The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, April 8, 1906, Page 11

N '/‘ 4 X AT the r R PO B o e story man—speaking with an- ere . kable Southern accent that only w e well-born and educated people of -4 h b S e, and that cannot be im- sits it cleverest of mi or ' ished of impostors s City Prison, regis- hook,” because the into a lawyer's ing, very drunk, rimself a ke of ex- | s sympathy-—he wyer—and thercby T mpathetically rang, s : he pol d nhim over to waiting now—in the C the Chief of Police ym Florida telling whether he murderer or not vou read the news para lling all this in your morning that, coming to his so- se 1 denied that he is a and admitted that he is the n of a distigguished South- 1 college man educated at of the South, with here n Fran- and s right in & John M. Platt, who is in ce of the Internal ector and brother of Hor- Platt, as of these college and I go to Mr. Platt to find if one “John D, the Uni- nee, Tenn., there,” and he Ciiy Prison not only but to offer him the fellowship, he” has Mr Jr Platt was a he South a senior te jun it S s me, in n in the him, and before. much of his story true Jr. for the rest me; not flu- with the g this John D. and he glibly, the un out of his memo: ells it valngloriously, epentant £pol; but wring- to scene by scene racing his blighted ith broken sentence, and an unheeded tear a furrow on his dingy cheeks. story will save any one else ousandth, from one-mil- art of the suffering T have myself, you have it; T'lIl to he says. “Telling it hur any good— p by step, many then my may tell vou, me any —or now. But first of all I want to tell you I'm urderer. Ihave never committed 1 shave never willingly d a human being. I have never any ome any harm—except my- be is m on the wre done him thus self. “There's nothing in that story I told lawyer who turned me over to the the police was drunk, and I wanted to get 1 bad come here from Santa Barbara after’ working in the railroad p there and saving up a piece of about ninety dollars. I got aru soon as I got here and got rid of my. money. I'm always doing that. I'm not's constant drunkard—I'm perfodical. I work for a while at anything 1 ean get, and let drink alone. rare I how he ma note telli t a hobo— n—really a narrowest as me 1 ju ntiem strict ng of that yorn, gently purtured, well-edu- And then, as soon as I've saved up well-placed soclally, rich, fa- some money and think T'll make a fresh d exceptionally fortunate. start in life, I go on a spree, and that is hard to believe it when you look ends it. a vet easy enough when you cl “That is what happened again this your eyes and listen to well-bred time. volce—the nicely modulated voice of a “I got drunk as soon as I got here; . LTHE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL: FORY that's how T got this, the pateh of battered temple; “then I was arrested and when I got out T got drunk again. My money was all gone, and 1 went into the Mills building and into a law- ver's office—I don’t even remember the of told the story about being a lawyer and a fugitive, about having killed a man for breaking up my home, lightly touching absorbent cotton on the -and e and asked for a loan. I thought if T found a Southern lawyer—some one from Florida or Tennessec—that sort of a story would go, and I could get the money and leave town, and get away from temptation; but it didn’t.” He laughs in bitterness, for there no throb of mirth or merriment left in the heart that beats against the limp, faded black shirt. “I'm sorry I did it now. I don’t know how I'm going to get out of this. I hope they won't send me up for Begging or vagrancy—I'd hate to go to jail.” “Have you never been arrested be- fore?” ; “Oh, yes; many a time; but just for being drunk, and turned out again the next day. I've been like this—I've been a hobo for ten years.” “And before that—?" “Oh, yes, it's true enough that I had everything tn life a man could have; every chance a young man could wish for. s My folks were Southerners of good family—you know what that means if you've lived in the South.” He says “South” as only the South- ern-born can. “My father and mother had a beau- tiful home at Deland, Fiorida—that's where I grew up, and they did every- thing in the world for me that loving parents can do. 1 have an older sister, but 1 was the only son, and they were proud of me. “My father was a Judge of the Su- ‘perior Court in Florida, and he wanted me to be a lawyer. He sent me to the University of the South ‘at Sewanece, Tenn. That's where most of the South- ern boys are educated; there, and at the University of Virginia. Then 1 studied law in his office, and I was one of the youngest attorneys to be admit- ted to the bar in Florida. Pa “I was successful from the time I commenced to practice. It seems as if I never did have to try hard for any- thing; things just came my way. “Almost commenced practice T was made attorney for the Jacksonville, Tampa Key West Rallroad. “I made money easily. cheap lawyer. I charged good fees, and 1 got them, and I was lucky in winning my cases. 