PARTC CRIMIN LIBRARY THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SANTA BARBARA PRESENTED BY MISS PEARL CHASE gARTICEPS CR1MINIS THE STORY OF A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE BY ERVIN S. CHAPMAN, D.D., LL.D. Author of " The Czolgosz of Trade and Commerce," "A Stainless Flag" etc. ILLUSTRATED BY HARRY GRAYDON PARTLOW NEW YORK CHICAGO TORONTO Fleming H. Revell Company LONDON AND EDINBURGH Copyright, 1910, by ERVIN S. CHAPMAN New York: 158 Fifth Avenue Chicago : 80 Wabash Avenue Toronto : 25 Richmond Street, W. London : 21 Paternoster Square Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street TO rin (Eljapman ONE OF THE TWENTY MILLION CHAPTER I. ? fTTjHERE are many large sections of California in which the rabbit is re- garded as an intolerable pest. So numerous and voracious are they as to make impossible the successful prosecu- tion of any branch of agriculture. With ravenous appetite they girdle every fruit tree and fruit-bearing vine and consume every blade of grass and every green leaf within their reach. In those portions of the state where rabbits thus abound it has been found necessary occasionally to en- gage in concentrated movements for the destruction of these little animals. The number of rabbits is so great and \ PARTICEPS CRIMINIS their increase is so rapid that the ordi- nary methods of trapping, shooting and poisoning are of but little value. The ranchmen, therefore, unite in what are known as "Rabbit Drives" to accomplish the wholesale slaughter of these obstacles to agricultural pursuits. The residents of a large section of country usually join in one of these rabbit drives. FIELD SELECTED AND PREPARED. At a carefully chosen place on the plain a rabbit-tight corral of a half -acre, more or less, in area, is constructed with an opening or door at one side. This corral is located at a point most favorable to the accomplishment of large results, irrespective of the points of the compass, but to aid in making clear this descrip- tion we will suppose the corral is located at the east side and midway between the A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE northern and southern boundary of the section of country over which the opera- tions are to be conducted, and that the corral door faces the west. At the north side of this door the corral fence turns abruptly and extends in a northwesterly direction from a half mile to two or three times that distance according to the mag- nitude of the movement. At the south PARTICEPS CRIMINIS side of the door also, the fence turns and extends in a southwesterly direction at the same angle and distance as the other. These two out-reaching fences marking the boundary of a fan-shaped tract of many hundreds of acres of rabbit- infested territory resemble two wide- spread welcoming arms. THE RABBIT DRIVERS. Several miles west of the corral is formed a semi-circular cordon of men with its concave side toward the corral, and its two ends extending out to the north and south and wider apart than are the two western ends of the outreaching corral fences. Several hundred men are sometimes formed into such a cordon and at a given signal all proceed at a uniform rate of speed toward the corral, beating bushes, pans and drums, tooting horns, s a < H A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE and making all possible tumult without the aid of dogs or firearms, and thus driv- ing the affrighted bunnies toward the distant corral. THE TIGHTENING CORDON. As they advance, the two ends of this cordon overlap the two ends of the corral fences to avoid the danger of the escape of the fleeing and fleet-footed bunnies. When this cordon forms a junction with the corral fences the rabbits are enclosed by the corral, the fences and the cor- don of men. And, as amid a cloud of dust they hasten toward the wide-open door of their carefully constructed prison, they resemble a vast flock of sheep and lambs playfully seeking the protecting enclosure of their beloved fold. When at length the rabbits are all within the corral, the door is closed and men leap PARTICEPS CRIMINIS over the fence and heartlessly club them all to death. Not one beautiful bunny which enters the corral is permitted to escape this wholesale and heartless slaughter. STORY REPEATED AND APPLIED. Aided by the accompanying illustra- tions I will endeavor, with greater full- ness and as clearly as possible, to explain in detail some of thethrillingly interesting features of a successful rabbit drive. The story should be read in its entirety that its full significance may be understood and realized. However necessary the rabbit drives may be, we cannot refrain from a feeling of tender pity for the soft-furred little bunnies that are thus driven to cruel slaughter. When they realize their peril and utter helplessness, their large, f riend- 6 \ \ ly eyes assume a glassy glare of fright- ened protest against their doom, and move us with a strong desire to rush to their deliverance. And if those bunnies were boys, who were thus being sacrificed, our zeal for their deliverance would overleap all re- straint, and the civilized world would rise up and with vehement indignation de- mand and secure the cessation of such barbarities. STARTLING ANALOGY. Yet, a rabbit drive, with all its acces- sories and revolting results, is a startling illustration of what the beverage liquor traffic is accomplishing upon the boyhood of the nation. If we regard the corral into which the rabbits are driven as an illustration of the condition of those who have become helpless inebriates, each flee- ing bunny becomes in our thought a dar- 7 JteFiR, t PARTICEPS CRIMINIS ling boy rushing to a drunkard's doom. We must not shudder and shrink from the contemplation of this startling anal- ogy. Possibly we thus may bring to our own hearts temporary relief, but it is the relief which cowards seek and which true men and women heroically refuse. SINFUL SLUMBER. Many have turned and fled from the scene when the rabbit drive they had come to witness reached its revolting stages, but the rabbit drive went on to its tragic end. And the boy drive now in progress will not stop because we refuse to recog- nize its existence or to listen to the lesson which it teaches. We may aid to stop it if we will awaken to a realization of its existence and of its unspeakable enormi- ties. I trust the reader will aid me by close attention and true sympathy while 8 f~s*J$3<& A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE I point out the startling resemblances be- tween the details of a successful rabbit drive, as I shall describe it, and the details of the processes by which so many of our buoyant youth are hurried to a dismal destiny. The rabbit drive and the boy drive! The one illustrates the other. Some of their features are startlingly similar. Be- tween others there is an equally striking dissimilarity. DISSIMILAR FEATURES. RABBIT DRIVES ALWAYS BEGIN WITH AN EMPTY CORRAL. When the long cordon of men is formed and the signal to begin the drive is heard, not one bright-eyed bunnie is within the distant enclosure which soon will become to many of them a bastile for 9 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS their ghastly execution. But the drunk- ard's corral the condition of helpless in- ebriety which in this analo'gy the rabbit corral is made to represent is ever full of its dejected and degraded inmates. They throng the streets of our great cit- ies and by the million crowd into the haunts of vice and the realm of indigence and want. Brief is their stay within that realm, for their condition marks the nearing of their journey's end, and their passing seems never to diminish the num- bers of this wrecked and ruined multitude. BABBIT DRIVE OF SHORT DURATION. It continues only a few fleeting hours and then the work of rabbit driving and of rabbit slaughter will not be again re- sumed for months or years, and perhaps never again in that locality. But the boy drive never ceases. As constant as the 10 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE flight of time is the movement of the countless throng whose path of sunny youth becomes the rocky road to wretch- edness and ruin. The evening finds the lovely lad nearer his dreadful destiny than when the morning dawned. And while night's sable curtains hang in gen- erous wealth about his cot, the space is steadily diminishing between his sleeping pillow and his doom. He knows no solitude or seclusion, for like his noonday shadow a multitude is ever with him, each one like himself con- stantly facing and approaching the gloom of nameless night. The rabbit drive is for a single day, but through the ceaseless centuries the boy drive contin- ues its mad and murderous activity. And not limited as is the rabbit drive to the area of a few fertile fields, but upon a scale vast as the extent of civilization ws- *% a -j" W ^ '< - ** * ; ft '- ^i J ! e&itflL^Jl^i&f PARTICEPS CRIMINIS are the activities of this unspeakable barbarity. RABBIT DRIVES PROTECTIVE. Cruel as the rabbit drive may seem to be, it always is conducted for the protec- tion of important human interests. But the boy drive is alike destructive of the manhood and the material prosperity of the nation. Fruitful orchards and vine- yards, grassy meadows and golden har- vests, with homes made bright and happy by their needed blessings are the after- math of a necessary and successful rabbit drive. But in the wake of the boy drive material ruin is always found. SIMILAR FEATURES. If a rabbit drive were planned and conducted for the sole purpose of illus- trating the processes by which the ruin 12 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE of bright and promising boys is accom- plished, the two proceedings could not more nearly be alike. Each is of VAST DIMENSIONS. A rabbit drive is not usually regarded as successful or satisfactory unless its furry victims are numbered by the thou- sands. As many as twenty thousand bunnies have been corraled and killed at a single drive during the hours of one working day. Upon an extended field swept by the cordon of men a much larger number of rabbits are found, some of which escape, and that countless throng upon that field reminds us of the twenty million American lads from five to nineteen years of age scattered over those portions of our country where influ- ..,..,*' ences more potent than are those engaged ^Wg in an enthusiastic rabbit drive, are, with .