
 
 The repeated continuance of a case nearly always 
 works against the justice of the plaintiff's cause. In 
 every instance the defendant gains. No matter what 
 happens in the future, he wins in the present. Time 
 is always to him an advantage, and he generally gets 
 it when he can. 
 
 In Europe when a case comes on to be heard, the 
 court will not listen to the reading of a motion for 
 a continuance unless the motion shows that the thing 
 which can not be then done, can and will be done or 
 waived when the case is again called. 
 
 If judges would do this in Texas, they would be 
 much more respected than they are; and corporation 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 69 
 
 lawyers would not be so often able to defeat a plain- 
 tiff's rights. But perhaps the next legislature will 
 enact a law that will prescribe definitely when a judge 
 may grant or refuse a continuance. When discretion 
 becomes the prerogative of erring man, some one will 
 sometime suffer, and justice will very often become 
 the sport of fraud. 
 
 Why there is so much evil in man is one of the 
 mysteries of human study. From a moral view over 
 the visions of inspiration, it is not hard to see the 
 better side of Adam's nature, because it must be 
 accepted that the work of God is perfect. Yet a phi- 
 losopher who believes in this loses himself in his 
 effort to travel into the secrets of divine creation. 
 This happens because finite imagination is limited to 
 the boundaries that encompass the thoughts of our 
 present state and apast which the vision of the soul 
 can not go until it is lighted into the land of im- 
 mortality. Then, that which seems impossible to it in 
 moral life will become as plain as itself in the map of 
 eternity. 
 
 That there is good and evil in every man is a fact 
 which every man knows; and that the world would 
 be better if all men had no evil in them, is accepted 
 as true by the layman and preacher alike. But 
 neither the layman nor the preacher can say that the 
 Creator of all things lacked either in wisdom or in 
 power when he permitted the first feeling of evil to 
 beget itself in the human heart. 
 
 This thought, if well conceived, will bring the 
 scholar to the shrine of humility and there force him 
 to admit that the ways of God can only be understood 
 in the mind that yields up its reasoning powers to the 
 inspirations of divine faith. 
 
70 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 SHORT SAYINGS. 
 
 Beware of the friendship of a friend who winks 
 his eye for the purpose of receiving aid to deceive you. 
 
 Those who beat the lawyer by doing their own 
 legal work, generally learn when it is too late that 
 they were only giving the lawyer a chance to beat 
 them. 
 
 Woman is the natural heir of man's admiration, 
 and she would have it entirely if she always kept in 
 mind that she was not made to court, but to be 
 courted. 
 
 A rich father should advise his children to marry 
 at the first sensible opportunity given them, but he 
 should never advise them into wedlock against the 
 wishes of their own selection. 
 
 To be too nice is to be worse than ugly. Well- 
 meaning ladies never see evil but in evil itself; while 
 girls of a suspicious nature are wont to imagine what 
 was never intended to be said. 
 
 Affections conceived in the mind will never ripen 
 into pearls of adoration; the heart is the only seat 
 of love. But a man may have in his soul the essence 
 of love without feeling its pain. 
 
JOHN L. MEANT 71 
 
 Nearly every human heart would be always warm 
 and loving if the bitter cold of the world's frost could 
 be kept away from there. It is environment and not 
 nature that makes man uncharitable. 
 
 He who takes the world too seriously generally 
 finds the world too serious for him. But he who 
 takes the world as he finds the world is never dis- 
 appointed in anything the world does. 
 
 Those who begin to love money, can scarcely ever 
 again love anything else but it. This happens because 
 the heart has always one controlling passion that 
 burns up every other feeling of the soul. 
 
 A polite man will sit at table without caring 
 to make himself noticed, while the ill-bred man who 
 has acquired a social standing will always try to be 
 the most noticeable person in the dining room. 
 
 It has been written by a well known poet that a 
 little learning is a dangerous thing. If this asser- 
 tion is correct he who has learned only a little is 
 worse than ignorant in matters of educational debate. 
 
 This world has enough for all if selfishness could be 
 moderated in the human heart. Men who have no 
 feeling in the welfare of their fellowmen may learn, 
 when it is too late, that their Jives have been ill-spent. 
 
 To perpetuate a man in office generally gives him 
 an idea that he can do as he pleases. But to limit 
 
72 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 a man's time in office is giving him to understand 
 that he is only a servant of the people who elected 
 him. 
 
 A man should never associate himself in business 
 with a woman without putting his contract with her 
 in writing. And not because her word is not good, 
 but because she is very apt to forget the real essence 
 of the agreement. 
 
 A jealous husband who loves his wife is very apt 
 to make her and himself a miserable married couple. 
 But he who would not be jealous, even if he had 
 reason, destroys with indeference every pure thought 
 in his wife's soul. 
 
 Every man of sound mind should be held account- 
 able for his acts, even though philosophers say that 
 a man may be morally right and logically wrong. 
 But he who steals another man's purse is morally 
 and logically a thief. 
 
 A really polite man will hardly ever try to make 
 himself too much at home at the house of his friend, 
 while a man of less conceptive habits will not hesi- 
 tate to welcome himself without timidity in every 
 place he may be invited. 
 
 Some people seem to think that it is to their inter- 
 est to keep other people poor. This is a mistake, 
 because a poor man has nothing to give, while a man 
 of means may, through some strain of thought, be 
 
JOHN L. MEANT 73 
 
 moved to help some person in need. Even the man 
 
 who envies his neighbor may some day need the 
 assistance of the man he envies. 
 
 He who does not try to know himself, fails to 
 take the first step that would lead him into the 
 pathway of peace and good will among men. An 
 erroneously conceived idea is nearly always a dan- 
 gerous thought to have. 
 
 Money should not tempt a refined lady to marrj' 
 a man of rough habits, even though he might be 
 handsome. Neither should a man of fine feelings 
 marry a pretty woman of inferior manners, even 
 though she might be rich. 
 
 To argue with a lady in social matters is always 
 in bad taste and never of any use. Woman is not 
 convinced by argument, but by a gentle submission 
 which generally wins her heart. She was not made to 
 be forced, but to be won. 
 
 As a rose buds in the season of its bloom, so does 
 woman love in the passion of her heart. But as the 
 bloom of the rose is faded by winds that are adverse, 
 so will man's forgetfulness destroy in woman the 
 passion that makes her love. 
 
 To console one 's self by believing that a good thing 
 should be done, does not make a man who so believes 
 better than other men of his kind, unless he tries to 
 do good when it is possible for him to make himself 
 
74 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 worthy of his thoughts. To wish a friend well does 
 the friend no good if he is hungry. But to give a 
 hungry man something to eat will do him more good 
 than would a million of kind words. 
 
 The man who makes love to a lady for the pur- 
 pose of trifling with her feelings is a man with whom 
 no woman can be really happy. But she who pre- 
 tends to love a man for the sake of getting a hus- 
 band should not live to be married. 
 
 Sensible people can be rich with impunity; while 
 foolish rich people are dangerous* to themselves and 
 useless to society. A girl with money can love as 
 sincerely as a poor girl; but a lady of means gen- 
 erally fears she is loved for her money. 
 
 The only apology which can be made for a man 
 who curses is to say that he does not mean what he 
 says. This may be sufficient for people of his own 
 kind, but men of polite habits will never cease to 
 think that his manners were neglected in his youth. 
 
 It is seldom difficult for a well-bred man to be 
 civil; but sometimes it may be very hard for the 
 most refined person to make himself always appre- 
 ciated. Yet, it must be conceded that a man with 
 a civil tongue will live in peace, where a man with 
 a rough disposition may always be in trouble. 
 
 Well-bred people are never exact, but they are al- 
 ways cautious in conversation. Ill-bred men are the 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 75 
 
 other way. To omit some little technicality of eti- 
 quette borrowed from somebody else is to them an 
 unpardonable crime, and to say what they please 
 is a privilege they must have in spite of every friend 's 
 rebuke. 
 
 Those who consider marriage a civil contract are 
 as susceptible to breach its tenor as they are to fail 
 in the keeping of any other agreement. But those 
 who become man and wife, while believing they are 
 put together by the act of God, will never forget 
 that they are man and wife so long as they both 
 shall live. 
 
