A Wonder-Spot in the Rockies

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886 IMPROVEMENT ERA

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way as to make him see that I was you know really interested in

him, not merely curious about his own affairs. Quite casually, as I

might have asked him if he liked to go to the theater, I inquired if he

drank.

Well, that young fellow was frank and above-board about it. Said

lie took a drink once in a while— a glass of beer occasionally, some-

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times a whisky; but almost always he drank to be sociable to be a

"good fellow!"

"Do you ever go a while without drinking?" I asked him.

"Sure!' he exclaimed. "Sometimes I go two weeks or a month

without taking a drink."

"Don't you miss it?" I asked him.

"Not a bit! Never miss it at all."

I kept quiet a few minutes. Then I came at the youngster this

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way: "Of course, I understand I know your drinking doesn't amount

to anything. But if anybody was to ask me about you, of course, I

couldn't ring in exceptions — I'd have to say you drink." Here I

stopped to let it sink in; then I went on:

"Now, so long as you don't miss it when you're not taking it, if I

were you I'd think it over and decide whether the drinking is worth

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classing yourself with those who do drink with those who can't get

along without the stuff."

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Say in two days that youngster came to me and said:

"Mr. Mack, if anybody asks you whether I drink, you tell 'em I

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don't for I do not drink."

Perhaps there*s something like a tip in that," commented Mack.

"Any business man who has to handle men can take it for^what it's

worth. I haven't any patent on it, although it's my method."

"To have the greatest baseball trainer in America declare that

drink destroys a man's capacity for ball playing, may appeal to

some of the boys, and prevent them from ever contracting the evil

habit," writes Elder Heber J. Grant, in asking that this subject be

mentioned in the Era. Since the Y. M. M. I. A. are working dil-

igently to establish baseball and other clean athletic sports among

the young people in our community, the ideas of Connie Mack

on "clean living and quick thinking," brought about by temper-

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ance a strict observance of the Word of Wisdom, if you please

are appropriate and in harmony with our efforts. Sixty-eight

years ago, June 19, the news reports recently announced, the first

match game of baseball on record was played, at Hoboken, N. J.

There are now 5,000 professional ball players in the United

States, in 50 or more major and minor leagues, earning more than

$6,000,000 a season. Hence, when the baseball world talks it is

worth listening to. It is not only a national game but is fast

becoming inter-national.

A Wonder- Spot in the Rockies

In this number of the Era is a combination frontispiece of a

wonder-spot in the Rocky Mountains where so many marvels

of nature are to be seen. When Star Valley, Wyoming, was first