^ PAETICEPS CRIMINIS tremendous force, pressing them nearer and still nearer to the darkness that knows no day. Twenty thousand bunnies slain during a few frolicsome hours! Twenty million boys diligently sought, for a far more savage slaughter. Those twenty million boys, if arranged three feet apart, as they appear in the school yard when awaiting the call to their class rooms, would fill to its limit a field of more than 4,132 acres. A square mile of boys! Yes, more than six square miles a solid mass of bust- ling, buoyant boyhood extending over an area of three and one- fourth miles in length by two miles in width. Arranged in single file three feet apart, as if marching in parade, they would make an army more than 11,363 miles in length. Marching at the rate of three miles per hour for eight hours per day it would 14 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE require 474 days for that tremendous army to pass a given point. Nearly eighteen months would be required to mobilize that single-column army to their places in the thousands of broad acres. As in our thoughts we view those more than four thousand acres of exuberant youth we cannot overlook the limitless affection which holds them in its warmth and tenderness, nor the infinite and hoped-for possibilities of those twenty million boys. And that is the quarry the game-hunters are seeking! Around that field the cordon of Satanic influences is extended. Over that field the boy drive is now in active operation, and from that field, where all is now so glad and gay, many will be borne to vagrancy and vice as the playful bunnies are driven from their joyous freedom to their awful doom. Yes, "many," very, very many, PARTICEPS CRIMINIS more by far than our faltering faith causes our unwilling hearts to realize, more than three hundred during the fleet- ing hours of one brief day are swept, as with a tempest, into the engulfing vortex of despair. Three hundred boys during each and every day! Twenty thousand boys in ten weeks and then twenty thou- sand more during a like period until one hundred thousand boys, while the year goes by, yield to the potential agency by which they are "driven out of the world." NOT ENTICED, BUT DRIVEN. Yes, "driven"! It is a rabbit drive I am describing, not a trap nor snare, nor covered pitfall in which the rabbits may through lack of prudence be engulfed. The rabbits are driven into the corral, and by a tremendous pressure our na- tion's boyhood is being forced into the 16 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE excessive and destructive use of ardent spirits. If 'left wholly to their own free choice, without the alluring prospects of securing food, very few, if any, of the coy and careful little bunnies would ever enter the strong enclosure so skillfully constructed for their imprisonment. But they are not left free to the exercise of their voluntary choice. They are driven to a destiny they would never voluntarily secure. Human wisdom, skill and effort are vigorously employed to overcome their weaker will and literally to drive them into the corral. No obstacle is per- mitted between them and that prison pen, no man nor beast nor frightening sound to make difficult or doubtful their rapid movements toward their bastile's open door. The mission of government, as Glad- stone tells us, is "to make it easy to do 17 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS right and difficult to do wrong," but the first work of the boy drive is to make it as easy as possible to do wrong. From the intended victim's mind all apprehen- sion of danger is carefully removed. Warning voices that might affright him from the path of peril are not permitted to be heard, having been hushed to silence by the flatterer's assuring tones. His own nobler nature is invoked to banish prudential fear. He is made to regard himself as too well poised and self-suffi- cient ever to become a victim of the flow- ing bowl. Men addicted to their cups and far advanced toward the yawning gateway of the drunkard's realm of utter helplessness are still held in such high repute as to lure the confiding lad to fol- low in their footsteps, just as the bunnies that are fleeing toward their doom en- courage others to do the same. ,The rab- 18 A CALIFORNIA BABBIT DRIVE bits which have not yet begun their move- ment toward their awaiting prison walls are started on that fatal road by their fellow bunnies whose confident advance in that direction gives assurance that the way is safe. And just as the masters of the fatal rabbit drive spare no pains to cause the free and roaming bunnies to believe the noiseless plain extending toward the distant and unobserved corral is free from peril, so our confiding youth are assured and reassured that no voracious lions of controlling appetite lurk along the way of a moderate use of intoxicating drinks. And all who aid in producing that conviction contribute to the success of the barbarous boy drive, the unspeak- able iniquity of every community in which it has existence. CHAPTER II. ALL FACES TOWARD THE CORRAL. LL things are now in readiness, but the rabhit drive will not begin until the signal for activity is heard. The unsuspect- ing bunnies skip and play among the sheltering shrubs and bask or browse at will. A wondrous change will soon sweep over this enchanting scene, and before it comes let us gaze in mute reflection on this wide and peaceful land- scape. Standing south of the southernmost fence and midway between the corral and the ends of the outspreading fences we look eastward and trace the dim but 20 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE shapely outlines of the strong corral, and from its open western door we see the two long lines of fences extending westward and spreading wide apart like a loving mother's arms of holy welcome. Now turn the eye toward the western limit of this quiet plain and see that long crescen- tic cordon of standing men at equal dis- tance from each other, and all with faces toward the rising sun. Eastward from that cordon thousands of browsing bun- nies are moving free as the air they breathe and peaceful as the heavenly light by which they are enswathed. The faces and the movements of those bunnies are in all directions. Not one of all that free and joyous throng suspects that very soonj he will be madly rushing to his ruin, and that ere the shadows of the night shall fall he will be the helpless victim of his unrelenting foes. To the unsuspecting 21 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS human mind no evidence appears that such will be the case. THE SIGNAL AND RESPONSE. But the appointed time has come and over all that plain the clarion call is heard. The bunnies heed it not, but to the sturdy ranchmen in that extended cordon it is a signal for activity and it is answered by a shout so long and loud and fierce that every craggy shrub, and every tuft of withered grass seems to have found "the voice of many waters" and the violence of the ocean's fiercest storm. Continuous and terrible as is the tempest's ceaseless roar, that shout is heard mingling with the din and uproar of the resounding pans and drums and all the tumult that human skill and cunning can produce. With the barbaric tumult the long cordon of men advances with slow and measured 22 H ft | g W H CJ o ^ ffi w H A CALIFORNIA -RABBIT DRIVE tread, and with strong and heavy clubs they beat with violence every shrub and bush that stands within their reach. The limit of their ability is ae limit of the ter- rific tumult they produce and the af- frighted bunnies flee, but all with faces turned, as are the faces of their foes, toward the strong enclosure which is ready to receive them. The rabbit drive has now begun and with all the force of vigorous and deter- mined human effort the rabbits are being hastened onward to the corral. As truly as if borne along by a resistless force those timid, frightened, little creatures are by the threatening tumult of that advancing human cordon compelled through fear to flee in terror from their foes. In their ignorance and fright they have not power to do otherwise than to flee. They are not persuaded, they are PARTICEPS CRIMINIS not enticed, they are literally driven to- ward and into the corral. Not one of all their number has felt the touch of any weapon in the hands of their pursuers, but there has been used a force quite as potential as a blow a force which they were powerless to resist and to which, with rare exceptions, they have promptly yielded. CURSED BY COMPULSION. I am pressing this fact, I am holding it thus protractedly before the reader that all may feel its force when it is made to illustrate the processes by which the most lovely and promising boys, as they ad- vance to the estate of manhood, become helpless, degraded slaves of rum. They are driven into a condition of degradation and ruin. As truly as the cordon of robust, sturdy ranchmen drive the af- 24 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE frighted bunnies into the corral, so truly do existing influences combine and oper- ate to drive our boys to drunken degrada- tion and disgrace. Not by the tumult which always attends a successful rabbit drive, but by proceedings equally effect- ive is the boy drive made to gather its millions from the first born of the land. COMPELLED TO MAKE THE CHOICE THEY DO. Some would seek to put aside this aw- ful truth by claiming that only by the exercise of their own free choice do any find their way into the dismal prison house of helpless inebriety; that none are driven to the drunkard's doom. With equal truthfulness and force it may be said the rabbits are not driven into the imprisoning corral ; they choose to go and none but they can be held responsible for 25 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS their choice. Yet the stubborn fact re- mains they are driven into the corral. It is a rabbit drive of which we are speak- ing, and while the bunnies flee in the direction of their own choice, they are compelled to choose the way that leads them to their prison and to their tragic death. With their timid natures and their meager knowledge, the encircling and besetting tumult overmasters their every inclination save the one to flee in that direction where no frightening sounds are heard. Their weaker natures are sub- jected to the stronger will of man, and they move along the lines of his choosing even to their own cruel slaughter. Startlingly true is all this when applied to our cherished boys. Gruesome and gloomy the region of despair waits for their coming, and influences as potent and as active as is any band of determined 26 A CALIFORNIA BABBIT DRIVE rabbit drivers are now at work hastening them onward to that fearful future. With human nature as it is, and with con- ditions as they are, the nation's boy drive, as now conducted, cannot fail to force millions of manly boys to a most unmanly close of life. They may pursue their chosen path, but stronger wills than theirs, and influences which many of them are not able to resist, are compelling them to choose the path that leads to ruin. They are not compelled to drink, but they are compelled to choose to drink, and just at that point where the course pursued is decided upon and chosen, the ranchmen win their victory over the destructive bun- nies, and evil influences accomplish the destruction of our boys. And whatever tends to cause a boy to choose or to con- sent