 It may not be in bad taste to entertain a man in 
 his own office with something that does not con- 
 cern anybody but an idler. Yet the man thus en- 
 tertained would be much better pleased if his friend 
 would not insist upon making him listen to fairy 
 tales while he is busily engaged in the doing of some- 
 thing else. 
 
 Men who think themselves just because everything 
 they have was legally gotten, are nevertheless moral 
 thieves, if they have, in the getting of anything they 
 possess, taken any legal advantage of a legal trans- 
 action which might be otherwise if all parties to 
 the transaction were just. A man may be legally 
 right and morally wrong; but he who is morally 
 right is never wrong, even though he may legally lose. 
 
 Reformation and not prohibition is what Texas 
 needs. The existence of a respectable saloon is not 
 
76 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 only legitimate, but desirable. Any kind of industry 
 conducted for the benefit of the public welfare is com- 
 mendable if kept pure in its operation. But the 
 noblest efforts of men in the transaction of human 
 affairs may become injurious to the morals of a 
 community if the finger of restraint is not always 
 kept pointing to the pinnacle of legitimate endeavor. 
 
 To injure a man because you do not like him is 
 to do something that another man might do unto 
 you for the same cause. The fact that you do not 
 like a man does not give you the right to do him 
 harm. Hundreds and hundreds of times you 
 might yourself have been disliked by men who, 
 through a sense of justice, have permitted themselves 
 to do you good in time of need. The proverb is and 
 always should be, ^^If you can't help, don't injure." 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 77 
 
 NOT NEEDED WHEN BUSY. 
 
 No matter how good-natured a busy man may be, 
 he will sometimes get angry with his best friends if 
 they persist in engaging his busy time without busi- 
 ness during busy hours. And yet it sometimes 
 happens that men who will not permit themselves to 
 be annoyed will not hesitate to destroy a busy portion 
 of other men's time. He who does not hesitate to be 
 continuously interrupted by friendly callers at his 
 place of business is not very apt to be ever able to 
 help himself or his friends in matters where money 
 is needed. But from this we hope it will not be 
 inferred that it is ugly to pass a man the regular 
 morning or evening salute when you meet him on 
 the street. Or that it is wrong to ask a friend when 
 you meet him in a hotel to have a cigar, a dinner, or 
 some other kind of refreshments. But it is ugly, and 
 sometimes very wrong, to walk into a man's office 
 or place of business without apology and open a 
 conversation which has no earthly value for him. Here, 
 however, it must be said that some men of very 
 fine social habits do this without thinking that they 
 are doing the slightest harm to the friend who 
 hates to be discourteous to them. 
 
 Having suggested thus, we may be permitted to add 
 that man has naturally in his soul an instinctive fine- 
 ness of wishing to please his fellow men. And this, 
 notwithstanding that it may sometimes appear to us 
 that some men are naturally wicked from the very 
 beginning of their existence. This apparently incon- 
 sistent disposition in most men is either an inherited 
 propensity or a weakness of the nerve system which 
 may be exaggerated by environment. 
 
78 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 In asserting thus we may be permitted to further 
 add that intrusion is not a fault hatched for the pur- 
 pose of injuring any one, but rather an almost incur- 
 able mistake, which sometimes does as much harm 
 to the intruder as it does to the party intruded upon. 
 The man who worries a friend with his friendship 
 when busy will always lose his own time and some- 
 times the friendship and good will of the friend, who 
 cannot always endure a sociability that persists in 
 destroying his daily business plans. 
 
 COMMERCIALLY RESPECTED. 
 
 In olden times the knights of honor proudly held 
 that a man who told a lie without a gentleman 's cause 
 was a man of ignoble birth and of bad principle. 
 Today, the knights of wealth hold with equal pride 
 that it is not good policy to employ in trustworthy 
 positions men who have not the exceedingly valuable 
 gift of being able to lie when occasion demands such 
 a service from them. In studying the difference 
 between the knights of the past and those of the pres- 
 ent, we readily see a distinction that gives to moral 
 depravity the wicked honor of being today the most 
 valuable product of human habits. The sword is no 
 longer wielding in the hand of the knight to demand 
 restitution by way of apology from the lips of the 
 wretch who had dared to insult the world with a 
 falsehood. Integrity and moral worth have long since 
 ceased to be a proud man's pride. Give him now a 
 machine of human tongues and he will inveigle into 
 confidence the victims of his greed by the rapidity 
 of its dissimulation. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 79 
 
 But this dissimulating rapidity of unscrupulous 
 greed is not as dangerous to the happiness of a 
 community as is the tongue of some ill-bred woman 
 who makes it her business to slander some -poor un- 
 fortunate sister against whom she may have a spite. 
 
 Thus thinking, we cannot help to deplore how the 
 fastidious grandeur of former pride has been wrecked 
 on the billows of the great human sea that flows 
 and ebbs to and from the bathing strand of human 
 thought. 
 
 POLITENESS. 
 
 Politeness is a gift inherited, not taught. It differs 
 from culture in positive ways. The gentleman who is 
 naturally polite seldom hurts the feelings of his asso- 
 ciates, while the man of varnished culture may often 
 say and do things very displeasing to his daily com- 
 panions. Take, for instance, the man who plays 
 society with all the art known to its schools, and who, 
 after having technically observed every social demand, 
 leaves his friends with an air of superiority that 
 makes them feel they have wasted the reception given 
 him. And take again, in point of comparison, the 
 man who may not be able to observe all the rules 
 of the society parlor, but who will leave in the minds 
 of his parlor friends, notwithstanding his lack of par- 
 lor manners, an anxiety of meeting him again. Then, 
 when you have viewed the difference between the two 
 compared you will readily see that politeness and cul- 
 ture are not always one and the same thing. 
 
 But knowing this will not give you a true concep- 
 tion of the inspiration peeping out from the compari- 
 son made. You must, in order to get a satisfactory 
 
80 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 vision of the diagram, picture from material observa- 
 tion the difference between the genuine and the 
 imitation. The diamond will be always a diamond, 
 while the glass that is shaped into its image will be 
 only a diamond when it glitters in a vision that is 
 only sensitive to color and shade. The man who is 
 naturally polite is always a gentleman, while the man 
 of exterior grace and polish is only a gentleman in 
 the estimation of those who are equally as lacking as 
 he himself is. 
 
 ENVY IN THE HUMAN HEART. 
 
 The vision of human thought is clouded daily with 
 some misrepresentation from the garden of human 
 acts. Whatever man may say or do will, to some 
 extent, either dim or enlighten the activities of his 
 soul. There is no such a thing as passive action 
 without effect. Nature is susceptible to every inva- 
 sion of its own propensities. And this is true in the 
 lesser degree as well as in the greater. As particles 
 of placid water move imperceptibly in their relation 
 with adhesion within the laws of motion, so will some 
 little unnoticeable word or act yield some imper- 
 ceptible feeling that will sooner or later be of some 
 aid to other acts and deeds in shaping the character 
 of the human mind. 
 
 When the infant first opens its eyes to behold the 
 world, its mind has no conception of the vision 
 revealed. But day by day its each little act will grad- 
 ually frame within the network of memory the 
 character that will later proclaim its final destiny. 
 
 Here the reader will permit this editorial to begin 
 its mission with mothers who have infants to raise. 
 
JOHN L. MEANT 81 
 
 And as the evils of life are too numerous to be men- 
 tioned at one writing, the mother will this time only 
 take into consideration the discussion of ''envy'' for 
 the purpose of keeping it out of the heart of her child. 
 
 But mothers and other readers may wish to ask why 
 envy is the first evil impression to be guarded against. 
 The answer is easy. And for the reason that it is a 
 natural self -inherent propensity that needs but oppor- 
 tunity to enkindle its flame. Besides, it is one of the 
 seven deadly sins which knows no end of persecution. 
 The whispers of good wishes may knock at its door 
 with pleading inspirations of love, but it will still 
 remain firm and endurate. It knows no forgiveness; 
 it fears no danger. Conscience may condemn it. The 
 pleadings of mercy may ever shadow its visions with 
 clouds of love, and yet it will peep into the dimness 
 of its pleasure with as much anxiety as before. In 
 the halls of evil it takes the first chair of honor; in 
 the chamber of malice it becomes the executioner of 
 every execution, but in the hearts of hypocrites it is 
 paid as the money-making manager of their entire 
 business scheme. 
 
