When I visited Chicago for the first time after the smashing a Mr. Brubaker called to see me.  He was from Peoria and was hired by the Peoria Journal men to get me to edit that paper for one day.  The arrangements were satisfactory to both parties.  I went to Peoria.  Mr. Brubaker met me, took me to a hotel run by a woman who owned one or two saloons, but had none in the hotel she kept.  I had not one line of copy for the paper but I got up at four in the morning and wrote continuously that day.  I know God helped me.  Mr. Brubaker took the copy.  I never saw any of the Journal men until after the paper was out.  I went to see them, told them that only a small part of my copy that I wrote was in the paper.  They said that several times they asked for my copy but Mr. Brubaker gave them his own.  So he destroyed a great deal of my copy, supplying only what he wanted put in.

I spoke in the Opera House and this Mr. Brubaker was to give me fifty dollars for my lecture that night.  After I had spoken I was asked to go into a noted saloon, Pete Weise’s place.  Mr. Brubaker said:  “If you go I will not give you your fifty dollars,” as the contract said I was to speak at no other place in the city.  But as I had already spoken for him I did not feel bound.  This man was posing as a prohibitionist but he was as loyal to the cause as Judas was to Jesus.  I went to Pete Weis’ place, one of the most expensive dance halls I was ever in.  I spoke for the hundreds of poor, drugged and depraved men and women.  There was a large picture or rather statuary of naked women among trees which I said must be smashed, Mr. Weis treated me very kindly and said:  “I will have that boarded up,” and so next day he did.

This Mr. Brubaker would not pay me a cent for my lecture and tried to garnishe the $100, the Journal was to pay me, and had it not been for a stroke of policy on the part of the Journal he would have taken every cent from me and left me to pay my expenses there and back.  Jesus said:  “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.”  In a month from this time the saloon keeper sent me $50.  The prostitute loved more than Simon.

I saw in Peoria the largest distillery in the world.  Not one of the hands are allowed to drink what they make.  What would you think of a dry goods concern that would not allow its employes to use what they make?  Mr. William McKinley was entertained here by Joe Greenhut, president of the “Whiskey Trust.”

I was in Peoria when the prohibitionists held a convention there and was astonished that they would put up at a saloon or a hotel that run one.  I never eat or sleep in one.  My conscience will not allow me.  I never saw so many ragged children or dirty streets, as in Peoria.

          Witchcraft.