The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1866-03-06
The Temperance Cause.

SGAuSCS
There is an increased activity on the par
of the friends of Temperance in all parts o.
the country, and particularly in our own
State. The Grand Lodge Of Good Tcmplar:
has presented petition to the Legislature
containing the most conclusive arguments to
prove the criminality of the present license
law. We will publish it in our next, and
desire our friends to preserve it, read it to
their friends, and to those who are in favor OF
license and use its arguments in their discus
sions with those who seem determined to
have grog- shops forced upon our people, and
the evils, endured years ago, repeated with
ten-fold virulence, 1t might seem to be i'm
posing upon the credulity of our readers to
hint that such an attempt was being made, if
actions transpiring every day did not clearly
/ indicate it. Faith in the virtue and inteili-
Igence of the people may excite false conf
dence in the humanity of the decision they
will make at the balot-box this fall. How
ever, there is nothing to be gained by attempt
/ ing to disguise the fact that the question of
! "license" or "no license" will enter very
closely into the approaching contest for coupty
| officers. 1t will come WITH and as certainly
as the election. A decision will then be made
for or against-an by that decision we will
| be compelled to abide. The majority, whether
for right or wrong, viii undoubtedly rule.
| We are priding ourselves in the absence of
many criminal suits from the Court Records,
but no sane man will dispute the assertion
that such would not be the case if liquor was
sold on every corner At the December
Term of the Dauphin County Court there
were four hundred indictments. Neither
Judge, Lawyers, nor Jury, attempted to dis
guise the fact that they were all or nearly all
directly or indirectly traceabe to the use of
! liquor. Is that not awful-is it not shame
to the christian, or even decently moral peo-
pie, of our age Four Hundred indictments
at one term of court! OF course, Dauphin
/ is larger than Potter and it would be absurd
/ to say that we would have as many here, if
groggeries were licensed, but it is not absurd
| to say that we would have them in about the
same ratio. Think of these things. They
/ concern us all. Parents who have children,
desire them to grow up under good influences.
Let them act accordingly.
We copy from the Le1oisJurg Chronicle an
article relating to this subject, and which we
think deserves the careful perusal of all. II
we mistake not it is written by one who has
had the Temperance harness" on for many
years
IL want to show that every one who, by
word or act, favored the abolition of slavery,
! is bound also for the sake of consistency. if
nothing else, to favor the abolition of the
rum traffic. This proposition transposed so
as to read, every one in favor of the sun
! preston of the rum traffic, ought for similar
/ reasons to favor the abolition of slavery, was
/ often contended for during the more exciting
( times of the temperance reform. But there
were constitutional difficulties in the way
which caused many to doubt the soundness
of the latter proposition. Into the correct
ness of that opinion we are not now to in g..
quire. Thank Heaven, the difficulty that
caused the doubt, and the evil that gave rise
to the proposition, are now among the things
that are past So "let bygones be bygones' >
I Our business is now with the proposition
first stated and to make it good we will try
to sum out more fully the analogy indicated
in a former paper.
And first, let US look at the territorial ex-
! tent of the two evils. Slavery was sectional;
rum is universal. The one was limited to a
part only of the States; the other extends
! over them all. Literally it ''knows no North,
no South, no East, no West :" but all are alike
embraced in the arms of the fiery Molech.
There is no room here for the exciting issues
raised about the extension of slavery, for,
as if by sort of divine right to reign, Rum
is en- throned wherever population is found
/ and his ministers indulge in no poetil license
when they sing
/ s.No pent up Utica contracts our powers,
! But the whole bouudess continent is ours"
| "Next let us view the numerical extent OF
the two evils. The slaves of the South were
estimated in round numbers at four millions
Five hundred thousand is set down as the
number of drunkards in the United States.
But besides those usually included in the
category of the drunkard, there is a much
larger class who have contracted intemperate
habits to such an extent as to unit them fol
.. all the more important duties of life, and
make them q nuisance SO community. Thus
we have at least one million of men whose
prospects, in this life at least have been
ruined by rum. But all these men are con-
nected with families, each averaging at least
FIVE persens, which swells the nnmber of those
involved in the evils caused by rum to five
millions But further: it is safe to say that
an equally large number offriends and neigh
bors 10 the incorporate are male in o7e form
or another to experience the bad effects o.
iintemperspce. So that the proportion te