to the use of ardent spirits is to that boy what the rabbit driver's efforts are to 27 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS the bunnies he is seeking to destroy. It is driving the boy to his ruin. It tends to compel his choice of a wrong course and to encourage him to pursue that course, and in so doing it drives him to destruction. FAMILY LIQUOR DRINKING. is first among the agencies that are influ- encing our boyhood's fatal choice. From the cellar and from the sideboard of the home is borne to the family dining table the stimulating cup of which both young and old partake. How can that suscepti- ble boy refrain from sipping the luscious liquid which is set before him, against which no word is spoken, and which he sees partaken of so freely by his father the one whom he delights to regard as the prince of sterling manliness. That imitating lad has not the power to cast 28 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE aside the harmful influence of his father's dining-room example. His father is not forcing him to drink, but by an influence which the boy cannot resist he is forcing him to choose to drink. In later years, when character is formed, and that young lad has grown to man's estate, he may, with iron will, pursue the pathway of his choice uninfluenced by what others may say or do. But in his boyhood, in the family group, and by the family board, he is overmastered and compelled to choose to sip the tempting cup. It is not enticement but compulsion of which I am now speaking, and with the reluctance of a sympathetic heart, I am insisting that as the ranchmen drive the bunnies to their death, so by the family use of liquor parents are driving their children to drunkenness and ruin. They are not commanding, and thus compell- 29 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS ing, their children now to imbibe, but their table customs and habits exert a determining influence, and drive their children to the habitual use of ardent spirits. It is an appalling truth that as, in the rabbit drive the fleeing bunnies influence others also to flee, so in the boy drive parents and older members of the family may be both the driven and the drivers ; may be far on the way to the con- dition of helpless inebriety, and may also be active and efficient agents in causing others and even those whom they love most ardently to pursue a kindred course. It is unspeakably appalling that the hallowed influences of family and home should be prostituted to the iniquitous work of making a nation-wide boy drive by which each year a hundred thousand drunkards are forced to cruel slaughter and a hundred thousand youth are started 30 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE on the course that leads directly to the drunkard's doom, and that in this stupen- dous tragedy parents become the execu- tioners of their own children. But so it is, and of the one hundred thousand boys who, during each year, begin the inebri- ate's career, a very large per cent take their first step in that direction in their own homes and with their own parents. Since what is known as moderate drink- ing is the only path that leads to habitual inebriety, the home and family use of liquors is an utterly unpardonable sin against the rising generation. It is piti- ful that men should drive the furry bun- nies to their savage slaughter; it is infin- itely infamous that parents should so deal with their offspring that their influence and achievements are but faintly illus- trated by the activities and atrocities of a rabbit drive. PARTICEPS CRIMINIS SOCIAL LIQUOR DRINKING is close akin to the family use of intoxi- cating beverages and successfully carries forward the harmful work begun at home. As by family drinking, kindred ties are made the bonds that bind the boy to evil habits, so by the social cup the ties of friendship come to be the fetters that hold the young man to the downward way. The habit of social liquor drinking is driving our young men to early ruin. It is making it easy for them to do wrong and difficult to do right. The fellowship of kindred spirits, the joys and delights of social intercourse, the delicate but potential influence of lovely girlhood and winsome womanhood are accomplishing upon our coming citizenship results much like those achieved upon the frightened 32 A CALIFORNIA BABBIT DRIVE rabbits by the ranchmen's threatening tu- mult and advance. Their influence, like the pressure of the tightening and tumultuous human cor- don conducting the destructive rabbit drive, is all upon one side of the vast liv- ing throng, and is, so nearly irresistible that it practically compels obedience. If the influence of the powerful cordon of determined men upon the timid and de- fenseless bunnies is such as justifies the name, "Rabbit Drive," then I am speak- ing within the limits of moderation when I claim that social liquor drinking is part of a stupendous boy drive that pollutes the nation's honor and tarnishes her name. FESTIVE LIQUOR DRINKING. The use of intoxicating beverages with meals is perhaps the most successful of all agencies now engaged in filling the 33 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS boy drive bastile with its degraded vic- tims. Eating and drinking are necessary to the preservation of human life, and to partake of food and beverage as associ- ated portions of a simple or a sumptuous meal ever has been the custom of our race. And when nature's crystal beverage, "born of the clouds and filtered through the everlasting hills," is given its rightful place with pure and wholesome food, mil- lions of every age will move from their dining halls strengthened and inspired wisely and well to act their parts in life. And into a rugged manhood the sturdy boy will grow apace, by each repast lifted to a higher place of strength and courage and unsullied character and life. When in the dining hall of restaurant, cafe or hostelry, or at the sumptuous banquet, no beverage that intoxicates is found, the festal board at home and at other human 34 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE habitats ceases to be, as now so many are, the places where inebriates begin their downward course. But when the crystal beverage is put aside and at the festal board an alcoholic drink assumes its place, the liquor-serving sideboard wherever found, for extent of harmful work, heads the list of all the potent influences that drive the boys to ruin. Festive liquor drinking includes so much of family and social liquor drink- ing as is indulged in while partaking of a meal. But the chief realms of its oper- ations are the hotel with its liquor-selling sideboard, together with liquor-serving restaurants, cafes and banquets. The use of liquor as part of a sumptu- ous meal in a reputable hotel is peculiarly fascinating. At a table well supplied with savory food, with congenial friends, and with winsome women as companions, 35 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS by their example and their words inviting them to drink, millions of young men have taken their first glass of liquor. But those who have been reared under the in- fluence of family liquor drinking readily fall into the more excessive use of stimu- lating beverages in dining-rooms where they are served. The liquor goblet, which in a dive or low saloon would seem a symbol of dis- grace, assumes an air of dignity when placed upon the dining-table of a repu- table hotel, and the more respectable the ihostelry, the more magnificent and gor- geous its equipment, the more enticing does that liquor goblet seem and the more readily does the young man of strict sobriety yield to the temptation to join his boon companions in the festive use of liquor. 36 A CALIFORNIA EABBIT DRIVE Countless throngs of strong young men, whom no persuasion could have caused to cross the threshold of a fash- ionable saloon, have fallen ready vic- tims to the fascination of festive liquor drinking in a fashionable hotel. The genial fellowship of festive liquor drink- ing, the presence at the table of cherished kindred spirits, endows with power well- nigh resistless this most alluring and en- ticing of all earthly foes, and by this fes- tive liquor drinking, whether in the fam- ily or in the social circle, whether in the restaurant, cafe, hotel or banquet hall, this use of liquor beverages with meals more than any other single influence is tightening the compelling cordon and forcing on to their ruin the nation's boy- hood and the nation's hope and strength. And making liquor drinking part of a repast, whether eaten alone or in company 37 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS with others, tends to increase by large per cents the quantity of liquor drank. Eat- ing causes thirst and whets the appetite for drink, especially if the beverage taken tickles the palate and is pleasing to the taste. A single glass of liquor taken at a public bar will satisfy a man who, while he eats a savory and sumptuous meal, will drink and drink again and still again, fill- ing and quaffing off more glasses of the sparkling beverage than he could be in- duced to take without the food of which he has partaken freely while he drank. This is a very serious truth and tells the reason why so many men are borne in drunken stupor from the festal board to their apartments or their homes. Many such are never known to be intoxicated save by the liquor drank with meals. This seeming strange but well attested fact cannot be charged to the greater 38 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE strength of liquor served with meals, nor can it be explained by claiming that mix- ing liquor with the food we eat increases its intoxicating power. The frequent turning of joyous festal scenes to baccha- nalian revels and drunken orgies is due to the excessive use of liquors when con- sumed with food. And by lingering at the liquor-serving banquet board, brainy and well-poised men, unconscious of the fact, sink to a maudlin stupor, and to reach their homes require the aid of men less overcome by festal liquor drinking. The frequency of such events with men of excellent repute and of habitual sobri- ety is startling proof that festal liquor drinking from its very nature tends alarmingly to multiply the quantity of liquor which otherwise would be con- sumed. And by a law as fixed and force- ful as the law of gravitation men who 39 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS indulge in liquor beverages with meals sink to a lower level on which they shrink not to be found among the patrons of the bar. There is a straight, well-beaten path leading from the hotel sideboard to the hotel bar, and on and on through fashion- able saloons to dives and dens of vice and the boy drive's dismal dungeon and what lies beyond. All who indulge in festal liquor drinking do not reach those lower levels, but the tendency is in that direc- tion, and few there are who once walked