 In this connection it may be then said that envy 
 has no home in the heart of justice; no pillow for 
 its head in the bed of peace, and no friends to appease 
 its useless passions in minds that are filled with con- 
 genial thoughts. Neither will it be permitted to 
 mingle its activities with the feelings of the man 
 who tries to make human nature nobler and better 
 than it is. He who lives to make life a pathway 
 of happiness to the world beyond, will ever detest 
 the man who whispers something evil about the pros- 
 perity of his neighbor. A well-wishing person is 
 always satisfied with his own fortunes, even though 
 they may be small. Never will it appear to him that 
 
82 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 he should envy the man who has more of the goods 
 of this world than he himself has. On the other 
 hand, the man with envy in his heart will never be 
 happy, no matter how rich he may be, unless he is 
 deA'ising some scheme to keep his neighbor eternally 
 poor. The verdure that grows on another man's 
 lawn annoys him in the day and haunts him in the 
 night. No matter where he goes, his hatred is always 
 at home with the victim of his dislike. Old age may 
 make him feeble and decrepit, and sickness may give 
 him sorrow and pain, but the envy that he has in his 
 heart will always remain with him, firm and persist- 
 ent, until he draws his last breath. And, though the 
 grave may seem to hide forever every part of his 
 being, there will still remain w^ritten upon the pages 
 of time the memories that envy could not take to his 
 tomb. Death may seize the soul and force the body 
 to decay, but the wrong that man has done in the 
 lifetime of his ambition and health will never fade 
 away from the minds of the people who were victims 
 of his envy. 
 
 From the description given of this dreadful invader 
 of the human mind, some reader may find a solution 
 of its perversity in some chamber of his o^^^l heart, 
 and the mother who kisses her child with maternal 
 love will learn, if she will try to think, that it is not 
 any whiter than it has been pictured in this editorial. 
 Yet it has, notAvithstanding the darkness of its fea- 
 tures, some secret fascination that will make itself 
 loved, even in the hearts of people who have 
 sometimes honor and strength enough to hate and 
 condemn it Avith thoughts and words that can not be 
 here written. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 83 
 
 BRIGHT MINDS ARE OFTEN DECEIVED. 
 
 It is almost impossible for a sane mind to concede 
 that a portion of the refined world is susceptible to 
 believe that the sale of intoxicating drinks is an evil 
 to the world. Let us call reason into action and try to 
 learn if there can possibly be any grounds or excuse 
 for such a tendency in any rational mind of a 
 matured age. 
 
 To be sure we admit, without argument, that there 
 are very many people who preach prohibition for 
 political and self-serving purposes. But it is not to 
 people of this class that we refer here ; because no 
 one pays any attention to them, except those who get 
 religion like saints of the Salvation Army. Men and 
 women who live in respectable homes, and who have, 
 in many instances, a very fine sense of feeling, are 
 the people who come within the purview of this edito- 
 rial. "What care we about Brother Jones in the pulpit, 
 unless he preaches the Gospel as the Gospel is. We 
 hear him, of course, but we see him in his true light, 
 believing, in his hypocritical arrogance, that he is one 
 of the men destined to free the world from sin. 
 
 With this we leave Brother Jones, in company with 
 the rest of his kind, and begin to reason out, if 
 we can, why people of a better class and of a more 
 refined conception, yield in opinion to his kind of 
 doctrine. 
 
 If the sale of beer and whiskey was a thing of 
 recent origin, we might be able to overlook the mis- 
 conception of people who ought to be more stable in 
 their understanding of the commercial and moral 
 rights of men. But since the sale of beverages of this 
 kind has been a medium of commercial activity ever 
 
84 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 since human industry began, it is plain that the pro- 
 hibition party is actuated with a fanaticism that 
 should be stemmed. Besides this fact, intoxicating 
 drinks are wholesome, and sometimes very necessary 
 stimulants for the preservation of health. Doctors 
 prescribe good whiskey, in small doses, on some occa- 
 sions ; and there is no doubt at all about beer being a 
 very invigorating tonic in Southern countries. 
 
 But the prohibition craze might have been origi- 
 nally inspired by the acts of people who take doses 
 of whiskey and beer too often and too large for their 
 stomachs. 
 
 If so, a little reasoning may prove that a well bal- 
 anced mind would not permit itself to be actuated by 
 any inspiration that would introduce itself without 
 sane argumentative powers of persuasion. For in- 
 stance, if a man of good sound sense should repeatedly 
 say men die from eating too much meat, it would not, 
 of course, follow that he would be inspired to believe 
 that it is dangerous to eat meat. Neither would he 
 go out and preach unto the world that laws should 
 be made to prevent the sale of roast, poultry, and 
 all kinds of steak. If he did, the world would say 
 that he was out of his mind, just as it says that 
 preachers of prohibition are insane. 
 
 In this comparison, there can be no doubt about 
 what people would say of the man who would try 
 to prevent the sale of meat : The entire Avorld would, 
 almost unanimously, pronounce him a fool, or some 
 malicious jester, who was in pursuit of having some 
 fun at the expense of some of his fellowmen. But it 
 seems that the world is not so unanimously condemn- 
 ing the effort that is made to prevent the sale of 
 beer and whiskey. And it is because the world is not 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 85 
 
 SO much of the same mind in this I'espect that we 
 write this editorial. 
 
 Now to the essence of our argument. 
 
 Henry the Fifth said to the Earl of Westmoreland : 
 '^Cousin, why do you persist in asking me, your king 
 and friend, to keep necessary stimulants from the 
 camps of our soldiers, when you knov7 that I have 
 twice as many gluttons in my court as I have drunk- 
 ards in my armyf 
 
 '^Because, your Majesty," replied the Earl, ''I 
 am afraid your victories may incite your soldiers to 
 celebrate too much, and thereby becomie unmindful 
 of the battles that are yet to be fought.'" 
 
 Now the king laughed and said hurriedly: '^The 
 soldiers who have fought our battles so well should 
 be permitted in time of peace to forget the trouble 
 of the future in their stimulated happy moments 
 of the present hour. Let them take a Little, as the 
 Bible says, ^for the stomach's sake.' " 
 
 These human and God-like words of the English 
 King, may throw some feeling into the hearts of 
 those who are urging the people of the state to elect 
 a governor w^ho might be disposed to deprive Amer- 
 ican citizens of their right to sell, buy and drink, 
 a little of the beverage which makes man forget the 
 miseries of the past and the foresighted visions of 
 the troubles that poor human nature is so prone to 
 borrow from the future. 
 
 There is yet another thing in his dead majesty's 
 words ; and it is the pointed comparison which places 
 the glutton and the drunkard within the considera- 
 tion of a king in moments of moral retribution to 
 the judgment he wished to reserve. He knew that 
 his cousin, the Earl, had but very little concern for 
 the commission of a deadly sin like that of gluttony. 
 
86 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 And for the reason that it would only kill the soul, 
 while that of getting too happy in an army tent might 
 give the enemy a chance to kill the body, at a time 
 when the spirits might be happy under the influ- 
 ence of a drink or two. 
 
 The Earl of Westmoreland was not, however, a 
 bad man. He knew that gluttony was a very great 
 sin; and that God would not be angry with poor 
 worn-out soldiers who might take a little for the 
 stomach's sake. His motive was to admonish his 
 king and friend in matters which might affect his 
 moral rights, while he passed over, without notice, 
 that which might kill the souls of dissipated noble- 
 men w^ho did what they pleased in his court. 
 
 Unfortunately, we do not have to go back to the 
 reign of Henry the Fifth in order to find people with 
 minds like the Earl of Westmoreland.. We have 
 thousands of them here in Texas, if they only had 
 been born of the same blood that he was. Pride, 
 covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy and sloth, 
 though the seven deadly sins, are to those Westmore- 
 lands of 1910, so insignificant when compared to 
 the taking of a little beverage, which is supposed by 
 some meddling preachers to be distilled and brewed 
 in hell for some private purpose that the devil only 
 knows. And yet, we must not call these Earls of 
 the present century bad people, because they are only 
 believing from inspirations instilled into them from 
 the lips of hypocritical men, who have no other aim 
 in view but the creation of some kind of a political 
 evil that which might enable them to make money 
 for themselves. 
 