1 tried cases in my father's court—that's something not permitted as soon as I and I never was a here, but it is in Florida—and T had one - of his decisions reversed, and I remember in one way he didn’t Jike it and in another way it pleased him. He was proud of me because 1 was elever enough to do it.” John D. Boone Jr. doesn’t recite his lit- tle professional triumph boastfully. It has more the sound of a dirge. “But how— “I'm coming to that. It was drink that did this, drink and gambling. “My father and mother were both tee- totalers. 1 never knew what drinking meant in my own home. Perhaps you won't belicve it, but I never tasted liquor while I was 80ing to college, nor for some time after I began to practice law. Not until I went into politics. You know how it is in the South—a lawyer is sup- posed to take an interest in politics, and I aid because I liked it. “The first liquor that ever passéd my lips, the first drink I ever took, was when 1 was out making speeches, campaigning for Governor Mitchell. “T was away from home in a little town, and T took a glass of beer in a hotel just for sociability, that was all. I didn’t care about it, and 1 didn’t take more—that time; but that sort of broke the lce, you know. 1 drank when I felt like it, or when sociability seemed to require it atter that, and got to drinking a little more right along. “When Governor Mitchell was elected I became the prosecuting attorney of Vo- tusia County, Florida, and that was quite a feather in such a young man's cap. “1 was prosperous and had a reputation; folks said I was eloquent, that I could make a good campaign speech and a good plea; 1 had plenty of friends who flattered me; I was making plenty of money, too much for a young man maybe, and had very few éxpenses or respousibilities, for I was living at home. I spent my money freely, a good deal in sociability—in drinl ing, and from drinking I came to gam- bling. “My mother didn’t kuow that T did either, and never, even after she did know that.I had taken to drinking, did she ever smell liguor on my breath. I never went home wihen 1 was drinking, and usually when I wanted to drink I'd go away somewhere on a trip. Being prosecuting attorney, I could do that safely, for my work often called me away. G “My folks were prominent in the South, and like all Southerners we had a good many relatives, and naturally had a good social position. I was popular socially. i went out a good deal. I uséd to lead the cotillons, He is back again for the moment to his vouth, and the velvety Southern nights, the leafy Southern summers, the gay Southern ballrooms, the lovely South- ern girls, the claborate conrtesy of the Southern manners, and I turn toward him and turn away quickly, for I'm not sure whether I shall laugh or ery. It Is too grotesque— this talk of cotillon-leading from the battered, tat- tered figure on the prison bench. He sigis heavily and comes back to the prison bench, too, for a silent moment or two. “At this time, when I was most prosperous and most sure of my future, 1 met a girl that I cared for—and she cared for me. “We becume engaged—and it looked as if I'd nothing left to wish for. “1 kept on taking little trips and drinking and gambling and I thought nobody knew about it. But the girl's father found out. He took me to task about it and I deniéd it, of course, for 1 knew how he regarded that sort of thing and what it would mean to my father and mother to find out. “But I couldn’t let drinking and gambling alone, somehow. He set a watcgh on me and caught me at it, and the next time I went to Jacksonville to’ visit my flancee she wasn’t at the depot to meet me: Her father was there instead. There was a family council. He, told her everything. I asked only for the privilege of a private talk with her, and I had it. I remember every- thing that happened on that last day. We went out for a drive together and said nothing about it. We went to tea at a cousin's together and said noth about it. I wanted her to go to the theater with me to put it off as long as possidle, but she wouldn't; so we went out on the hotel veranda to the farthest, quietest corner, where we would be alone, and we had our talk In the dark. *I couldn't lie to HUER. “She war wearing the engugemant ring I gave her and a bracelet that I had locked on her arm. When our talk was over 1 slipped the ring off b finger acd unlocked the bracelet with the key I carried on my watch chain and put t my pockét; and she said as I : “ ‘F.emember. to do