Jasper County Democrat, Volume 9, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 February 1907 — IT PAYS TO BE DECENT. [ARTICLE]

IT PAYS TO BE DECENT.

Young man, why don’t you be decent? Why not grow to manhood with honor and credit instead of a stain upon your character? It is just as easy. It is always easier to be a man than to be a rowdy. Cigarettes, gambling and whisky have had many a wrestle with boys long before you came on the scene, and they have never yet been thrown. Don’t get the idea into your head that you can turn the trick. If you don’t want to be decent for yourself, be decent for others. There is one whose sorrows should appeal to you. There is one who has faced everything for your sake; one who has to bear the cross for your foolishness. You don’t want your trail through this world stained with a mother’s tears. The boy who turns a brazen face to a mother’s grief never gets very far on the road to happiness. When he gets a little older you find his name on the police docket of various cities, a little later the dark shadows of stone walls loom up across his pathway. Without honor, home or friends. ’Tie a sad picture, but it is painted every day in every town in this broad land. The pathway of the transgressor is one of rocks and thorns. When you bruise your feet the world will laugh at you, just as you laughed at your mother’s appeals. There is only one system for a boy to follow. Be decent. It always pays dividends.—Kansas City Journal.