 How in heaven 's name can it be sinful to put some- 
 thing into your stomach that has been created for 
 the benefit of man? Oh God of Heaven and Earth 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 87 
 
 and of all things, how long wilt thou permit thy 
 divine gifts to be trodden upon by human hypocrisy 1 
 
 The poor publican who struck his breast in con- 
 demnation of his guilt felt justified, while the Phari- 
 see, who thanked God that he was not like other 
 men, went away with his soul in a worse condition 
 than it was before he stood in the temple to boast 
 in prayer to God for the things that he had done 
 for him. 
 
 Human nature is ever the same. Hypocrites will 
 always feign devotion, while the true penitent and 
 humble man will kneel down before God with a 
 fervent hope of being pardoned for his sins. 
 
 On the other hand, like the Pharisee, the Salvation 
 Army boaster and the hypocritical preacher, will pro- 
 claim in holy accents that they are Alti-Christi, 
 destined like the Savior of the World to redeem 
 mankind. 
 
 A THOUGHT THAT IS NEEDED. 
 
 It has been written somewhere that a man should 
 be just before he is charitable. This, of course, has 
 never been denied, and never will be by any person 
 of an upright mind. Still it might be just to admit 
 without argument that charity pleads more sweetly 
 before the throne of God than does any other virtue 
 bom in the human soul. Purity, indeed, is a white 
 flower that buds to live in the vision of divinity itself. 
 No taint of sin can shade into any other color but 
 white, the untinged face of this virtue. To her God 
 gives his choicest grace and his sweetest smile. The 
 world may try to fade her colors and break the stem 
 from which she buds, but he who holds her in the 
 
88 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 very esteem of his love, will stem her pride with 
 everlasting visions of divine thought. Yet this favored 
 flower, blooming out from the divinity of Him who 
 made heaven and earth and all other things, cannot 
 speak with the same pleading power before the throne 
 of mercy as can the little pale-faced queen who loves 
 to live in the hearts of men and who tells us with 
 lips of pride in humble accents that her earthly name 
 is charity. 
 
 Justice may say that he must exist though the 
 heavens fall; and purity may blush us into shame 
 with the vision of her divine worth; but charity can 
 lift up her head and proudly say, ''My God, I am 
 she whom thou hast created to live especially for 
 yourself in the heart of man. It is I whom you sent 
 out from the feeling of your own mercy to do mercy ; 
 and it is I who now beg mercy from you for the soul 
 of the man in whose heart I have lived so long, 
 and who never refused me anything I begged from 
 him." 
 
 IT USED TO BE HONOR. 
 
 It was said in olden times that the eye was an index 
 to the mind. Today it is only considered as a medium 
 of use. Men nowadays have but very little con- 
 cern in the study of reading the mind through the 
 eye. Character is not the ambition of the twentieth 
 century. Little cares the man of no fineness of feeling 
 about the high or low conceptive instincts of the man 
 with whom he mingles in daily life so long as his 
 commercial relations are satisfactory. The installa- 
 tion of exalted ideals is no longer a process of mental 
 conception. Noble intentions of heart have long since 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 89 
 
 been superceded by hatched schemes of deception. 
 Honor has long since lost her throne in the social 
 shrine of worldly respect. Principle, though the 
 oldest and greatest king of human worth, is now only 
 a vision of past recollection. 
 
 In the social and business parade of human acts, the 
 father now will tell his child that money is the crown 
 of human effort. And in this respect, though morally 
 wrong, he is logically right. No matter what man was 
 in the former ideals of mental worth, he, as a rule, 
 must have money now before he is appreciated. In 
 the circles of human pleasure, wealth has no equals 
 in determining the value of a man 's company. Nature 
 may have filled his soul with gifts which may have 
 within themselves the power to make him happy, 
 yet nature has no gifts to give, that will take the 
 place of money in the hearts of those who never 
 try to feel the divinely sweet and holy thoughts that 
 fill the mind when nature speaks. Yes, thoughts 
 which sometimes paint in the eyes of man a vividly 
 inspiring picture of the heavely gems that nature 
 sometimes hides from human view. 
 
 0, would that all men have what some men feel ! 
 For then would every man within himself perceive 
 the invisible home of heavenly pleasure that God to 
 nature gave. 
 
 SENTIMENT MAY HAVE VARIOUS MEANINGS. 
 
 The word love when uttered as a verb in the affirm- 
 ative conveys to the object it governs an idea of 
 sentiment that can have only one meaning if it comes 
 from the heart. But if uttered by the lips only it 
 may be susceptible to any meaning that construction 
 
90 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 might give it. The man who speaks the sentiment of 
 his heart when he says to some lady, ''I love you," 
 means only what he says; but the man who utters 
 the same sentence to another lady without meaning 
 w^hat he says, may have left himself susceptible to 
 any construction that the word may within himself 
 convey. There are some men w^ho will sometimes say. 
 ''I love you/' for the purpose of flattering the lady 
 to whom they speak. Again, there are other men who 
 measure their accents in pronouncing a sentence of 
 this kind to the ladies of their conversation for some 
 selfish motive of their own. While there are still 
 others w^ho Avill say they love without the slightest 
 meaning or purpose. 
 
 Now then, if we are right in these assertions, young 
 women should study the conduct and anxieties of men 
 before they listen to whispers which might be decep- 
 tive. Man in the study room of his admiration is a 
 creature of intellectual conclusions, while a woman 
 in the same study submits herself without thinking 
 to the sentiments of her heart. When woman speaks 
 love to her sweetheart she utters her heart in her 
 words, while man may be much more sincere to the 
 girl of his affections when he hides all his love in his 
 mind. With man, love is only incidental to his hap- 
 piness; with woman, it makes everything else inci- 
 dental to it. Life may give her millions of wealth 
 and all the charms that nature and life can give, but 
 her heart will never be satisfied in matters of affec- 
 tion until she knows she is loved. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 91 
 
 THE WOLF THAT DEVOURS. 
 
 The greater percentage of labor and capital would 
 be friendly to one another if politics, bigotry and 
 the unworthy labor leader could be kept from dis- 
 turbing the united effort of those who are honestly 
 endeavoring to roll the commercial wheel of life. 
 The politician comes with promises that eventually 
 serve no one but his henchmen and himself. The 
 bigoted, ill-bred curr who happens through chance 
 to get a million or two, is anxious to make himself 
 conspicuous in the battles of some jury-packing, wit- 
 ness-bribing corporation, at the expense of some of 
 the same class of people of which he himself w^as 
 born and bred; and the self-puffed up, ignorant, 
 bribe-taking walking delegate, is a disturber of peace 
 and the kind of a man that Judas was when he be- 
 trayed our Lord. 
 
 Of course we do not mean that all politicians, cor- 
 porations and labor walking delegates should be con- 
 demned in the language and words we have just writ- 
 ten. But we do mean that union labor and men of 
 toil, generally, are day after day humbugged, out- 
 raged and betrayed by some politician, corporation or 
 walking delegate of the classes above referred to in 
 this editorial. And we do not hesitate to add that the 
 inactiveness of labor unions is in many instances to 
 blame for some of the advantages that have been taken 
 of laboring men as a whole. We must, however, 
 qualify this last assertion by saying that the 
 inactiveness complained of is an innocent delusion 
 that charity must excuse. Yet it might be dangerous 
 to make this admission, lest it might encourage for- 
 getfulness in the ranks of men who will never succeed 
 
92 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 in getting the justice that is due them unless they 
 awaken from slumbers which have for years left them 
 in the hands of their own forgetfulness and a prey to 
 the unscrupulous wolf that lives to devour. 
 
 ONE SHOULD APPRECIATE THE OTHER. 
 
