The Middlebury people's press. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1841-1843, 1842-06-28
S9OGDerIOgee @epg~GmUemt.
PREPARED FOR THE VERMONT PRESS BY
THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE VT.
TEMPERANCE SOCIETY.
FACTS.-A CALL TO EFFORT.

the vastness of the work which the Temper
ance reformers undertook. Even so late as
the year 1910, after the great improvement
that had been effected in the habits of our
nation by the exertions put forth for that
end, 1t appears that the number of gallons
OF distilled spirits consumed in the United
States was forty three millions,-of wine
and brewed intoxicating drinks .t,centy-eight
understanding an aggregate of seventy
one million gallons consumed in tn at year
The work ofdistilling and making this aggre-
gate employed ttoelre thousand persons, and
a capital of nine millions of dollars. To at
! tempt distinct or adequate conception of
so mighty an instrumentality is like endeav-
oring to conceive the distances from the
planets to the sun,-and more, to aim at
comprehending tie immensely of misery and
moral mischief flowing from it, is like trying
| to embrace in one view the vastness of the
whole visible universe. If we diminish the
scale of our conceptions from the entire Un-
ion to our own State, we shall probably find,
in Vermont alone, enough to employ our full
powers of Imagination, of refection-yes,
and of feeling also.
Of the aforementioned aggregate the con-
sumption of Vermont may have been, in
round numbers, one million of gallons. This
has been enough to paralyZe, most injuri-
ously, the sinewy arms of all her laborious
arts fnl occupations, and to burden her with
! her propOrtionate Gordon of drunkards,-
which may have been eight thousand of the
| five hundred thousand that did exist in the
Uuion, but of which it is supposed "a won
derful, yet credible estimate, thar say sew
enty- thousand have been redeemed. We
repeat it.-eieht thousand drunkards, as
nearly as can be estimated, was about the
! proportienate quota supplied by Vermont to
| the hOGt Of DRINK rds i'm tho alraa.lU
mentioned. Let this be made standard to
estimate, in very general way-which is
all that subjects of this nature admit of-the
extent of damage to our State, in one year,
from intoxicating drinks. If any one, then,
would learn the damage in civil and polit-
cal view, let him consider the value of one
sober, prudent citiZen,- multiply this by
5000, and set down the product as loss; or
to learn the damage in a social way, let him
| fix the estimate of one father, or one hus-
band as wise and tender as husbands and
fathers usually are, multiply this by 5000,
and set down the product as loss; if the dam
| age to the soul of the communicable aggre-
gate of mind and heart-be the object, let
him comprehend all that he can of the worth
of one immortal spirit, and then contemplate
5000 such imnortals transformed to useless
and worse than useless exlstences under the
sway of the lowest passions.
We would not speak even of the drunk
ard as worthless. No, he has an inestima-
BILE value considered as one who has capa-
city to be reformed. He may be restored to
usefulness; he may rise to respectability-to
dignity; he may (and o that such might at
last be his lOt,) ascend even to the angelic
abodes and share in the new song and palms
of victory. But his susceptibilities of re-
form, and all VIII CHI, in the unt ertain future,
he may and ought to be cannot compensate
Vermont for any part of what, in the time
already past, he has not been, by reason of
intoxicating beverages.
An estimate of the damage to the State in
a merely economical view we mention last;
not because it is the greatest,-for, in fact,
it deserves not to he put in the scale against
either of the foregong,-but because to
some minds it may seem the most definite
and tangible. Keeping, then, to the stand
ard already adopted, we must set down as
annual loss the productive labor of eight
thousand men. Notrhat the drunkards per-
form no labor. They do much; but the use
ful value of that much is considerably if not
wholly absorbed by their missteps, their &C
cidental losses by breakage and fire, by the
distraction they bring to the systematic in
dustry of their innocent families, and, last
I ly, b. their crimes. And, at all events, if
we throw in, to balance, the eneryating eff
feels ofdram drinking upon multitudes who
are not, as yet, in the ranks of drunkenness,
we have enough to make it manifest that no
unfairness is used towards alcohol by charg-
ing it in the account of loss, for the year,
with the full labor of eight thousand men.
But this, If there be any truth in statistical
returns, is enormously moderated by putting
it at three, or even at five millions of dollars
annually. Take the last amount, however,
or less amount than eIther,-the object is
not now exact estimates, but TO show that
in computing the damage we must count,
not by hundreds, nor by hundreds of thous-
ands, but by millions,-for, although we
have thus far considered the state of things
in years just past, we have to own, even
now, diminution but little exceeding one
eighth of the whole, las in those years it stood.
Why, what a people are wei Watchful
against taxes-jealous of governmental ex-
! penditures-not even for the love of our
children sustaining the expense ola common
school system comparable with that of States
upon two sides of US, we yet quietly sustain
the imposition of losses s. expenses which as
greatly outweigh all the first mentioned ex-
pendtures as mountains outweigh the little
hills. Sustain the imposition?-we ourselves
impose them? We impose them by our
boards of license, by our merchants, by our
! cups and potations. Strong advocates for
sent abroad hundreds of thousands of specie.
or its equivalents, to bring in what We just
: ly deem unfit to be manufactured here.
What is the explanation of this glazing in
consistency in sober and strong minded
people? Is it among the wonders of the age
that, under the influence of rum, the greater
has changed place with the less and cents
become of more worth than dollars? Call
for the all-important explanation through the
mountain towns and the valley retreats,-I
ask it in the villages of the plain and along
the shores. If manliness, moral virtue,
thrift, household management and peace,
good neighborhood and domestic affection
are to be merged and lost without exciting
dissatisfaction and an effort to preserve them
one maxim, at least, is settled, as we con-
ceive-miitiens ofrreasure are not.
June 22d, 1912.
We have seen the number Of reformed drunk