New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1854-11-01
THE EVENT OF 1851.

In the year lc5l, procession of Temperance
men was formed in one Of the chief villages in
Maine to celebrate the passage of the Maine
Law. As it passed by the Aims House, with
waving banners and joyous cheers, to which the
majority out of its ranks responded, one poor
woman, now in the downhill of life, burst into
tears and shrieked out-"O why was not this
"law passed ten years ago ?"
During those ten years that woman had seen
Der household precipitated from independence,
comfort and respectability to beggary, misery
and shame her children mercifully taken away
from their desecrated. desolate home, and her
outcast, miserable husband following them down
to druI bsrd's dishonored grave. With a shat
tered constitution and broken heart, the sur
vivor of these years of calamity and suffering
was forced to take refuge for the wretched rem
nant Of her days in the Alms House, whence the
spectacle of whole community exciting over
the passage of an act of protection from agones
, like hers only aroused her to keener conscious
ness of her own irreparable wrongs. Others
might rejoice and hope but for her there was no
rescue from despair. To her desolate soul there
was but added misery in the knowledge that all
her woes might have been prevented by the sea-
sonsbe interposition of the State to ward off the
blow aimed at her household treasures with too
deadly effect and her neighbors' JOY and security
only gave asharper sting to the reelection" Had
this law been passed ten years ago might have
still been happy wife and mother instead of a
widowed and childless, hopeless psuper!"
Voter in any of the States which hold their Elec-
tons next Tuesday the passage of Prohibitory
Liquor Law is fixed fact-of that even the rum
sellers can cherish no serious dou5t-the only
open question is one of time. 1t may be carried
this year as in Connecticut or next year. as it
probably will be in Pennsylvania, or still later, as
in Kentucky and the Cotton States; but carried
it will be, through your cooperation or in spite Of
your resistance. Your vote may postpone but
cannot prevent the ultimate consummation. Do
you prefer that thousands more of widows shall
gaze tearfully from dens Of pauperism and despair
upon joyous professions celebrating the long de-
ferIed triumph of Prohibition, and in their agony
accuse you Of the wreck of all their hopes How
many of you would have Gov. Seymour's respor-
sibility for the drunkards and the drunkard,
widows whose ruin lies at bis door for all the
power and station he may henceforth win Sup
pose there are but One Thousand Of these wrecks
of happy households which the Maine Law
would have precluded, who would take their
burden on his soul to be many times Governor of
New. York
Electors Of New.YOrk! you carnot limo
Gently be neutral in this crisis. Acquiescence IN
the triumph of wropgis completely with wreng.
The appeal made by the Governor to the People
from the Temperance m,jOrity in our last Legis-
latuIe demands naturalization. Curse ye
MOAB saith the Book, "becsuse he came not
up to the help Of the Lord against the mighty"
To be Indifferent in such crisis is to make
covenant with death. Men who love justice aud
Public Good be setive and reiOlute in support
of the Maine Law