proudly in the ranks of worthy manhood, and subsequently sank to lower levels of indulgence, who do not reach that degra- dation by the path beginning with the moderate use of alcoholic drinks with meals. CHAPTER III. O widespread is its influ- ence and so harmful is the festive use of liquor that its wreck and ruin of our race is but feebly illustrated by the most revolting features of a cruel rabbit drive. As the stalwart ranchmen, armed with strong and heavy clubs, beating the cragged bushes and with horns and pans and deep-toned drums creating pandemo- nium, drive the frightened rabbits to their awful doom, so the hotel sideboard license and all the features of the festal use of rum are with relentless fury driving to their dismal destiny millions of our na- tion's choicest spirits. And all who have PARTICEPS CRIMINIS a part in this most cunning and insidious feature of the liquor curse are adding to the harvest and the horrors of the barbar- ous boy drive with its infamous acces- sories and its atrocities of cruel slaughter. SALOON LIQUOR DRINKING holds a conspicuous place in that strong and strenuous cordon of agencies that combine to drive each year into the drunk- ard's prison house, and into that deeper gloom that lies beyond, one hundred thou- sand erstwhile choice and charming boys. The door of that saloon is ever open, or, if closed, it swings easily upon its hinges and thus invites their entrance. Over the threshold of that lightly swinging door, into the brightness of that crystal, gilded hall, a countless throng is passing, well- taught and trained in family, social and festive liquor drinking. And because that 42 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE room where alcoholic drink is sold is there, there on the street, there by the edict of the government, because it is there where it has bought its right to be and by its glittering gold has bribed its way into a mock respectability because it's there, so near and so convenient, millions turn and enter its welcoming doors and patronize its bar who, without the silent but effect- ive invitation of its presence, would pass onward to their homes or to their daily tasks without a thought of thirst. During the hours of public worship on a Sabbath day, in a city noted for its so- called liberal policy, I sat in meditation by my hotel window, viewing the moving throngs upon the street, regretting the unwelcome fate that kept me from the house of God. Soon the number on the streets diminished and only those were seen who were not seeking sanctuary priv- 43 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS ileges. As I sat thus wrapped in medita- tion, my attention was attracted to a stal- wart-built young man of handsome fea- tures moving down the street with grace- ful dignity. Instantly my heart warmed toward him, for since my years of inti- mate association with our nation's mighty men I thrill with interest when I see a young American whose looks and move- ments seem prophetic of a future of dis- tinction. I wondered who the fine young fellow was and whether he would grow into the sterling ,citizen he seemed by na- ture destined to become. With eager in- terest I watched his every movement until at length across the street from my hotel, and opposite the window where I sat, he quickly turned and entered a saloon. Before my shocked and saddened heart resumed its wonted movements, I saw two more superbly built young men f ol- 44 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE low his footsteps and disappear beyond the easy-swinging door. And sitting at that hotel window during the two mid- day hours I saw and counted one hundred finely dressed young men enter that gild- ed palace and withdraw. That they en- tered the saloon to patronize its bar was proven by their movements as they has- tened on their journey wiping the mois- ture from their lips. Not all who passed along that street those midday hours entered that grog- shop door. Some who walked alone halted not to quench their thirst save at the nearby flowing fountain, and none who walked with ladies (as many did) entered the saloon at all. These were my observations in a rum-cursed city during the two midday hours of a Sabbath day. The presence of that drinking house right there upon that crowded street was 45 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS in itself a silent invitation to enter and indulge in liquor drinking, and within two short hours one hundred promising young men permitted that one saloon to join its efforts with those of other mem- bers of the driving cordon and to force them further on their road to ruin. They yielded as the frightened bunnies yield to the tumult of the rabbit drivers, and the presence of the open drinking house with its display of sparkling and enticing bev- erages overcame their better judgment and their nobler inclination and drove them to the choice they made. The plate glass front and glittering trappings of that saloon added enor- mously to its tempting power and to its contribution to the combined influence of the boy drive cordon of which it was a strong, effective part. And to make the influence of that 46 A CALIFORNIA BABBIT DRIVE saloon compulsory, or as nearly so as pos- sible, its infamous achievement during the two hours of that Lord's Day, and during all the hours of all the days, was under governmental sanction, protection and encouragement. Upon the wall of that saloon there hung, where all who entered could behold it, a general govern- ment receipt for the tribute that saloon had paid for the privilege of selling sor- row and the consequent assurance of immunity from any interference by the nation. And to add immensely to the wickedness of the proceedings, and to in- crease that grogshop's power for evil, it was under the full protection of the state and city that that harmful work was car- ried on. And forty more saloons within that city, and hundreds of thousands more within the nation, were taxing their every power to make effective the nation's 47 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS boy drive aided by civil government, the agency which God ordained to safeguard every human interest by peremptorily forbidding all that is evil in its nature and harmful in its influence. It was at that hotel window, with my heart throbs beating strong and fast with righteous indignation, that the Spirit taught me the lesson I am now endeavor- ing to record, of the startling analogy between a rabbit drive and the move- ments that are forcing our loving lads and promising young men by millions to their dreadful doom. And at a public meeting in that city, with a zeal that knew no moderation, I proclaimed that night the vision I had seen. After years had passed I sat again at that same hotel window during the hours of public worship, and though the street was thronged with people, not one foot- 48 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE step passed the threshold of that popular saloon, for "Sunday closing" had locked its door during that one day of the week. And then I realized more fully than ever I had before that the presence of the saloon is in itself a strong temptation, that the liquor-selling bar creates the thirst men seek in vain to quench, and that the good results of closing the saloon for one brief day bear witness to the wis- dom of closing it forever. OFFICIAL LIQUOR DRINKING aids the boy drive mightily by assuring talented young men and boys that the moderate use of alcoholic liquors does not lead to disrepute. Drivers of rabbits and drivers of boys and men must keep their victims confident that the course they are pursuing is free from danger. And cer- tainly the tippling lad is safe if men ad- 49 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS dieted to their cups are manifestly held in public estimation, and are deemed worthy to receive the honor of election to a, public office. And these assurances must be kept before the youngster's mind or the agencies I have named the fam- ily, social, festive, saloon and official use of liquor beverages will fail to drive him to the drunkard's dismal dungeon. But every ballot cast for men known to be addicted to the beverage use of liq- uors, especially for those known to be patrons of the saloon, tends to assure the boy that liquor drinking is not harmful to character or reputation. And this as- surance tends to cause him, like the unwise bunnies which believe that all is safe before them and rush to their de- struction, to yield without resistance to the pressure of the contracting cordon that drives him on to ruin. 50 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE What an array of influences are com- bined and active to make difficult and doubtful the pathway from a boyhood of brightest promise to an exalted noble manhood! More immense and stronger far than the cordon of brawny ranchmen who are united in the purposes and the efforts of a rabbit drive stronger far and more effective are the forces now arrayed against the boyhood and the brave young manhood of today. Hear that signal for the movement to begin and then for a moment listen to the answering tumult from the human cordon as it starts and moves like an ad- vancing army. Now look beyond that cordon toward the east and see that count- less throng of frightened bunnies dash- ing through the stifling dust their own fleet feet have caused to rise, and remem- ber, though innocent of any conscious PARTICEPS CRIMINIS bad intent or act, they are being driven to a cruel death. Would you wish to join in such a movement, knowing its cruel, tragic end? Would you be one of those who voluntarily, with hard and heavy clubs, beat those little animals to death? I see you start and shrink from such a rude suggestion. Yet, that is but a feeble illustration of movements now and constantly in prog- ress, not to drive the ravenous rabbits to destruction, but to drive our own dear boys from paths of rectitude and honor to a degradation and despair more hid- eous than this cruel slaughter of the rab- bits. That rabbit drive suggests the boy drive, and if your heart would shrink from joining in the slaughter of the bun- nies, are you willing to have a part in this most shameful and barbaric movement for the ruin of our boys? 52 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE This is not the swooping down upon us of the savage hordes that seek to cap- ture and bear away our offspring. I would that truth were not more shocking than such a supposition! But you know it is. Yet some of those who read these lines, each word of which burns like a fire in my bones, may shrink from thinking of their own sweet boys as thus assaulted and endangered. Ah, reader, the powers of darkness grant no favors and the agencies I have mentioned, with many more, are now vigorous and active, and no indignant rabbit driver ever sought with more unyielding purpose to slay the harmful bunnies than those