against morality and said, “oh, well, young men
will sow their wild oats; it is no use to be too straight
laced.” But there were a few thoughtful
mothers old fashioned enough to believe that the law
of purity is as binding upon the man as the woman,
and who, under no conditions, would invite him to
associate with their daughters. Women who tried
to teach their sons to be worthy of the love and esteem
of good women by being as chaste in their conversation
and as pure in their lives as their young daughters
who sat at their side sheltered in their pleasant
and peaceful homes. One of the first things that
Frank Miller did after he returned to A.P. was to
open a large and elegantly furnished saloon and restaurant.
The license to keep such a place was very high, and
men said that to pay it he resorted to very questionable
means, that his place was a resort for gamblers, and
that he employed a young man to guard the entrance
of his saloon from any sudden invasion of the police
by giving a signal without if he saw any of them approaching,
and other things were whispered of his saloon which
showed it to be a far more dangerous place for the
tempted, unwary and inexperienced feet of the young
men of A.P., than any low groggery in the whole city.
Young men who would have scorned to enter the lowest
dens of vice, felt at home in his gilded palace of
sin. Beautiful pictures adorned the walls, light
streamed into the room through finely stained glass
windows, women, not as God had made them, but as sin
had debased them, came there to spend the evening
in the mazy dance, or to sit with partners in sin
and feast at luxurious tables. Politicians came
there to concoct their plans for coming campaigns,
to fix their slates and to devise means for grasping
with eager hands the spoils of government. Young
men anxious for places in the gift of the government
found that winking at Frank Miller’s vices and
conforming to the demoralizing customs of his place
were passports to political favors, and lacking moral
stamina, hushed their consciences and became partakers
of his sins.[4] Men talked in private of his vices,
and drank his liquors and smoked his cigars in public.
His place was a snare to their souls. “The
dead were there but they knew it not.” He
built a beautiful home and furnished it magnificently,
and some said that the woman who married him would
do well, as if it were possible for any woman to marry
well who linked her destinies to a wicked, selfish
and base man, whose business was a constant menace
to the peace, the purity and progress of society.
I believe it was Milton who said that the purity of
a man should be more splendid than the purity of a
woman, basing his idea upon the declaration, “The
head of the woman is the man, and the head of the
man is Jesus Christ.” Surely if man occupies
this high rank in the creation of God he should ever
be the true friend and helper of woman and not, as
he too often proves, her falsest friend and basest
enemy.