this. ~ “f taox the first train out of an? when 1 came to myself it was in a notel ' i. 1 was broke. hal *v baunk account § I have not asked you town I had pawned that bracelet and ring. “That was the first time my mother knew I drank—when she and my father came to take me home. “I went home with them. “But I kept on drinking and gam- bling. “The frest that killed the orange trees in Florida made both my father and me poor m:n. Governor Mitchell sent for mc and told me he would com- pel my resignation if I kept on as [ was doing. I sold the last things of value I had in the world, my pacing horse, my trap, my law books, every- thing, and with the money I got for them I left home, intending to go to Texas and make a, fresh start—begin a new life. “When I got as far as New Orleans I got drunk. 2 “I got rid of the last doMar I had and when I sobered up I was broke. Chat s on the 11th day of June, 1895. I s=hall never forget the date, be- cause that wus the day I let go, that I cut myself off from all that life had held for me before. “Since then I have become a hobo. “I d@idn’t turn hobo at once, of course. Being a Southerner and widely connect- ed, of course, I knew people in New Or- leans, had friends there, and I borrowed from one and then another as long as [ could. Then I shipped on a vessel going to New York, where my sister lives. “Her husband got work for me. There I saw the girl I cared for for the last time. She was to be married. She came to me to tell me about it—to tell me that she still cared for me; to ask If the past couldn’t be undone. But what could I do? I couldn’t take care of her on a salary of $12 a week. I couldn’t trust my- self and wouldn’t drag her down with me, “Then my father and mother died. “Since then I have wandered every- where and dome every sort of menal, sordid thing. “I have stood in the bread rooms of the Salvation Army at midnight in London waiting to be handed a bowl of soup; I have loaded trunks on transfer wagons here in San Francisco to get a day’s food and a night’s lodging; I have been stoker on a steamer; I have worked with pick and shovel in a railroad gang. I have made up my mind many and many & time that T would pull myself together and begin life again, but every time I have saved a little money I have spent it for drink and gone down to the bottoms again, where I am now.” He drops his hands ses, palms up, the expressive g an utterly beaten man. “Can’t you,” I ask, “let liquor alone?®® *“Yes. I don't drink all the time. Some= times I don’t takg a drink for weeks-— for a couple of months at a time. “Then why d “Where turn for know that when place wh I can go ° in the saloon or “But the for your money. isn't it? “Yes I know that. But there is 31 n every man’s breast,” and he beats the limp black shirt over his heart with quivering finger tips, “that cries out for companionship and triendliness, for human association, however mean “Why I e it so, I hate my own weakness so, if it were not that I was brought up with the fear of God in my heart I would énd my life nows I would have ended it any one of a thousand times. In all these ten years that I bave been living without home and friends and ambition and hope the only times when my mind has been at peace have been those times when I was too stupefied by liquor to be cap- able of thinking or remembering. Thas is my only escape, my only refuge.” “And so,” I go on probing mercl- lessly, for I would know—and how may one know without vivisecting?—"“there is no chance in the world for you, you have no hope of getting back to the man you were?” “Yes,” Qe flashes out turning uponm me suddenly. “Yeos, thers Is one way— it I could have the chance, and it isn't by giving me money or decent clothes, or advice or work. I need all these, of course, but I need something besides financial support and merely moral support. I need the moral support, too, of course. I couldn't get back without that. But morq than everything else I need soclal support. “I need to be taken back Into the sort of environment that I was brought up In: to be taken into the friemdly, kindly companionship of the sort of people I was brought up with; to live their life and share their thoughts and pleasures and comforts, and their trou- bles, too. “If 1 can get back to the level I let go of there’s hope for me, but whaere is there any one to lift me to that level, or to hold me there until I am strong enough to hold myself?” ‘Where. indeed? Where Is thers one among us so nearly Christlike that he can tow this derelict into the harbor of a home and reclaim him. and where In this utilita- rian day is there one who would think it worth while? + e+ = It's a poor, sordid story at best, lan't it? And I have told it not because it is unusual, but because it ia 5o usual. that