malignant agencies strive to effect the ruin of our boys. SOME RABBITS WILL NOT DRIVE. However wisely planned a rabbit drive may be, however skillfully conducted, 53 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS there are always some bright bunnies that will not drive. They hear the tumult and they promptly flee, but not toward the prison or the extended fences that would hedge them in and guide their fleeing footsteps to the prison door. They take no chances, but they flee for safety and they dash between the advancing cordon and the outmost limit of the extended fence, and they slacken not their speed until beyond all danger they can turn and view the furious tragedy which by prompt and vigorous efforts they escaped. It is not the fault of those who plan nor those who execute a rabbit drive that some of their intended victims are not numbered with the slain. Nor is it due to greater fleetness of some bun- nies than the others have. It is due to common sense, just that rare, uncommon 54 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE common-sense which even rabbits some- times have, and having which they flee from danger and to certain safety ere it is too late. THERE ARE BOYS WHO WILL NOT DRINK. Like the bunnies blessed with common sense they take no chances. By total abstinence they make sure work. On that exalted plane of total abstinence the sweep of the extended human cordon of harmful influences cannot reach them. Great names are numbered with the list of those who never drank, and while their imbibing comrades were driven into wretchedness and ruin they rose to exal- tation and renown. It is not because the family, social, festive, saloon and official use of liquor are not vicious, but because upon their lofty heights of total absti- nence from all intoxicating drinks such noble heroes stand strong while others, 55 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS choosing moderate indulgence, sink to inebriety and shame. It was by refraining wholly from par- ticipation in the flight toward the corral that the few escaping rabbits secured a place of safety. Had they lingered with their fellow bunnies but a little longer, the cordon would have so encircled them that escape would have been difficult! And the laughing lad who tarries for a season to enjoy convivial pleasures, or who on rare occasions tastes the tempting beverage, is not making his escape nearly so certain as is the lad who early rises to the plane of total and perpetual absti- nence from all use of the beverage that intoxicates. Flight is the youngster's only hope, a prompt and rapid flight from all the agencies that would lead his feet to stray into the path of danger. 56 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE SOME RABBITS FIND A HIDING PLACE. Within a friendly cavern, or crevice in a protruding rock, or where erstwhile a squirrel or an owl made his home, some frightened bunny finds a shelter from the wrath of man. Above his safe re- treat the noisy rabbit drive moves on, causing the earth to tremble and freight- ing all the atmosphere with terrific tumult. He trembles as he feels the earth quiver beneath the heavy tread of those who seek his life, and hears in part the deafening din that marks the passage of the human cordon just above his hid- ing place. But he is safe and after the darkness of the night conceals his move- ments he comes forth to freedom and security. SOME BOYS ESCAPE. And there are boys who find a place where they may hide from all the perils 57 *%!&& nK M?l Tr PARTICEPS CRIMINIS of the boy drive. Within the safe enclos- ure of some temperance band or some young people's church society, or best of all, within the church of Christ itself, a hiding place is found more quiet and secure than any burrow in the earth or cavern in the flinty rock. The tempest and the turmoil of the ignominious boy drive may sweep furiously on, forcing millions of our cherished boys like vic- tims hastening to their execution, but the Christian lad who finds within the church a genial, happy home is safe from every hostile influence and will rise to noble manhood. I spoke one Sabbath morning on this theme to what I felt to be a sympathetic audience. Among the number who greet- ed and gladdened me with words of com- mendation there was a cheerful lad who said, "Dr. Chapman, I am one of the 58 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE rabbits that ran into a hole." With deep emotion I replied, "Tell me all about it, my precious boy." "Oh, I joined this church last Sunday," was his answer, "and the boy drivers cannot get me." Since that sunny hour I have carried in my heart the sweet assurance that there is security for every boy and that this story of the California rabbit drive is wonderfully adapted to portray a truth which all should know, which so many seem never to have learned, and which a child can easily and clearly understand. HAPPY BUNNIES. But the throng 1 of bunnies that have not the wisdom exercised by those that early flee and thus escape the carnival of death, nor the discretion that induces some to hide in the caverns till the storm is past that numerous company that 59 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS form the harvest of the rabbit drive- rush rapidly along with seeming confi- dence that safety and not danger is be- fore them. They fear the cordon's tu- mult, but they fear not the corral. Like frisky lambs in spring they leap and bound along, seemingly as light of heart as they are fleet of foot. The fear which caused them to begin their flight was only that cordon's threatening tumult. To this they soon became accustomed and their spirits seemed elated by the rapid increase of their number. When in their flight they reach the fence that extends its lengthy arms to greet them they fear it not, but gleefully skip onward, guided by its compact wall straight to the corral of which in fact it forms a needed and important part. How merrily they flee along the way that leads to their destruction! No 60 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE rabbits in the world are having a more joyous time than those who by their most inveterate foes are being driven to their death. THEICE HAPPY BOYS. And where in all the world is a more jolly, merry crowd than is that group of boys and men fast hastening toward and near the drunkard's abject bondage? They scorn the thought of danger and indignantly repudiate love's warning ad- monitions. No one, they say, is more secure than those who, like themselves, indulge at will, "but never to excess." "No class of drinking men are so pro- nounced in their conviction that they have no need of reformation as the men who could not, if they would, refrain from liquor drinking. They are happy in their sense of freedom and like the silly bunnies they dance into their dungeon. 61 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS It is pitiful and sad to witness the gleeful frolics and absence of all fear of bunnies in a rabbit drive. To see them skip and play and seem so gay and happy, and then to think how rapidly they are rushing to unyielding bondage, and how near they are to their journey's tragic end, is to make men's hearts grow sick and faint even if they must, and do, approve this seeming savage method of protecting human industry and the f ruits of human toil. But it makes the heart to break with grief unspeakable to remember that each feature of the rabbit drive is reproduced by the barbaric agencies, proceedings and results connected with the nation's in- ebriety. At no point of this analogy is the resemblance between the fated rabbits and the boys and men addicted to their 62 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE cups so close and clear as when the bun- nies, driven to their death, skip gladly on without a thought of danger, when but a few yards intervene between them and the slaughter-pen to which unconsciously they are being harshly driven. During all the years that gladly I have given to the work of winning men from drink, few things have so profoundly grieved my heart as has the merry sport of boys and strong young men when be- ing urged to total abstinence. I have wept as broken-hearted women weep, as I have seen most promising young men manifestly advancing toward a condition of helpless bondage to their cups and laughing at the efforts of beloved friends to win them to sobriety. COUGH'S FAMOUS STORY. I heard the eloquent address of John B, Gough in which he likened such un- 63 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS wise indulgers to a rowboat party floating on the quiet waters of Niagara some miles above the raging rapids which pour their boiling waters over the famous falls. "Young men, ahoy!" I still can hear the peerless orator repeat in tones that when I heard them thrilled me through and through, and I can feel again the throbbing interest aroused within my heart as in his own peculiar graphic style he told the story of those boatmen heed- lessly floating with increasing speed to- ward the resistless rapids, laughing at all warning voices, and then their wild, ex- cited efforts when at length they realized their peril and sought in vain to stem the raging current, or to reach the shore. It was indeed a fit and forceful illustration of the fatal folly of drifting on in heed- less ecstasy upon the glassy current that 64 sweeps onward to the roaring cataract of ruin. DANGER DEEPENS WITH ADVANCE. A rabbit's chances to escape rapidly diminish as he flees before the noisy human cordon. His flight from his pur- suers is directly toward the corral and every bound he makes brings him nearer to that merciless enclosure. When the rabbit drive began there were great gaps between the cordon and the ends of the corral's outreaching fences. It was through those gaps that, when the drive began, wiser rabbits shot, as from a can- non's mouth, and found escape. If all had dashed for freedom then, as some of their number did, they all might have escaped, but when the signal rang and the tre- mendous cordon started on the drive, those gaps through which escape was possible 65 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS rapidly grew less in size and the chances of escape grew less and less each yard the rabbits fled before the advancing cordon, until at length the outmost ends of that vast human crescent touched the outmost ends of the corral's outstretching fences and by the circle of the cordon, the fence and the strong corral the bun- nies are surrounded. They cannot now escape by breaking through the walls of the corral, nor through the fences which are so constructed as to keep them in. The one remaining method of escape is to break through the serried column of the advancing men. But now that gives but little promise of success. The cordon now must move over the fan-shaped space be- tween the fences, and as it moves toward the open gate of the corral, it constantly diminishes