FROM THE HEAD CONSUL, MODERN WOODMEN AMERICA
Mr. Will M. Maupin, Editor "Maupin's Weekly' City:
I have just returned from a trip to Texas and other points, so
I have been delayed in answering your circular letter concern
ing the publication of your weekly paper. I am enclosing you
herewith one dollar for my subscription to the paper, and in
doing so I want to congratulate you upon your new undertak
ing. I know you are an honest, upright man, and a fearless
and competent journalist; therefore I pin my faith to you and
your paper, believing that it will be successful because of the
high plane upon which you propose to run it. Much of the
so-called press of the country has degenerated into a sort of
detective association, rather than developing into a news gath
ering enterprise or helpful discussion of ideals and purposes in
the lives of men who try to do good. I believe . in humanity
and I believe in the honesty and integrity of men; and that
most men try to do the right thing and bring to themselves
and their community success and commendable progress.
Therefore I welcome into my home a paper, the aim
and purpose of which will be to speak well of those men and
institutions who strive to succeed and actually accomplish
something, rather than to look for the weakness of men to
throw about their progress handicaps and stumbling blocks in
the way of adverse criticism. Do not understand me to be
opposed to reasonable and helpful suggestion. In other words,
I am in favor of constructive criticism of men and measures,
but I am opposed to, and regret to see in our public press, so
much of destructive criticism, havintf fnr itsnnlv nhifrt arinar-
ently, the satisfaction of pulling down some one who is trying
to do the best he can, with pure and holy motives, for his owr
advancement and the help of his community.
I welcome to my home a paper that will once in awhile
speak good of a man who does things, who is aggressive and
pushing ahead, and who has heretofore been unnoticed by our
great public press unless he stubs his toe. Then he can be
cartooned and criticized and shown up as the incarnation of
the frailties and weakness of his class.
I shall not write poetry for your paper, but I shall read
it and have my family peruse its columns because I know the
man who presides over it.
With kindest personal regards I remain sincerely and
fraternally yours,
A. R. TALBOT.
CURT COMMENT OF THE TIMES
Will Maupin's Weekly confesses its disap
pointment over the failure to make Sunday
base ball legal in Nebraska. But at the same
time it allso confesses that it admires the
backbone of Governor Aldrieh in vetoing the
Bartling bill. This seemingly parradoxical
confession is easily explained. The present .
law makes Sunday base ball illegal. The
Bartlling bill proposed to legalize it in all
communities, save only those that by refer
endum prohibited it. In other words the bill
was negatively drawn It left a looph.ole
whereby the game could not be properly con
trolled in certain communities, and deprived
the people of those communities of the right
to express themselves.
We hold that ball playing on Sunday is
not a bit more immoral than pleasure riding
in autos and buggies, or sitting down to a
fine Sunday dinner prepared by a perspiring
and tired housewife. Nor do we think that
the church has any moral right to set a stand
ard of Sunday observance, especially when
it undertakes to set a standard that deprives
the wage earner of doing as he seems best
on the only day of the week given to him
for rest and recreation, without giving him
something in return. But the wage earner
who demands Sunday base ball and other
Sunday amusements is endangering many "of
the reforms he has already secured by unit
ed effort. A little investigation, will disclose
that in those communities where Sunday is
least observed as a day of rest and worship,
the proportion of Sunday workers is largest.
In other words, the secularizing of the Sab
bath simply means that sooner or later the
wage earner will be compelled to work
seven days a week in order to make a living
when he is now able to make a living by
working only six days a week. This is a
point that the proponents of Sunday base
ball should consider carefully.
; But opposing Sunday base ball on moral
grounds is vastly different from opposing it
on physical and industrial grounds. The v
prohibiting of Sunday sports or even of Sun
day work on the ground that such is morally
wrong, is a relic of the dark ages. It is on a
par with the old-time effort to compel men
to be good according to the standard of
goodness set up by those who happened to
be in a position to enforce their mandates.
This resulted in burning at the stake and
boiling in oil, and various other forms of
punishment.
Governor Aldrieh has a perfect right to
oppose Sunday base ball if he so desires.
But his veto was not based on personal op
position to the playing of the game on Sun
day. His message clearly indicated that. He
opposed the ftrm of the proposed law, and
in that opposition we must agree with him
in a measure. That ''politics" played an im
portant parrt in the whole transaction is
clear to the most casual observer, and if
Governor Aldrieh played back at the emin
ent political managers who endeavored to
"put him in a hole" on this Suday ball pro
position, then he merely did what any man
with red blood in his veins would have done.
It is unfortunate for lovers of the game
that politics should have been allowed to in
terfere in a careful consideration of the sub
ject. , And it is especially unfortunate inso
far as local conditions in Lincoln are con
cerned. This veto is going to be felt in the
settlement of a very vexing question that is
soon to be decided by the voters of Lincoln.
In the opinion of Will Maupin's Weekly, the
veto of Governor Aldrieh will mean quite a
big bunch of votes for the "wet" side of
the Lincoln controversy.
Some marital statistics of Lancaster coun
ty may have a bearing on a question recently
discussed in Omaha. During the month of
March there were 73 marriage licenses is
sued in Lancaster, county. During the same
month the district court of Lancaster county
granted 19 divorces. This means that prac
tically one marriage in every four is a de
cided failure. And the trouble is the per
centage of failures is growing. Perhaps this
is due in a measure to our failure to use
commonsense'in the matter of teaching sex
hygiene "the biggest subject in the whole
world," according to Dr- Martha Wells of
Omaha. We have books by the hundred on
the science of breeding animals, and these
books are sold openly in bookstores and left
lying around the home where the chilldren
may see them. But let some one suggest
that we give the children an opportunity to
learn something about breeding up the hu
man tribe and immediately prudes throw up
their hands and proceed to have a virtuous
fit. Girls are allowed to grow up into wo
manhood and become wives and mothers
without having been taught the fundamen
tals of sex hygiene. Boys grow into man
hood and become husbands and fathers with
out having the faintest conception of their
duties and responsibilities. As a result the
divorce courts are not only over-crowded,
but we are rapidly breeding a population of
irresponsibles, incompetents, "throw-backs",
and feeble-minded. The state appropriates
large sums to breed up cattle and horses and
hogs, but it allows its human animals to
breed indiscriminately. The farmer who
would allow his hogs and cattle to mate in
discriminately would be dubbed a fool. Yet
parents allow their childdren to mate indis- ?