MATHIS’ LETTER TO HIS SON.
To Baxter Cleveland Mathis:
My Dear Son: It is with a heart full of sadness that
I write you this from the county jail where I am now confined. I am
in an iron cell 8 by 16 feet, where I am kept day and night. Everything
in the room is a stove, an iron bedstead, a hard mattress and some
blankets. If you live to be old enough, I want you to visit the place
where your father spent his last days, and let my fate be a lesson
to you. My cell is the second one on the right. As you look in, I
hope that you will realize that right here, I spent many an hour of
fear and anguish on account of your welfare. Many a time I have hugged
you to my breast, and while I loved you with all the tender affection
that a father can feel for his baby, I had rather you had died in
infancy than to follow the life I have lead. One thing that is the
earnest wish of your loving father is that you do right in all things
from the time you are old enough to know right from wrong. Love and
obey your kind mother and try to be a comfort to her, and make up
for the trouble I have caused her. Your life will be just what you
make it. You can make it a success or a failure. You will find that
people will watch you closely on account of what your father has done.
But you will get credit when you do right, and condemnation when you
do wrong.
You will meet with evil temptations but never submit
to the first temptation to do wrong. Be industrious and economical;
love and fear God, and success will drown your efforts. Remember that
poverty does not degrade you or make you unhappy. Nothing will degrade
you but sin. The wages of sin is death. Above all never touch whisky
or any strong drink. Never think that you can take one drink without
it harming you. Every drunkard has seen the time when he could let
the drink alone. Intemperance has ruined more men than every other
evil in the world. When whisky gets the advantage of a man, he is
fit for no business or position in life. All the demons of hell combined
could not contrive or invent anything that would be a worse curse
to humanity and work for Satan as whisky. And I want to say here that
women could put whisky and drinking down if they tried.
When I was young my life was promising, I was the
idol of my parents, and well thought of by everybody. There was nothing
to keep me from growing up a good man, but I learned to love whisky.
At first I wanted only to take a social drink with friends, but I
kept on taking it until the appetite grew on me and I could not stop.
It led me to where I am now. Never touch it my boy. Remember your
father's warning, and grow up a good man. Forgive me the wrong I have
done you. Your loving father,
WILL MATHIS.