the space in which the rabbits are, while the converging fences force the 66 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE shortening 1 of the cordon, which makes more compact and harder to break through that seemingly invincible wall of living men. And now the rabbits realize their peril and wildly seek a passage to the freedom they have lost. CHAPTER IV. O WRITER'S studied words, nor stroke of skill- ful painter's brush can fittingly portray the con- sternation that prevails among the imprisoned bunnies when the strong and compact walls of the corral and fences rudely turn them back, and in vain they dash against the solid ranks of strong, determined men. The merry twinkle of their eyes is gone and in its stead a glassy brilliancy of fear is seen. They rush from side to side of the enclosure and yielding to the pressure of the advancing human wall they crowd more nearly to the open door of the cor- ral. In vain they leap and bound and 68 A CALIFORNIA BABBIT DRIVE dash against each other and against the enclosing walls. Their efforts every- where are unsuccessful. They are strong and agile and marvelously fleet of foot, but vain are all their efforts to escape. They are like the victim of the boy drive who, when he comes to realize his bondage, is powerless to escape. When first he promises to put away his cups he thinks he has an easy task, but soon the raging thirst returns and his will, made feeble by his long indulgence, yields with scarce the semblance of a struggle, and he finds himself again in the clutches of his cruel enemy. It is not always, nor most frequently, that men who thus become the slaves of rum are by nature weak or lack- ing in the traits of noble manhood. The boy drive gathers in its strong enclosure some of the brightest gems of human kind. Men of highest type, with native, 69 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS rugged strength of character, brainy, brave, magnetic, have, at the zenith of their years, reached that station in the boy drive at which they cannot break away from their degrading bondage to alcoholic drinks. Millions of such men, like bun- nies in the drive, when near the gaping prison gate, have vainly fought like heroes to escape and sadly fallen back only to renew the unsuccessful struggle. GIANT VICTIMS OF THE BOY DRIVE. During my years of public life, espe- cially when serving as a clerk in congress, I knew many princely men rilling exalted stations in the nation, but utterly unable to control their appetite for drink. They were brave when in the fiercest battle and never yielded to the foe. But the amber liquor, when it came, instantly trans- formed them into craven cowards and 70 A CALIFORNIA BABBIT DRIVE caused them ignominiously to strike their colors. They were not drunkards. They were only regular partakers of intoxicat- ing beverages, but had come to realize that convivial habits had woven around them fetters which they could not break nor cast aside. They were not like the rab- bits in the strong-walled prison with the door made fast. They had not yet quite reached that point in the barbaric boy drive. They were like the bunnies out in the field, but near the termination of the drive, and realizing with alarm the bondage they were in. ONE OF THE MANY MIGHTY VICTIMS. ) I am thinking now of one rare man who came into my life at Washington during those eventful years. He had been a general of distinction in the Un- ion army and those who knew him on the PARTICEPS CRIMINIS fleld declared, "He was a model soldier." At the time of which I speak he was in charge of a vast business enterprise which he was pushing with tremendous force. During our acquaintance I had come to hold him in very high esteem, and it was with very great delight that one morning I was able to place within his hands a paper duly signed which he had asked me to secure for him, if possible, and which he said would be of priceless value to him in his work. He seized my hands with grateful joy, and said, "Young man, you have done me a great service and I am more than thankful for your kindness. Sometime I hope to do as much for you. Come and take a drink with me." I gripped his hand with vigor, and replied, "General, I thank you for the spirit of your invita- tion, and if there were a living man with A CALIFORNIA BABBIT DRIVE whom I would drink, you would be that man, hut such a man does not exist nor ever did." "What," he said, "you do not mean to say you never drink!" "Never," was my reply, "and God helping me I never will." And as the tears came to his eyes and ran down his bronzed and furrowed cheeks he clasped my hand so vigorously that I could feel the quiver of his stalwart frame as with sobs and sighs he said, "Come, my dear young friend, and live with me. Be my confidant and assistant. I will give you a royal salary and keep you with me day and night. This drink- ing habit is rushing me to ruin. Every morning I resolve that not a drop shall pass my lips that day, and then as I walk down the street, the friends I meet will ask me in to drink and when I politely ask to be excused they urge their invita- 73 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS tion and take me by the arm, and before I realize what is being done the morning pledge is broken and the evening finds me far the worse for liquor. If I had with me a man who never did indulge, and who could not be induced to break his pledge, he could aid me to become a man again." What a scene was that! A great and mighty man, brainy and battle-scarred, with intellect and will and strength of personality to lead an army of one hun- dred thousand men in battle, or success- fully to control millions of capital in busi- ness enterprises such a man clinging to a man of less than thirty summers and weeping like a child as he entreats that youngster to become his strength in battle with the foe that holds him in a galling bondage. That man was in the boy drive and by the harmful influences of private 74 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE life, and of the army, he had been driven from a model boyhood to the helpless feebleness his words so graphically de- scribed when with a normal growth he would have been at the very prime of life. That man was not a drunkard. Those who knew him well did not regard him as in serious danger of ever sinking into helpless and disgraceful inebriety. They did not know the struggle he was making to break through the cordon which vicious influences had cast about him. He had long been in the boy drive, and as fool- ish rabbits yield to the cordon that drives them into bondage when they might dash bravely through the open gaps to freedom, he had when young and strong and amply able to resist the tempter, gone tippling onward to the fixed, un- yielding habit which now enthralled him. He had just begun to realize his danger 75 PARTICEPS CRIMINI" and when he sought to lead a sober life he was amazed and terrified to find him- self so weak and his fetters so unyield- ing. I could not help him as he asked me to, but I have been informed that he found deliverance, and I now think of him as one among the millions of our brightest, bravest men led into bondage by ignoble influences and kept there by their friends. EFFORTS TO BREAK THE CORDON. During those years in Washington I knew officially and by personal acquaint- ance many rare and gifted men who were in the barbarous boy drive and were far along, some near the gate of the corral and some within that strong enclosure. Senators and congressmen were daily in their seats unfit for duty and sometimes maudlin drunk within the halls of legis- 76 lation and upon the streets. With the fond hope of snatching from the ranks of the fast moving boy drive some of those public men, a congressional total abstinence movement was inaugurated with the Hon. Henry Wilson, senator from Massachusetts, and later vice-presi- dent, a man of God as well as a great statesman, at its head. No words can ever half disclose the rev- elations of that effort to induce our na- tion's legislators to pledge their honor to a life of manly, firm sobriety. It was like the lifting of a hazy cloud that veiled from view the field on which the rabbits in a drive, when near their prison door, first realized their danger and fiercely struggled to escape. Men in whose veins there flowed the blood of noble ancestors ; men of imperial gifts and thorough train- ing; men endowed by nature with the 77 power of leadership and with strong wills that ruled the counsels where mighty men conferred respecting law and statecraft; men of heroic stature and majestic mien such men as these were of the number who only by the most heroic efforts gained their freedom. Against the habits of a lifetime they contended and against the strong, unyielding cordon of evil influ- ences that had brought them to their weakness and enthrallment. And many failed like the procrastinat- ing bunnies, not from the lack of strong endeavor, but because their efforts were too late. Those great temperance rallies held in the House of Representatives that memorable winter caused those distin- guished men to realize their danger and stimulated their purpose and endeavor to reform. Not one of all their number ever dreamed how far advanced he was along 78 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE the road to ruin, nor how determined were the forces that had urged him on and were holding him in their unyielding grasp. I could tell of many who at those public meetings told the thrilling story of their struggles to escape the drunkard's doom and their rapturous joy at their deliverance. It is not quite impossible, though very difficult, for bunnies by furi- ous, persevering efforts to escape when near the 'gate of the corral, and it is not quite impossible, though very difficult and rare, for men to turn and lead a sober life after they have almost reached the drunk- ard's realm of utter helplessness. ESCAPE NOW IMPOSSIBLE. But escape is quite impossible after the gate of the corral is tightly closed and all the bunnies are within its strong en- closure. Those terror-stricken bunnies 79 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS may dash for freedom, but they will not find it. They cannot scale the. wall nor burrow beneath it to the boundless liberty from which they have been driven. And that rabbit drive corral, that prison pen from which escape is utterly impos- sible, in this analogy represents the realm of utterly helpless inebriety. And as no rabbit can escape from the corral after its gate is closed, so when a man becomes a drunkard his fate is sealed. No human effort or human help can restore him to sobriety and manliness. He may make heroic efforts to escape and faithful friends may by their sympathy, encour- agement and help lift him to a higher plane, but the strong walls of the dismal prison into which he came are all around him, and no human ministration can so supplement