 The relationship of labor and capital is as sacred 
 as that of husband and wife; and as husband and 
 wife are put asunder by misunderstandings that are 
 averse to the betterment of the human family, so are 
 labor and capital put apart by misconceptions that 
 are injurious to commercial life. If woman under- 
 stood her husband as she thought she did when she 
 became his wife, he would have less trouble in admit- 
 ting that she is by nature as susceptible as he himself 
 is. In like manner, the capitalist would overlook some 
 of the shortcomings of the laboring man if he would 
 only see in himself the same soul and feelings tluit 
 all men must alike possess in this common flesh and 
 blood that Eve and Adam gave. As man should bow 
 his stronger thoughts to the woman that makes him 
 happy, so should the rich man bend his knee of foolish 
 pride to the man that gives him a living percentage 
 of profit upon every dollar he has. But as woman 
 is, in turn, bound by her marriage vow to love, honor 
 and obey the man whom she accepted to be her hus- 
 band and protector through life, so should the laboring 
 man be respectful and true to the man who gives him 
 the money that buys the bread he eats. 
 
 The similes here drawn do not, however, picture an 
 exact comparison, because there is in married life a 
 mystic tie which can only be explained by God, while 
 
JOHN L. MEANT 93 
 
 that of the laboring man and capitalist is only a simple 
 duty that the one owes to the other without ceremony. 
 Yet the meaning of the similes remains the same in 
 conclusion, because duty and obligation have, respect- 
 ively, only one meaning in every expression of the 
 human mind. And this is true in all instances, be- 
 cause that which can not have any other meaning but 
 what it has, will never be anything else but what it 
 is in the conclusion that conception gives it. 
 
 Man, then, in the field of labor must not assume 
 that he can abuse the confidence placed in him by 
 his employer. Neither must the employer imagine 
 that he can command his employe beyond the limits 
 of his endurance. As all men are the same in flesh 
 and blood, so are all men the same in natural sensi- 
 bilities. And as no man is of himself an independent 
 factor of human life, it must naturally follow that 
 all men are dependent on one another. Yet every 
 man has a self-solvent existence that can not be 
 ignored by any other creature of his kind. He who 
 made the earth, the stars and all we can imagine or 
 see, is the only being who has the right to discrimi- 
 nate between the lesser and the greater of us. It is, 
 therefore, wrong to crush by the sword that fortune 
 gives, the right which every man might in himself 
 conceive if human life could equal rights proclaim, 
 where men can not be what they want, but what 
 they are, and where the natural streams of usefulness 
 would cease to flow if all men were just alike in all 
 things. 
 
94 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 FANATICISM AND GREED. 
 
 Unfortunately, we have two extremes in Texas. 
 On one side, some preachers and other fanatics are 
 demanding state-wide prohibition; on the other, the 
 liqnor men and their allies in the liquor market, are 
 making a selfish and concentrated effort to run the 
 politics of the state to suit themselves. This won't 
 do. And yet it must do unless the fair-minded voters 
 of Texas concentrate their efforts to run the state for 
 the interest of the people. If the personnel of our 
 state government should become actuated with the 
 spirit of our preachers, we would have within a 
 few years a condition of affairs too distressing to be 
 even now thought of. Poverty, from depopulation 
 and lack of business energy, would overtide our cities, 
 our villages and our farmers alike. 
 
 On the other hand, if some of our beer and whiskey 
 merchants would have their oAvn way, our state would 
 be pested with dives, drunken sots and red light re- 
 sorts, and we would have again what we had before, 
 certain sides of the streets of our cities where ladies 
 would be ashamed to walk. 
 
 Here we must reason closely and fairh^ if we desire 
 to be just to all parties concerned. Fanaticism on 
 one side and selfishness on the other, darken the 
 pathways of righteousness to such an extent as to 
 leave it sometimes difficult for the ordinary traveler 
 to make his way through without getting side-tracked 
 into the pathways of danger. We have people in 
 every community who are anxious to walk in the right 
 way. but their vision of right is often too weak to see 
 through the delusory blindfold of the corrupt and 
 the cunning. And it is for those that we are writing this 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 95 
 
 editorial. But in writing thus, we must be permitted 
 to say what we think, regardless of what others may 
 think and say of us. The editor of a newspaper must 
 become fearless before he can consistently say to the 
 Avorld that he is desirous and able to become a teacher. 
 
 We say this, because in this editorial we have to 
 brave prohibition fanaticism, as well as low-down, 
 ungodly greed. But so far as either is concerned, we 
 are equal to the occasion. 
 
 Here is to the platform upon which we stand ; and 
 we assert now and forever what we said in our first 
 issue, that the meddling preacher should have no voice 
 in secular affairs, and that the brewer and liquor 
 men who try, by their concentration of political power, 
 to elect over the head of the citizen the candidate of 
 their choice, is equally as dangerous to the community. 
 The blindness and fanaticism of the one is in crime 
 a counterpart of the other, inasmuch as both are pro- 
 moters of the direst evils that could beset the progress 
 and morals of the Texas people. Besides the meddling 
 preacher and the manipulating political tyrant, should 
 be, respectively, brought to their senses before the 
 power of either one can become too great in the com- 
 mercial and political issues of the people. 
 
 From our conclusions in this respect, it must not 
 be understood that we have in any way referred to 
 the respectable ministers and liquor dealers of the 
 state. On the contrary, we are hoping that preachers 
 and liquor men of worth will unite in one continuous 
 political effort for the common benefit of all. 
 
96 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 ENERGY IN THE WRONG WAY. 
 
 If the laboring man would assert himself as strongly 
 in the political field as he does in the arena of con- 
 tention for higher wages and less honrs, he would 
 have the wages and the hours to suit himself. And 
 this we say because any fair-minded legislature would 
 do the fair thing for those who work in the heat and 
 burden of the day. But the legislatures generally 
 elected, through either the indolence or negligence 
 of the laboring men, seldom care for the man in whom 
 they see nothing but thanks. The poor man who runs 
 for an office that pays about one-half his expenses 
 while holding office has something of much more im- 
 portance than the rights of the labor unions in his 
 mind. Here is where the political study of the labor- 
 ing man should begin; here is where his aim in life, 
 should beget itself for him. 
 
 But, unfortunately, the laboring man does not 
 always realize the truthfulness of this expression. Any 
 cunning politician will be nearly always able to blind 
 his perception in this respect. And when the man 
 of many promises gets to Austin and fails to keep 
 even a single one, the laboring man is still blind 
 because he does not care to trouble his mind with the 
 study of things that would open his eyes. A paid 
 or friendly write-up in some newspaper about the 
 man he supported will still hold his friendship for 
 that same man, notwithstanding that the cause of 
 the write-up might be of much service to the enemy 
 of union labor. 
 
 Gentlemen of toil who may read this editorial and 
 who have been fooled so long, may learn a little from 
 its dictates, if they study the past acts of those whom 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 97 
 
 they have been called upon to support in the future, 
 and who may in the future make them the same prom- 
 ises they made in the past. 
 
 Talk is cheap; acts and deeds are the only things 
 that will count for us either in this life or in the 
 life to come. But the results from a game of poker, 
 or any other game, at Austin or elsewhere, cannot be 
 acts and deeds that w^ould do any one any good, except 
 those whom such results would directly concern. 
 
 A word to the wise. Open your eyes and pay no 
 attention to the man who cares nothing for you when 
 your vote is cast. 
 
 HUMAN PROPENSITIES. 
 
 The study of human propensities in commercial as 
 well as in social life will benefit the student of that 
 study with the result of a definite and pleasing profit. 
 The man who thinks that his fellow man is not entitled 
 to some consideration for the faults he may have has 
 no respect for the propensities of nature. Neither 
 will he ever learn to win the good will of people whose 
 views of life differ from those of his. In the com- 
 mercial world men are almost always anxious to take 
 much and give little. In the social few natures are 
 only found willing to think that the social features 
 have, or ought to have, equal significance in the same 
 field of society for all those who mingle there. 
 
 But in answer to these assertions some might say, 
 as some have often said before, that the selfishness of 
 man is a propensity that must be in him in order 
 that he may be able to make his way to the hills 
 of success. Such answers, whenever given, are not 
 
98 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 deductions of good reasoning. The merchant who 
 thinks that his own interest should be his only ambi- 
 tion is not a desirable citizen; neither will he make 
 himself rich in the naked mercantile sphere of action. 
 And this may be asserted even though it can be said 
 that many selfish men have become very rich : for 
 such may happen through circumstances that do not 
 put the commercial wheel in motion for all men 
 alike. In like manner, it may be said that the 
 young man who thinks only of himself in the social 
 world can never have the power and pleasing happi- 
 ness of being loved by his associates. 
 
