national elections, and if ignorance and vice control our cities, then
virtue and intelligence as saving influences will not suffice to save
us. The ignorance prominent in the machinery of large cities is
illustrated by the police force of New York City. When applicants for
positions on the police force were being tested a few years ago, the
question was asked: "Name four of the six New England States." Several
replied: "England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales." Another question was:
"Who was Abraham Lincoln?" As many as ten answered: "He was a great
general." One said: "He discovered America;" another said: "He was
killed by a man name Garfield;" and another's answer was, "He was shot
by Ballington Booth."

The growth of large cities means the growth of slum-life. Hear me, you
who live out in the uncrowded part of the country. Maud Ballington
Booth tells of finding five families, living in one attic room in New
York City, with no partitions between. Here they "cook, eat, sleep,
wash, live and die," in the one room. In our large cities are armies
of children, whose shoulders "droop with parental vice," whose feet
are fast in the mire of miserable conditions, whose hovel homes line
the sewers of social life, and who are cursed and doomed by
inheritance.

Some twenty or more years ago, a Chicago paper that had money behind
it, and could have been sued for damages said: "The man who controls
the purse strings of this city, the school board and board of public
works, is the vilest product of the slums, a saloon keeper, a gambler,
a man a leading citizen of this city would not invite into his home."
That man then controlled the purse strings of the great city of
Chicago. I am glad to say a better man holds the place today. Hannibal
could not save Carthage; Demosthenes could not save Greece; Jesus