Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1867-03-13
Speech of Hon. Henry Wilson Pres't of
the COngressiOnaITemper Society.


! Speech of Hon. Henry Wilson Pres't of
the COngressiOnalTemper Society.
The following is the eloquent address
delivered by Senator Wilson at the late
great temperance meeting held Sun
day evening, in the Hall of Represen-
tatiyes
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN Several
members of the Senate and House of
Representatives mindful of the meas
ureless evils and sorroWs of intemper-
ance, have formed a society in which
we have pledged each to the other; and
all to country and to God, to put from
US forever the fatal cup of intoxication.
Applause. On this holy Sabbath
evening the society has summoned
members of Congress, temperance Or
carnations, and the people of the ma
tional capital to meet in this chamber
of the representatives of the people
publicly to commit ourselves, to the
full extent of all we are and all we
hope to be, to the hallowed cause of
temperance. In the name of the So
ciety | bid welcome here to night, to
these members of Congress, these so
cieties, and this people that crowd this
chamber and throng these galleries. l
bid you, one and all, welcome on this
occasion, which we humbly trust, in
the providence of Almighty God, will
contribute something toward arresting
the multitudinous evils of drunken
ness that in this age are sweeping over
the land. fApplause.
The great work upon which this So
ciety has entered is personal reform
"a social warfare. Its battles will be
bloodless, its victories will be fearless :;
but the contest is a fearful one, for it
is struggle with the Yitiated appe-
tites of our fallen municipalities
that have left scars deeply furrowed on
the face of humanity. In the ages,
among all the nations, drunkenness
has conquered the mightiest intellects,
the bravest hearts, and the noblest ma
lures. Soldiers who have lead their
conquering legions over fields of vic
tory, statesmen who have swayed the
destinies of nations, philosophers who
have stamped the impress of their
genius upon the ages, orators who
have held listening Ssnates in rapt
admiration, scholars who have laid
under contribution the vast domains of
matter and of mind, have been the
vsctims of intemperance. Applause ]
1t is estimated that in our country,
in this age of light and knowledge, in
this land with fifty thousand churches
and fifty thousand ministers of the
living God, we have an army of FIVE
hundred thousand drunkards that
fifty thousand of this army annually
sink into drunkards' graves; that its
ranks are kept filed by drafts upon
the vast reserves of moderate drinkers.
An army of half a million drunkards
IN Christian America Every annual
circuit Of the sun fifty thousand new
made drunkards' graYesi The perish
ing ranks of drunkenness recruited
and crowded by merciless drafts upon
the manhood of the nation How
fearful is the thought How appalling
the spectacle Look at that army as
it staggers on to humiliation. You
see no mighty columns of heroes march
ing on with radiant banners, glad mu-
sic, and glittering steel TO victory and
TO glory ; but multitudinous throng,
broken, disordered, spiritless, tramping
on to their doom, with cries of fathers,
mothers, brothers, sisters, wives. chill
dren ringing in their ears. All ages
and conditions are there-youth pre-
maturely blighted manhood broken,
hopeless age bending beneath the
burdens of nameless sorrows; the
generous, the noble, men of heart of
mind, and of soul, struggling in the
grasp of drunkenness ike giants in
chains but their feet ever glide on
ward and downward. God pity that
throng of scared, perishlng, vanishing
humanity. CApplause.l
1t is our purpose, ladies and gentle
men, to hold ourselves back from this
great army of drunkards-from this
vast throng of moderate drinkers, upon
whom drunkenness makes its annual
drafts. 1t is our purpose, too, with the
u IL H. :