 Those then who have not yet begiui to study the 
 habits and wishes of those with whom they mingle in 
 life, will begin to do something for themselves if 
 they begin now; for in a very little while they will 
 begin to see that they themselves have Yery many of 
 the faults that have often appeared to them very 
 blamable in some of their fellow men. 
 
 THE WAGE EARNER IN HIS SOCIAL CON- 
 DITION. 
 
 The laboring classes are scarcely ever understood 
 among those who become millionaires by chance. This 
 happens because men who Avere once poor themselves 
 fear that a kind word for their former kind would 
 still keep them before the public in the society of 
 those with whom they lived in their former, poverty". 
 It is different with those who were always rich and 
 well born. It never occurs to them that they are 
 lowered in the estimation of their associates if seen 
 in the company of men who are poor. Besides they 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 9d 
 
 have no difficulty in seeing that there is often as 
 much honor and principle in the man who earns his 
 living by hard work as there is in the man who 
 rides in the carriage that circumstances and fortune 
 gave him. And in seeing thus, they do not see the 
 man in the carriage without honor and principle, 
 but merely see that he is in many instances no better 
 than his fellow man in the wage earner's clothes. 
 
 This, of course, is a philosophical vision that some 
 rich men are scarcely ever able to see. And for the 
 reason that honor and principle are born of the same 
 instinct and never manifest to the soul of the man 
 born w^ithout feelings of like instincts. As plain glass 
 without the qualities of a mirror can hardly ever 
 become a medium of reflection, so is a soul without 
 honor and principle ever unable to conceive the 
 thoughts of those who are actuated with noble feel- 
 ings. But as the plain glass will in certain places 
 before the rays of the sun feign the reflection of an 
 object, so will ignoble feelings feign to be noble in 
 the presence of those who inspire them with feelings 
 of better thoughts. 
 
 Why this difference in man is so plainly observable, 
 is not here given us to discuss. Our aim in this edi- 
 torial is to write upon the merits of a large percent- 
 asce of men who are considered by certain rich men 
 and by empty-minded aristocrats to be people worthy 
 of consideration only in their own walk of life. To 
 be sure, the working man, generally speaking, is not 
 fitted on account of the circumstances of his position 
 to mingle and mix with those who have a business 
 standing and plenty of time and means for social 
 and fastidious occasions. But, in many instances, 
 many of them have brains and refinement sufficiently 
 fitted to associate with, and take place in, societies 
 
100 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 outside of their own walk and limited circles. It takes 
 brains to be a mechanic. Railway coaches, household 
 furniture and machinery of every kind, begot their 
 beginning in the genius of minds that were able to 
 define their usefulness. Put the man who builds a 
 locomotive, a carriage or any other kind, or piece of 
 machinery, against the grocer, the dry goods man, or 
 any other merchant, and after the proper study and 
 consideration he will appear to you just as big and 
 as useful as either of them. 
 
 Genius, industry and activity should be appreciated 
 in the wage earner as well as in the manufacturer. 
 And if his mind is of the same caliber he has a right 
 to walk in the same sphere of life, provided, however, 
 that he finds himself there with the proper decorum. 
 Yet, notwithstanding this to be true, the wage earner 
 should never wish to be with his equals in this respect, 
 in places where money might proclaim them superior 
 to him. The happiest man in society, is he who knows 
 his place and keeps it. "While on the other hand, it 
 can be asserted with much certainty that a rich man 's 
 society is nearly always dangerous to a poor man. 
 He who is continuously trying to handle things he 
 cannot reach will always find himself below the level 
 of his ambition. But he who plucks the flowers that 
 bud within his own sphere will never find himself 
 wishing to wear a rose too difficult for him to get. 
 It is the attempting of leaping to heights which we 
 cannot reach that generally keeps us below the level 
 of our own social equals. The man who tries to be 
 more high-toned than his fellow man in the same 
 walk of life learns too late that all his fellow men 
 make fun of his foolishness. 
 
 Summing up the ideas of our efforts here made, it 
 might not displease anyone if we say that the rich 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 101 
 
 man would seek the society of the wage earner more 
 often if he knew him better. Yet it is just as well 
 that the rich and the poor, and the fairly well-to-do, 
 should live socially in the spheres peculiar to their 
 respective means. But to this we would like to add, 
 that money does not make either brain, sinew or 
 honor. These qualities and attributes must be born, 
 cultured and matured in the mind, head and body 
 before any man can say to himself that he has pos- 
 sessed himself of those things that make him great 
 and noble in the eyes and hearts of the better classes 
 of mankind. 
 
 AN IDLER IS A MENACE TO SOCIETY. 
 
 The sphere of human life is a field of mental and 
 manual action. He who lives to think there is nothing 
 for him to do, lives to be a burden upon some per- 
 son or persons of the human family. And this is true, 
 even though such a man may be born of rich parents 
 and have inherited a fortune large enough to main- 
 tain him through life, without adding to it one dollar 
 from the treasury of his own efforts. This asser- 
 tion may not be supported by some of the readers 
 of this editorial, and for the reason that it is an 
 assertion which will not appeal to those who have no 
 conception of human philosophy. There is, however, 
 a sufficient number of people in every walk of life 
 to make it worthy of the efforts here made. Even we 
 think that it is not time lost to present this fact to 
 the minds of those who have no taste for thoughts that 
 may come from it. 
 
 Premised thus, we assert again that the sphere of 
 life is a field of mental and manual action. The rich 
 
102 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 and poor, the wise and simple, have been born to 
 work out their moral existence by some profession, 
 business or calling. The farmer plows the field as 
 monarch of the soil, the merchant sells his goods in 
 the moving glories of competition; and the profes- 
 sional man gets his living and honor from the fame 
 that reputation gives him. But he who has no trade, 
 profession or calling, is either a beggar, or some rich 
 man, who makes it his daily aim to annoy his asso- 
 ciates with idleness and sin. 
 
 In this alternate, the beggar is a more desirable 
 burden than the rich idler. All he does is to beg and 
 get from whom he can, and few indeed will give him 
 more than they can afford to part with, unless he is 
 one of those beggars in black clothes, who takes money 
 for the love of God, and who will, in the face of 
 the charity he preaches, appropriate it to the selfish- 
 ness of his own good will. This is, of course, human 
 in the act of appropriation, but divine in the act of 
 taking from the needy that w^hich charity has in- 
 spired them to give. And, here, it may be added 
 that beggars of this class will sometimes inject into 
 their systems of pillage, a deception that will hide 
 their object from the moral eye. For instance, when 
 the pockets of charity are exhausted, they will preach 
 necessity for the purpose of accomplishing their aim. 
 The devil, they say, is at the head of something that 
 is deeply rooted in the morals of their people, and 
 ripe in itself to bring eternal destruction, unless there 
 is something immediately done that will save the souls 
 of those who are threatened. 
 
 Yet, beggars of this class are not as dangerous to a 
 community as are rich spendthrifts, w^ho have in- 
 herited the money they squander. And it might even 
 be added that the rich man, who lives idle on the 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 103 
 
 interest of the money he has inherited, is doing the 
 world an injury that cannot be too severely con- 
 demned. In a word, he w^ho does not live by the 
 proper exercise of either brain or sinew, is a creature 
 too unholy to live in the society of men. 
 
 But assertions of this kind, in the absence of a due 
 course of reasoning, may be too dangerous for the 
 reader who will not permit his own thoughts to de- 
 velop proper conclusions. To say a thing, will not 
 always prove the assertion of what is said to be true. 
 The specific, as well as the general powers of the 
 mind, must give the answer of the question before the 
 deduction is properly made. To say, that a man is 
 a thief, or that a certain thing should be so con- 
 demned, is only an expression of a mind that may be 
 deceived. Therefore, it is not wise to be persuaded 
 into the believing or the doing of anything seriously 
 concerning the public or ourselves, without first hav- 
 ing placed before our minds the fact, or facts, which 
 might lead a reasonable man into an action of a like 
 nature. 
 