his own endeavor as to restore him to his lost estate. The rabbit drivers 80 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE are not more certain of the bunnies they have driven into the corral than are the evil forces certain of the one whom they have driven to habitual inebriety. A HERCULES IN CHAINS. Among the mighty men who were awakened at the nation's capital, of whom I have already spoken, I heard one tell the thrilling story of the desperate strug- gle by which he brought himself to sign the pledge of total abstinence. It was a story such as having heard, one never could forget. He was one of the nation's greatest rulers, yet that night he told with pathos that could not be surpassed the story of his years of helpless slavery to drink, and then with rapturous ecstasy he thrilled the vast assembly when he an- nounced that, having signed the pledge, he was forever free. He had no lack of 81 human help and he made as brave a fight as ever marked the history of man. But he lost the battle, went back to the entic- ing cup, and soon was at his journey's end. He had lost the battle long before I heard him make that eloquent address. Great and mighty as he was, with large and fertile brain and love as boundless as is human need, that model ruler and far- seeing statesman was lost when vicious customs and pernicious agencies forced him into the corral and closed and barred the door. For years he lived in that im- prisonment of bondage to his appetite and still was loved, as few are loved, for his rare and noble qualities, and he was hon- ored for his great service to his state and nation, but in the boy drive he had reached the point where, as with ancient Israel, "There was no remedy." 82 A CALIFORNIA BABBIT DRIVE MIGHTY TO SAVE. I am not forgetting nor doubting the ability of One who "Is able to save to the uttermost them that draw nigh unto God through Him." But I am speaking now of human possibilities when one has reached the realm of slavery to drink. And all the way along the track of the accursed boy drive that noble-hearted lad, that soulful, generous, magnificent young man, that brave and brainy leader had been forced by vicious customs until the evening of his life was full of tragic struggle, fears and futile efforts, and at last he fell. GREAT WAS THE FALL. He fell because he could no longer stand environed as he was and with his heart's blood boiling hot with quenchless thirst for rum. He fell as weak as in- fancy and at a time when his great sinews 83 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS should have had the strength of Hercules. He fell just at the prime of life, not when the flower gave promise of a plen- teous fruitage, but when the rich, ripe fruit of great attainments hung in gor- geous clusters on his vine. Not when the evening shadows pointed eastward did his light go out, but when the noonday sun had just moved slightly toward the west; when at his best he should have been, grappling with and solving the problems which his master mind by long and thor- ough training, and by years of faithful public service, should have found but sim- ple tasks. He fell when he was sorely needed in the movement for a broad and liberal reconstruction of a nation riven and torn by war's relentless strife. He fell most bitterly lamented by a people who realized their need of his wise and skillful leadership. Tears of joy leaped 84 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE to the eyes of millions when the good tid- ings of his reformation flashed over all the nation, but down the cheek of Sorrow swiftly flowed, as rivers flow, the scalding tears of grief when, after such a brief and tragic struggle, the great victim fell. He fell surrounded by a million men who like himself had come to be helpless vic- tims of their cups, under the influence of the most iniquitous conditions, customs and collaborations that ever cursed the human race. And when he fell the bloody boy drive bastile in which he fell was full to overflowing of those who came there much as he had come and whose departure thence was like his own. And since that day when he went down, each year, a hun- dred thousand victims have been driven into that enclosure and sacrificed as he was sacrificed by the resourceful agencies that brought him there. 85 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS He was only one of a million in our land who during that one year were in that dark, unyielding prison; one of a hundred thousand of his countrymen whom Rum's strong minions slew that year. I have mentioned him as a repre- sentative of all who like himself were bound in fetters and were slain, or are now in hopeless bondage and will perish in their chains. And that boy drive bastile is brimming full today, and the million victims now imprisoned there must be hastily and rudely thrust into eternity to make room for that other million who are coming. Yes, and many millions are now in that boy drive, and all on the way to the con- dition of hopeless slavery to rum which I am here comparing to the rabbit drive corral. 86 CHAPTER V. REVIEW AND REVERIE. ET us in imagination stand for a time and look upon the thousands of rabbits which have been driven into their imprisonment. Some are too dull and stupid to be conscious of the peril they are in. But all are grimy from the dust they have encountered on the way. Whence came they to this fateful prison pen? From the joyous freedom of hill and val- ley they have come; from the bright and beauteous plain where they could roam at will and drink in copious draughts the pleasures of the earth. From that great field of life and from its glorious liberty 87 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS they have been driven to this cramped and unyielding prison to await their early execution. Now let us in imagination look upon that million of living men whose condition the rabbit drive corral so vividly and graphically portrays. It is not a thou- sand more or less of harmful brutes upon which I ask you now to look. It is a full round million of living men in our own land who are in helpless, hopeless inebriety today. They are now within the boy drive's strong enclosure, whose doors stand ever open for the entrance of all comers, but are tightly closed and locked against escape. Look upon them in their wretched plight, then turn away and weep that those once bearing God's own image could sink to such debasement. Whence came they to this drunkard's degradation? Lift your faces and with the eyes of thought behold A CALIFOKNIA RABBIT DRIVE the millions of our race now dwelling in this fairest land of earth. See them, young and old, in bright and happy homes, at school, at college or as tillers of the soil. See them in positions of authority and see them in the sovereignty of ruling citizens. But stop a moment! Ere you look away, observe how many of these millions have their faces turned toward this low, de- graded realm where stands the drunkard's dungeon. See, oh, see, what millions of that count- less multitude are constantly approaching this corral. And see, oh, do not fail to see, that they are being driven to this shame and degradation. All these wait- ing here their early tragic doom were erstwhile roaming glad and happy in the fields of freedom, and of those millions yonder, many ere long will reach this pris- on house of wretchedness and sorrow. 89 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS Whence came this throng of helpless vic- tims, do you ask? No, you do not ask that question now. You have seen, per- haps more clearly than before, that our nation's boyhood and her buoyant young manhood are moving like a countless army to fill the boy drive's ranks and to fill this dismal dungeon. BUNNIES WEEP LIKE BABIES. To each successful rabbit drive there is a tragic termination. The wild and ter- rifying tumult of the moving cordon ceases when the rabbits are all housed in the corral, and the gate is closed by sturdy men crowding thickly into that narrow en- trance. But when the men leap into the corral and with clubs savagely begin the work of beating them to death, the helpless bunnies, like ten thousand weeping babies, cry and rend the air with wails of anguish 90 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE until sometimes the most inveterate rabbit hater turns deadly pale and, trembling, quits the field. Only men of iron nerve can prosecute this cruel slaughter, and even such will sometimes, when the work is done, turn instantly and in silence hasten to their homes. Few who attend a rabbit drive desire ever to witness one again. Necessity may compel them more than once to join in such a movement, but few, if any, will for sport aid or attend a rab- bit drive after once hearing the heart- piercing shrieks of the terrorized and help- less bunnies, and the sickening sound of the death-dealing blows during the prog- ress of the savage slaughter. A gentle- man of my acquaintance, when recently relating his attendance at a rabbit drive, solemnly and with much emphasis declared that he would end his own life rather than to witness such a scene again. 91 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS A HELL OF HORRORS IN THE BOY DRIVE BASTILE. At no point is the analogy between the rabbit drive and the ruin of our manhood by the ravages of rum more accurate than at the tragic close. And as I write this story of the bunnies' child-like weeping a poignant pain is at my heart, my eyes are filled with tears, and in my thoughts I see the reader shudder, and I hear the angry verdict that the rabbit drive is too basely brutal for this age of tender human love and sympathy. That may be true, but, reader, if all the cries of fear and suffering of the vic- tims of a rabbit drive were multiplied by millions they would not equal the vol- ume of sad remorse and conscious shame, of crushing disappointment and discour- agement, of the groans and moans and 92 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE smothering sighs, and pleas of penitence and prayer to God for help, which in a single hour ascend to Heaven from the victims of the boy drive who have reached the bastile of imprisonment. What a very hell of agony must burn within the soul of one, well born and bred, conscious of superior natural gifts, with native pride and high ambition, who spends the evening of his day of life in such a place and plight and there with fear and trem- bling closes his eyes in death. There is but one place in God's known universe where there is greater human anguish than in that region of despair from which the victims of the barbarous boy drive end their days and launch into eternity. That other realm is not the hell of which we have been wont to hear from child- hood's early day. I am not casting doubt 93 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS upon the teachings that proclaim a hell of future punishment for sin, but I am claiming, for with all my heart