Part 7. Sons of the Sagebrush

I do not guarantee the statements and information contained in this book, but they are taken from sources which I believe to be accurate.

LILYAN STRATTON.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Washoe County Court House, Reno, Nevada One of the Court Rooms in Famous Reno Court House Palisades Canyon Showing Humbolt River Lovers' Leap Blue Canyon Truckee River Canyon Off to Donner Lake Amid the Snow at Truckee, California Donner Lake Truckee River Dam Honeywood of the Wingfield Stables Views of Reno's Public Play Grounds University of Nevada General View of Reno, Looking N. W. Wingfield Home The Truckee from Riverside Drive Looking North of Virginia Street Glenbrook Cave Rock Lake Tahoe Lobby of the Golden Hotel Mt. Rose School Reno National Bank Building Interior of Reno National Bank Elk's Home Y. M. C. A. View of Nevada University Campus Facsimile of Round Trip Ticket from New York to San Francisco Renoites as Seen by a Reno Cartoonist Riverside Hotel, Reno, Nevada Captain J. P. Donnelly, Former State Police Superintendent Senator H. Walter Huskey Governor Emmett D. Boyle of Nevada Governor's Mansion at Carson City Frank Golden, Jr.

INTRODUCTORY

The magic little word "Reno" makes a smile creep over the face of anyone who hears it mentioned, as a rule in recognition of the one thing for which it is known. I have smiled myself with the rest of the world in the past; in the future my smile will have a different meaning.

I have lived in Reno. I have felt the pulse of its secret soul, and have learned to understand its deeper meaning, and it is therefore that I am able to uphold my intimate conviction in an attempt to change the world's opinion of Reno and its laws from ridicule to admiration. And if my book has any reason for being, it lies in this attempt.

Those whom fate forces to visit "the big little city on the Truckee River" will find in this book a great deal of carefully gathered information for which before my pilgrimage I would have been so thankful, and with the aid of which so much worry and heartache would have been saved.

This book is not written with any intention whatsoever to propagate divorce; I want this clearly and conclusively understood, so that there can never be any misunderstanding.

To me there are three things sacred above all others: the first is motherhood; the second marriage; the third is the home.

He or she who promiscuously profanes these sacred things is unworthy of them and must pay the severest penalty.

My book is meant to be an appeal for happiness and health; an appeal for peaceful homes, happy and contented husbands, happy wives and mothers of happy, healthy and well bred children.

After all, unhappy and discontented human beings are unfit physically and morally to produce the best work and the finest healthiest children. The children are the forthcoming bearers of the world's burdens and responsibilities. To them belongs the future, and already too many social problems of the present age are due to the unhygienic and illogical mating of the human male and female.

The divorce courts should only be appealed to as a last resort, to free some tortured soul from a life of misery, caused by humiliation, shame and hatred, the very essence of all evil. When the sacred state of matrimony becomes so profaned and degraded that it soils everything it comes in contact with; when even the minds of our children are poisoned and distorted by the atmosphere, and the last ray of hope has vanished, only then the hour has struck to ask the law for justice; to appeal to the judge for redemption for humanity's sake.

Why have I written my book in parts, and why has each part its individual interest and charm? Because readers may choose any part or parts that especially interest them. If they are not interested in the book for the information it gives, they will always find the short stories and tales of Reno interesting and amusing.