 On the other hand, it is always well not to be too 
 hasty in sealing the mind too tightly against an accu- 
 sation which might have been made in good faith. 
 It is in our opinion better to permit the conception 
 of the soul to receive the information tendered and 
 then lock it up in the chambess of thought for future 
 reference. This, we advise, because a day may come 
 when the treasure so stored may become useful in 
 determining the truth or falsity of a question pre- 
 sented at a time when the mind might not be ready 
 to premise itself into a condition of being able to 
 form the proper conclusion. 
 
 But information thus carried in the mind should 
 not be harbored with a view of making capital out of 
 
104 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 it which may be contrary to the charity that men owe 
 to one another. The idea here attempted to be con- 
 veyed is, that men should only condemn the action 
 and business of another when such action and busi- 
 ness have been so apparently wrong, as to leave no 
 doubt about the manner in which they should be 
 condemned. 
 
 AYe must, however, in spite of our charity in this 
 respect, condemn in the strongest emphasis of accentu- 
 ation, the depravity of the rich idler, who is of no 
 earthly value to his fellowmen. 
 
 FORTUNE SOMETIMES MAKES DISSIPATED 
 IDLERS. 
 
 Man's effort in the labor of competitive existence 
 has a charm that makes him happy in the midst of 
 his greatest difficulties. He who fights and wins in 
 the war of any battle lives to learn that victory has 
 brought to him a happiness which never comes to 
 men who had no battle to fight. Life to those who 
 inherit the name and wealth their parents had is but 
 a dream that makes them feel in its ebbing hours 
 how useless a life they live. The soul will always be 
 happy in the exercise of feelings that appeal to its 
 natural ambition. 
 
 But take progressive anxiety from mental activity 
 and you will turn the rippling emotions of the mind 
 into the barren visions of sin, where they will die to 
 live when the soul is dead to every hope that lighted 
 her former existence. 
 
 In this psychological view the reader will permit 
 us to paint the picture of the dissipated idler who in- 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 105 
 
 herited from his father the riches that make him what 
 he is. At the breakfast table, a little before noon, he 
 has no longer the exalted visions of his youth. Before, 
 he ate to live, now, he lives to eat. The meat on his 
 plate when he was young was good, now, it is bad. 
 At midnight, or sometime before daylight, when he 
 has eaten, had and drunk everything that mortal taste 
 could wish or desire, he rolls into bed to think and 
 dream of his ill-spent, miserable life. And then, 
 after days, weeks, months and years have passed, his 
 end comes and he dies in doubt of his salvation. 
 
 On the other hand, take the willing young man 
 who only gets a small fortune from his father and 
 who tries daily to make his little mite more than it 
 is, will eat his breakfast in the morning with a relish 
 which makes him feel how healthy he is. At night, 
 when his hard day's work is done, he will retire to 
 sleep the blessed rest that will give him new ambi- 
 tion in the morning. 
 
 Here then it may be said that effort is, in the daily 
 walks of human toil, a gem which has within itself 
 the power to make man see within his heart how nobly 
 proud it is to feel that he himself has made in life 
 what life has given him to enjoy. 
 
 REFINEMENT AND LOVE. 
 
 Much time and thought is devoted and given to 
 advance social refinement and individual culture. 
 Nearly every lady and gentleman of any pretense at 
 all has this aim at heart. And commendably so, 
 because refinement and culture are very essential to 
 the finer advantao'es of social interchange. Culture 
 
106 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 alone will not, however, make man great nor woman 
 charming. The man who did something that is really 
 worthy of praise, has done something that will give 
 him a friendly place in the minds of those who know 
 him. But he who does neither good nor bad will 
 never have very much value in the estimation of the 
 people with whom he mingles, even though he may 
 be a man of much refinement. In like manner, the 
 woman who wears her beauty with culture seldom 
 wins for herself a lasting thought in the minds of 
 those with whom she mingles. True, beauty and good 
 manners may lead her up to the highest pinnacle of 
 social advantage. But even then she will not enjoy 
 the happy pleasure of knowing that she is loved, 
 unless she has those finer endearments of character 
 which make woman nobly winning and pleasing. 
 
 On the other side of this discussio, we may be per- 
 mitted to say that some women have made their way 
 to a very high sphere of happiness without having 
 the advantage of either beauty or refinement. In mis 
 respect, very little argument is needed to sustain the 
 permitted assertion. Love is a shapeless thing — hav- 
 ing existence only in the abstract. In fact it is a 
 human feeling that we can neither see nor touch, but 
 which makes itself felt and seen in every heart that 
 possesses it. Without it, the soul is barren of its 
 richest treasure: with it, it is rich enough to be 
 happy in whatever sphere it may live. 
 
 So much in this respect. But we have not yet said 
 enough to exemplify our meaning. When woman has 
 beauty, love and refinement, her worth is more than 
 of human value : it is a measure of divine goodness 
 that surpasses human conception in every deduction 
 of thought. With love alone she becomes to man the 
 measure of h(M- value; but when beautv and refine- 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 107 
 
 ment are added, she inspires him with thoughts 
 which are nearly divine. As the moon vies in sombre 
 grandness the rough, dark face of the earth at night, 
 so does woman, with beauty, love and culture, vie 
 into gladness and fidelity the blackest conceptions of 
 man. But as the fair, placid face of the moon fails, 
 at sometimes in the darkness of night, to illume 
 the earth with her light, so does a woman without 
 love fail to brighten man's pathway in the darkness 
 of his thoughts. And as the earth craves the pure, 
 placid rays of the moon when the black clouds of 
 night intercept her from it, so does man crave the 
 pure, fond kisses of his wife when the crosses of life 
 separate her from him. 
 
 A POEM FOR THOUGHT. 
 
 It is not always wise to paint 
 
 Every fault that can be seen. 
 Lest he who thinks himself the saint, 
 
 May have himself some faults to screen. 
 
 There is in every man we see, 
 
 Some little love and good to show, 
 
 If men would only let him be. 
 
 When they pretend his faults to know. 
 
 To speak the word that makes one sad 
 Is not the word that lips should speak 
 
 To those who might have been made glad, 
 If men were not so false and weak. 
 
108 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 HAPPINESS IN LOVE. 
 
 On earth, in heaven, or anywhere. 
 If I love I'll be happ}" there. 
 Money is good and nice to have, 
 And other things may bring delight; 
 But love in my heart is enough for me, 
 No matter with whom or where I be. 
 
 True, true, indeed, I may have pain, 
 And try to please myself in vain. 
 Yet, nevertheless, I will endure, 
 And be myself in spite of all. 
 If heaven to my soul will give 
 The pain of love for love to live. 
 
 A POEM TO LIFE. 
 
 Life, sweet in my thoughts, let me love you. 
 
 No matter how little to me you may be; 
 For ere in my heart I should hate you, 
 
 I Avould rather be dead than with thee. 
 In days that are gone, mother and you 
 
 Were, to me, all that Heaven could give ; 
 But mother in sorrow did leave you, 
 
 With a hope that her child would still live. 
 Since then in your pathways I traveled. 
 
 The same as if mother remained, 
 With hope that the mysteries unravelled 
 
 Would be yet in a measure explained. 
 You meet me some days with a frown, 
 
 And again with a kiss you embrace. 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 109 
 
 As you put all my sorrows to drown 
 
 In dear hopes, that you whisper with grace. 
 
 Still oft in my thoughts it seems strange 
 That, dear, you should so stubborn be 
 
 In matters which Heaven might otherwise change, 
 If you, only, had mercy on me. 
 
 INGRATITUDE. 
 
 In looking at the world from the hills of thought 
 we can readily perceive, with much regret, that most 
 men are wont to forget what some of their fellow 
 men have done for them. If man could be made to 
 learn that ingratitude is the lowest ebb of degenera- 
 tion he might be forced to see how wicked it is to 
 forget good and do evil. Some people think that it 
 is wisdom to have the faculty of being able to get, 
 and forget, without giving anything. To such per- 
 sons, there is no such a thing as being grateful. In 
 their hearts they feel no throb of kindness or sin- 
 cerity. They go to the friend, or friends, whom they 
 have been able to deceive, and picture the necessity 
 of their needs with w^ords that would do intellectual 
 honor to the cunningness of the devil himself. Then 
 when they have exhausted the friendship that can no 
 longer endure, they wnll become either too proud or 
 too poor to reciprocate. The cord that tied them to 
 the friends they had pretended to love is cut just so 
 soon as their obligations begin to peep out from the 
 acts of the past. The friendship they had uttered in 
 the days of their need becomes a humiliation of 
 thought in the days of their prosperity. And above 
 all, they will curse with impunity the man who dares 
 
110 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 to say that they ever needed his friendship. To re- 
 member a benefactor, is to them heathen philosophy ; 
 to forget him, is the pride of their ambition. Try to 
 teach them gratitude and they will laugh at your pre- 
 sumption. Speak of some man whom you know was 
 their friend, and they will tell you that he is a two- 
 faced tattler, without either honor, worth, or prin- 
 ciple. And they will add, if they think he has told 
 3^ou of any of his relations with them, that every hair 
 in his head has cost them dollars. 
 
