I wonder if the average American citizen, particularly that type of long-haired reformer whom the middle west sends to Southern California, ever stops to seek the reason for the annual exodus abroad of so many of us. In these annual trips to Europe we leave millions of dollars earned in this country to add to the coffers of those who understand the broad principles and liberal ideas of government.

It is for freedom! Free thought! Free inclinations! Free expenditures! Masters of themselves, they go where they please, eat and drink what they desire at any hour, time and place. There they are not subservient to the prying eyes of long-haired men and short-haired women. There they find a patch of green for rest and recreation without a sign reading "Keep off the Grass."

The majority of the law-makers of our supposedly free country are not legislators. They are either school-teachers or policemen or hypocritical saints who eat cold food on Sunday and prate from their platform of platitudes their plenary inspirations with a desire that all mankind do likewise. If you fail to live up to their doctrines you are a heretic. If you desire to live among them with free instincts you write yourself down an anchorite. Personally, I would rather be a Hyperborean and subsist on icicles than be compelled to live subject to the insular municipal laws of this boasted free country. Were I personally denied the opportunity of visiting the various capitals of Europe at intervals and watching and enjoying results of modern civilization and really free government, I might be converted and agree with some of the ignorant and incompetent law-makers of our so-called free country.

Come, oh, come with me, some of you moralists who consider it a crime to take a cocktail on the Sabbath, and visit Berlin, the best governed city in the world, where life begins at midnight and continues for twenty-four hours. Then let us on to Paris and Vienna and St. Petersburg, with a stop at Rome. Gaze upon the many happy faces, a large per cent truant, free American citizens enjoying themselves like school children at recess, finding a respite from the puritanical laws of their own country. No arbitrary ordinances forbid their ordering wine, visiting the race courses, playing at baccarat, spending an evening at the opera, and there are no policemen to tell them "Keep off the grass."

And all this enjoyment on the Lord's Day! Fancy! How horrible! What blasphemy! Truly shocking! It is enough to make John Calvin ask his neighbor to turn over.

Does it ever occur to these psalm singers that people do this of their own volition? There are as many Cathedrals as there are restaurants, but there is no law that compels you to patronize either.

We are denied the sport of Kings—horse racing. In England racing is upheld by royalty and the House of Lords. Here it is decried by disloyalty and a house of cards.

It would be amusing to the native American who has travelled throughout the world and watched the growth of really free and sensible governments, were it not so humiliating, to regard this wave of morality that is sweeping the country like a forest fire.

That bewhiskered gentleman in New York, who wielded his scepter of cant from the governor's chair, confessed he had never attended a theatre or seen a horse race. I can well believe it. I presume when he was at college the pantry attracted him more than the foot ball field. He chooses to disfigure his face with a square cut beard. Therefore from his point of view barbers are unnecessary! Why didn't he shut up all the barber shops and revoke the Gillette Safety Razor patent? He has just as much authority, morally, to shut up all the restaurants and bars because he never tasted wine. A good tonsorial spree and a cocktail would benefit this disciple of John Knox, I am sure.

Fancy an ordinance in this free country forbidding wine at restaurants on Sundays unless a meal is ordered and that hot! Can you imagine anything more ludicrous than these psalm singers making arbitrary laws about the temperature of our food? No prize fights are allowed nor even pictures of the manly art of self-defense to be shown. What a rebuke to American manhood! What a future for our sons to contemplate!

Boys in time to come will settle their disputes crocheting and knitting instead of in a good stand up fight as in the days of old.

You won't take your son to witness the pictures of the Jeffries-Johnson fight, but you will accompany your daughter to view an amorous picture.

Gambling of every description is debarred and all the public parks feature "Keep off the Grass!" No wonder we are known as a nation of travellers. How different it is abroad. Frenchmen never leave France, Germans, Germany and the average Londoner seldom gets beyond the sound of Bow Bells. Yet true born Americans will go anywhere to escape the thraldom of the insular laws of this supposedly free country, only returning to gather enough shekels to enable them to buy more freedom.

I learn from a banker of Los Angeles that more than $700,000 was drawn from the city banks one summer in cheques and letters of credit on European houses. Imagine anyone leaving the gorgeous city of Los Angeles. And yet there is a reason—less climate, more freedom.

I predict ere long if the present conditions continue everyone who can afford it and who has red corpuscles flowing through his veins will spend his holidays abroad. Ten times $700,000 will be drawn from the banks of Los Angeles annually unless some live one is put at the helm of that grand ship—Los Angeles.

Contrast the seaside resorts of Ostend, Aix-les-Bains, Trouville and Dieppe with our Coney Island, Atlantic City and Ocean Park, California. At Ocean Park we have the same sunshine and sea as the Mediterranean, with a few mountains thrown in. God gave us the best of it—man the worst.

At the seashore in foreign countries are beautiful hotels, delightful promenades and a Casino where one is allowed to gamble. Fancy gambling by the sea and the government permitting it! And why not? Part of the revenue goes toward maintaining its charities and churches. The government realizes it is the duty of every municipality to enhance its treasury for the benefit of its institutions and the poor. Ten per cent of the revenues of the race tracks in France the government confiscates—and quite right. I would rather contribute to the church from my winnings, racing, than pay a like amount into the poor box listening to a stupid sermon in a poorly ventilated church.

One can be ten times more devout paying admission into Heaven with another fellow's money!

These far sighted foreigners have taken advantage of our insular laws with the result that they have attracted the rich of the universe who desire to spend their money as they wish. They prefer Casinos to shacks—people to peanuts.

Here are we in beautiful Los Angeles with laws as arbitrary as Salem a hundred years ago. No wines are served on the Sabbath; a race course is going to decay; wantons and women of the street are compelled to move on. In all the European cities the poor wanderers are protected by the laws and placed within the jurisdiction of the medical fraternity and housed instead of hounded. Necessary evils must be protected for the sake of humanity.

If we would only open the flood-gates of progress, batter down the doors of dogmatism, take off the lid that suffocates the rich and strangle the cant and hypocrisy of these modern reformers—the Magdalenes would have shelter; race tracks would be permitted to give enjoyment to those who appreciate the sport of Kings; prohibition would cease to make drunkards; freedom would run amuck; turnpikes would be established from coast to coast; the incense of orange blossoms would permeate to the Atlantic—and California become the rendezvous of the world.

A hypocrite is one who emerges from his own shadow and apologizes to the sun for asking it to shine.

Idle gossip is a busy bee.

The astronomers who almost opened the gate of heaven crucified the souls of those who held tickets of admission.