I hold it true, that no suffering beyond this life can possibly exceed the pain unspeakable of that earthly realm, the drunkard's liv- ing death, from which all hope has fled, and the anguish of remorse runs riot in the soul. I do not wish nor need to lift the cur- tains that conceal eternity to find a hell whose fires are hotter and more constant than the flames that burn within the drunkard's breast. Within the drunk- ard's home, within the loving, loyal heart of his doting parents, or of his true and faithful wife or his humiliated son or daughter there is a deep, abiding agony which drunkards never know. And this also is part of the abundant harvest of the boy drive. A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE CLOSING WORDS. With the readers of this story I now crave a parting word. This is not romance I have written, but simple, solemn truth. There is no fiction, fancy or imagination in the story of the rabbit drive, nor in my record of events mentioned in this story. The story as I have told it is of necessity less graphic, less dramatic, less terrible than the events of which I write. I am more than sorry that my application of the story is amply justified. The most revolting feature of our Western life is the closing scene of an enthusiastic and successful rabbit drive. But at its worst it is not even an imperfect illustration of the operations by which millions of our citizens are driven to destruction. Reader, this is unspeakably iniquitous. There is no language that can fittingly denounce 95 PART1CEPS CRIMINIS the cruel crime of the social and civic infamy which is now bringing to drunken degradation millions of the people of this land. Some things there are respecting which there can not be a doubt. We know that every rabbit that is slain within the rabbit drive corral was driven there for the sole purpose of being slain. We know that he reached that dismal destiny by yielding to the men who drove him to that slaugh- ter. We know that every degraded drunkard was once an innocent child, free from all the consequences of a personal use of liquors. We know that each one of those degraded drunkards, of whom we have at least one million now within our land, was brought from that innocent childhood to his present sad condition by the influences I have named. We know that family, social, festive, saloon and offi- 96 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE cial liquor drinking are as effective in bringing innocent boys to the condition of helpless inebriety as are the rabbit drivers efficient in their work of driving the timid bunnies into the corral. We know that if total abstinence from all intoxicants pre- vailed in the lives of our American boys not one of them would ever reach the drunkard's sad estate. We honor the boy who, like the escaping bunny that will not drive, will not be coaxed nor flattered nov in any way induced to use intoxicating drink. ENDEAVOR TO REALIZE WHAT YOU KNOW TO BE TRUE. We are familiar with the story of the ravages of rum, but we do not bring our- selves to realize its unspeakable iniquity. Knowing that this greedy monster gulps his millions at his meals and that our ten- 97 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS der children are the diet on which he most delights to feed, we, by the law, enlarge his mouth and maw, and when we see his ravenous jaws close on the precious mor- sels we have helped to bring to his repast, we do not recognize their blood upon our hands, nor the deeper and indelible crim- son on our souls. But painful though it be, permit this story of the rabbit drive to turn its revealing light upon your in- most being. See in the eyes of your imagination twenty thousand bunnies being driven to the corral for slaughter. Now close your eyes of thought and open them again upon the same scene and for bunnies substitute bright, buoyant boys, your own bright boys, now being driven to ignominious death. Close your eyes again and open them upon the rabbit drive corral when the bunnies are piercing the atmosphere with shrieks of fear and suf- 98 be W ~ rt O - Pi U B P > o o o ^ H C/3 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE faring as they are being clubbed to deatH. Now substitute boys for bunnies and you will have a picture of the truth I am by this story seeking to aid you to realize, that you may wash your hands and gar- ments from the blood of those whom rum destroys, and may aid to drive the boy drive from our land and from the world, GOVERNMENTAL COMPLICITY THE CHIEF CRIME. The existence of the beverage liquor traffic under the sanction of government and law is an infamy as black as can be found in the infernal regions. It is the highest expression of Chris- tian patriotism, loyally and frankly to confess our nation's sins and earnestly to seek her deliverance from them. It is sin- ful disobedience to God not to do so. His own hand established and maintains civil government as His agent to safeguard 99 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS the interests of His creatures by protect- ing them to the fullest possible extent from all that would do them harm. Civil government is declared to be "The minis- ter of God to thee for good." Its minis- try is as sacred as is that of any other min- isters of God. '"Kings shall be thy nurs- ing fathers and their queens thy nursing mothers," is God's promise to the children of men. And when instead of "nurs- ing," as God intended and as He com- manded, civil government delivers its sub- jects to the most heartless slaughter and aids to make that slaughter effective, the lowest level of earthly infamy has thus been reached. THE PARAMOUNT FUNCTION OF GOVERN- MENT. To each one of the twenty million lads now in the nation's boy drive the 100 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE operations of civil government should be like the loving, gentle and helpful minis- trations of a devoted, faithful nurse. The future manhood of the nation is in that tremendous throng. The great and good of coming years are all there, and others, whose possibilities are as great as theirs, will be of the number driven to the barbarous slaughter. OUR FUTURE PRESIDENTS. The next president of the United States, whoever he may be, is now a full- grown, mature man. But forty years from today the scepter of presidential authority will be in the hands of one who is now a little boy. No one, < ''\w.<';Kc30Bi V^^^Wf a. - --3^ PAKTICEPS CRIMINIS which in this country we build up our native sons into sturdy, stalwart men capable of being leaders and rulers of a great and mighty nation. That future chief magistrate of the nation is now in the boy drive. He is one of the twenty million lads between the ages of five and nineteen whom the infer- nal forces are seeking by all their tight- ening cordons to force into the corral of helplessness and woe now full to overflow- ing of those who were the promising lads of other years. And between the pres- ent time and the period of his inaugura- tion there are eight or ten future presi- dents of the nation. And all of them, who are still in early life, are with him in the boy drive, but in spite of its con- tracting cordons of powerful influences they will all reach the highest station of earth, the presidency of the United States. 102 A MAGNIFICENT ACHIEVEMENT. No achievement of our nation is more superb than the making of great and noble men, the building up of our frolic- some boyhood into a forceful, heroic man- hood. We revere and loyally follow the staunch and worthy chieftain whom we have from infancy among our citizenship reared up and called to the presidency. He did not reach his exalted station by inheritance. We made him our chief ruler. We made him fit to rule our nation, and by our own voluntary ac- tion we made him president of the United States. It is a magnificent achieve- ment, and as we turn from the present to the future we see a procession of men and boys steadily advancing to the White House, which in due time each one will reach. Eight or more presidents within the next four decades! 103 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS AN APPALLING FACT. But during that same period of time while we are making eight American pres- idents the forces that are now conducting the American boy drive, if permitted to continue their infamous work, will securely enclose in the drunkard's corral not less than four million of the nation's manhood. Eight presidents and four million drunk- ards the product of forty years of the twentieth century in the most enlightened nation of earth! And many of those four million victims of existing conditions and activities are today as bright and buoyant, as promising and hopeful as their associates who will reach the presi- dential chair while they sink to a dismal doom not lured nor enticed but driven to despair and death. And on other hands than their own their precious blood is found. 104 A CALIFORNIA RABBIT DRIVE BLOOD-GUILTINESS PARTICEPS CRIMINIS is the term which the law applies to one who is "an acces- sory in a crime," one who aids another in a criminal act. However serious or re- volting the crime may be, the guilt of the accessory, the Particeps Criminis, is by the law regarded as equal to the guilt of the principal who commits the crime. All this applies as fully to the crime of drunkard-making as to any other criminal act. The colossal crime of earth, the master iniquity of our race, is human degradation by strong drink. In its re- volting features, in its heartless cruelty, in the world-wide sweep of its desolation and ruin, in its gloating glory at the anguish of its innocent victims, and in all that goes to make up an unspeakable infamy it is the peerless criminal of earth. 105 PARTICEPS CRIMINIS And they are Particeps Criminis in this vilest villainy who by the methods men- tioned in this book and otherwise contrib- ute to the effectiveness of the brutal Boy U Drive now in progress in the world. WITHOUT STAIN OR BLAME. It was the humble but confident claim of the great Apostle Paul that he was "pure from the blood of all men." There are many to whom this loving message is sent who cannot rightfully claim that per- sonal purity of which Paul spoke. There are some, I fear, to whom the Master says, "The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground." Let us at once and forever have done with that inexcusable and monstrous in- iquity which calls for and justifies this divine condemnation. Let us cease to be Particeps Criminis in earth's greatest 106 infamy. "What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood." Let us by placing this "Czolgosz of Trade and Commerce" under the ban of civil government give to our nation "A Stainless Flag," and by refraining from all intoxicating beverages let us aid our people to become and to remain "PURE FROM THE BLOOD OF ALL MEN." THE END. THERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FAOLrjY A 001316263 1