 In a word, the monster called ingratitude, is a 
 deplorable beast of human depravity, blinding with 
 the mist of greed the purest sentiment of human 
 inspiration. As the angry waves put to naught the 
 rippling murmurings of its would-be placid waters, 
 so does the ungrateful man destroy the kindness that 
 would otherwise kiss into accents of good fellow- 
 ship the charity with which God has endowed every 
 human soul. 
 
 LOW CONCEPTIONS. 
 
 A man of low conceptions is always more or less 
 apt to instill his own thoughts into the minds of his 
 associates. Environment, in nine cases out of ten, 
 makes everything within its sphere susceptible to it. 
 As the chiM gets its infant habits in the cradle in 
 which it is raised, so will man learn to get the inspi- 
 rations of his wishes from those with whom he min- 
 gles in daily life. No matter how nobly matured a 
 mind may be it will yield to temptations that nature 
 is unable to resist. True, that there are men who can 
 long endure the persecution of evil whispers, but in 
 time the resisting power of their souls will give up 
 
JOHN L. ME ANY 111 
 
 to the painted pleasures of natural fancy. As heat 
 will turn ice into the water of which it was made, so 
 will environment convert into waters of sin the very 
 highest aspirations of the soul. 
 
 Man then should not permit himself to mingle per- 
 sistently with and amidst men who try to make the 
 world daily more wicked than it is. Nay, more than 
 wicked. There are people in the world today who 
 would like to consume within the sphere of their own 
 sinful reach every feeling that God has given to the 
 human heart. Yes, and who would destroy, if they 
 could, every picture that virtue has painted within 
 the visions of the soul. 
 
 JEALOUSY AT HOME AND LOVE FOR ABROAD. 
 
 The indifference of man to man is almost the 
 meanest propensity of human nature. Nearly every 
 person is more or less anxious to receive the assist 
 ance of his neighbor; but few, very few indeed, are 
 willing to respond in the same manner they would 
 be willing to receive. 
 
 This is man's narrow-mindedness to the detriment 
 of his own welfare. If he only would permit him- 
 self to think that he is a creature of divine intend- 
 ment, placed in existence to be faithful to himself 
 in the multiplicity of his kind he would be s^reat^r 
 and more noble in his general personnel. The erocer 
 at the comer would be anxious to help the clothier 
 in the next block, and the farmer Avould desire the 
 welfare of the merchant just the same as he would 
 his own. Under this spirit of feeling, home indus- 
 try would be patronized. The dIow made in one's 
 
112 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 own city would be equally as good as that made 
 two hundred miles away; and the beef raised in the 
 field that is near would be equally as nourishing and 
 as delicious as that which has come from afar. 
 
 But unfortunately this is not human in its pres- 
 ent selfishness and deceit. The merchant will often 
 patronize the importer instead of the farmer who 
 lives near to him, and the farmer, in turn, will some- 
 time believe that he can do better in purchasing his 
 implements from some foreign industry. 
 
 Yet these are not the most serious instances of 
 local near-sightedness. We have here at home people 
 of every business and class who are anxious to run 
 down the commercial value of commodities manufac- 
 tured and sold within a few minutes' walk of their 
 own fireside and by merchants, manufacturers and 
 business men, who aid them with money and other 
 valuable assistance in their daily transaction of life. 
 To hear a man say that an article of furniture 
 made in Houston is not as valuable for the same 
 money as an article of its kind sold in New York 
 or Chicago, is an everyday evidence of man's for- 
 getfulness to the city and to the citizens where he 
 lives and of which he is one. Even readers of this 
 editorial will not appreciate the effort in it put forth 
 in the same manner and to the same extent that 
 they would if it had been published in a Northern 
 magazine. Everything must come from afar before 
 it is appreciated. As the poet is condemned at home 
 and admired abroad, so is the workmanship of a 
 factory, respectively, condemned and appreciated. 
 Travel where you will, observe as you may and you 
 will find this statement of facts to be true. The 
 workings of the human mind are the same every- 
 wher(» and have been throuo'h all time within the life 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 113 
 
 of man. Jealousy at home and love for abroad are 
 the two sealing impediments in the way of local 
 industry. The , one, has a kind of a hidden hatred 
 for the man who lives near by; the other is a half 
 ill-bred insanity, born in the vain boast of minds that 
 are attempting to explain problems too difficult and 
 too useless to learn. 
 
 Having premised ourselves thus, it will not be hard 
 to picture how citizens of any city may make that 
 city great. But, of course, we da not mean by this 
 that the co-operation ; unitedly, by all the citizens of 
 every city would make all cities wealthy, great and 
 artistic; because if we attempted to advance such an 
 idea, we might as well try to say that men and things 
 of the same kind should be of the same size, appear- 
 ance, structure and weight. But we do mean that 
 every city could be made greater in a comparative 
 degree if all its citizens would co-operate in advanc- 
 ing their city in a united way. For instance, let 
 us take our own city and begin to study what might 
 have been done that has not been done if all were 
 commercial friends. For then, the tailor, the grocer, 
 the banker, the brewer and the dry goods man, to- 
 gether with all other classes of merchants, would 
 feel, severally, that the business of one is as impor- 
 tant as the business of another, and that none should, 
 in justice to all, expect to get from one a patronage 
 that he would not to each one give in the mercantile 
 exchange of business relations. 
 
 WIFE, HOME AND LOVE. 
 
 When gas was first invented men were selfish 
 enough to feel that thev had done somethino' for 
 
114 EDITORIALS OF 
 
 themselves. But since gas has become a kitchen 
 agent, women have learned that men have uncon- 
 sciously done something for them. Years ago the 
 housewife slaved in the kitchen while her husband 
 thought she was at home in ease and in happiness. 
 Never did it occur to him that she had to cook three 
 meals a day in a hot room, which had to be heated 
 by the fires she made with her own hands. This, of 
 course, was not much to the man who did not stop to 
 think how hard it sometimes was to build fires out 
 of wood, coal and other fuel materials, and then 
 endure, for hours at a time, the continuous heat that 
 emitted from them; which heat, fatigue and other 
 burdens left often, if not always, the poor housewife 
 without either relish or energy to eat her meals. In 
 fact, her only pleasure was to sit at the table and see 
 her husband and other members of the family eat 
 heartily what she had, in hardship cooked, but which 
 she cooked because she loved to do something for her 
 husband -and children. 
 
 For years, years and hundreds of years, the hus- 
 band looked on without caring to notice the slavery 
 of his wife. And we suppose he would continue to 
 look on forever, in this indolent and selfish manner, 
 if Providence had not inspired someone of the more 
 ingenius and more kind of us to think of the gas 
 stove. 
 
 But this little happiness which the housewife is 
 receiving from the gas stove is somewhat marred by 
 the chibhouse lie, the s^'ck friend story and the 
 treachery of the midnight home-comer. To make 
 woman really happy you must give her love. This 
 feeling in her heart is as persistent as water flowing 
 to the level of its own height. The world may give 
 her money, friends, honor and everything else it has, 
 
JOHN L. MEANY 115 
 
 and yet she feels that she means nothing to herself 
 unless she knows she is loved. 
 
 This is woman in every clime, age and sphere, 
 regardless of what, to the contrary, may be said of 
 her. She has faults to be sure, but if man would 
 love her as he should the home might be made much 
 more happy than it often is ; and many of the sorrows 
 and troubles of the husband would vanish in the 
 depth and purity of the love he would see in her for 
 him. 
 
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