Such smartness riz Sam up considerable amongst his mates and he wuz sent to Congress most immegiately afterwards, and it wuz owin’ to his powerful arguments that the age of consent wuz lowered a year or two; I believe he brought it down to about ten years.  He wuz thought a sight on by his genteel male friends, so they say, he worked so powerful for their interest.  He brought down the licenses on saloons and bad housen a sight, and made almost Herculanean efforts to have saloons scattered broadcast through the country without any license to pay.  I spoze there never wuz a more popular statesman.  He worked too hard though, and had to retire to more private life to reap the fruits of his efforts.  And he kep’ right on, so they say reapin’ ’em ever since, cuttin’ up and actin’, but always actin’ jest inside the law and always cuttin’ up the same.

He had the gift of gab and he made eloquent public speeches, tellin’ what boons saloons and kindred places wuz to the community.  I spoze there never wuz a more popular legislator.

But, of course, such high honors cast dark shadders, and one night after he’d made a powerful speech at the openin’ of a saloon he owned, a old one made over into gorgeous beauty, he got a good hoss whippin’, and by some wimmen too.

Perkins had made a great speech himself and wantin’ to show off to the world that it wuz real respectable (they had this saloon kinder graded off, weaker drinks in one place leadin’ up gradual to brandy and whiskey), he got a minister, a well-meanin’ man, so I hearn, who made a prayer and then they all sung the Doxology: 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow—­

Askin’ God to bless what He’d cursed.  What must God thought on’t!  For He and they well knew all the sin and pain, poverty and crime that flowed out of saloons, the ontold losses and danger to community, the brutality, fights, murders, crimes of all kinds.

Praise Him all creatures here below—­

When that minister knowed the stuff he wuz dedicatin’ rendered all creeters here below, no matter how smart they wuz nachully, incapable of tellin’ whether they wuz on their head or their heels, blessin’ or cussin’.  When a man is drunk as a fool how can he praise anything?  It is all he can do to navigate his own legs within’ and weavin’ along under him, ready to crumple down any minute into the gutter.  He’d look well tryin’ to sing gospel hims when he can’t tell what his own name is, or speak it if he could.

Praise Him above ye heavenly hosts

Why, I don’t see how they dasted to sing that when they knowed that the Heavenly Host couldn’t have flowed through such places without bein’ liable to git their feathers pulled out in some of the drinkin’ carouses held there.  As liable agin for their pure eyes must be dimmed with tears, tears for the eighty thousand victims turned out yearly from these resorts.  Innocent youth changed to reckless wickedness, noble manhood turned to brutes falling from honorable places in society down into drunkards’ loathsome lives, drunkards’ dishonored graves.