CHAPTER V.
PETER ROWE’S PROHIBITION SPEECH
THE AUDIENCE at the meeting of the telegraph people assembled in session at the Pleiades Club on the planet Mars to listen to remarks from Peter A. Rowe and others, were quite on the qui vive in anticipation of something out of the ordinary and they were certainly well rewarded for their patient waiting.
Mr. Al Baker, who was presiding, introduced the speaker of the day, for “there is no night” on the planet Mars, and Mr. Rowe was well received.
“I have been asked to relate my experience out in the West, but I think that I would prefer to say something upon a subject nearer my heart,” Mr. Rowe began.
“I did go it some while on earth and were I inclined to be remorseful, I would be very unhappy indeed, but up here in the second heaven we have all learned that remorse is as much to be dreaded as is hate, malice, envy, revenge and a hundred more kindred vices.
“Every sin is forgiven as we turn from it and now I have nothing to regret for any shortcomings that I may have had while on Earth.
“To get back to my topic. I notice on the bulletin board that there is a connection between this mile post on our heavenly flight and my former friends on Earth and I would like to have your secretary quote my remarks for the benefit of those who are still tempted in the manner I was, while on Earth.
“I am rejoiced to know that the South has gone dry, and I am thankful, too, that the West is following in the same line, and were I again a legislator from Cook County, Ill., I would preach from the house-top and from the hill-top, the great good of national prohibition and I would not cease a moment till I made Chicago a ‘dry’ city. I feel that I would have the hearty thanks of the telegraph and railroad companies and also of all the telegraph employes once the bill became a law and all were inured to it.
“Our people on Mars are true blue and there is no insincerity to be found in our ranks. We have all been purged of that and we all feel the better for it.”