Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1871-01-26

INTEAPERANCE.
:. :. He did not propose to look at inten
l perance tonight as sin, as an indiviC
f ual offense, but to look at it from th
3 ballot box as national peril. Lor
Erskine said: 'Kings, lords and CON
mons are but single machine with on
common purpose-to put II honestme
| in a box" Jury trial, according t
: him, was the single purpose of the ma
) chinery of State. So, in America, tn
common purpose of Constitution, q
Congress and Legislatures is to put al
: honest, sober, intelligent, self-respectfu
man at the ballot box. Applause.
While you hold that you hold the gov
ernment; when that parts we are drift
ing. He proposed, therefore, now t.
look at intemperance from the stand
point of the ballot box.
The British tory says to us, pOintin,
to New York, ''There is the ultimat1
result of the Declaration of Independ
ence. There is the Towering out o
your theory of universal suffrage. How
do you like it?" Well, what is New
York? New York is a city governed
by 1000 men, or less They hold i
like piece of private property. How
| do they govern it? They govern it by
means of 3, 200 tools, every one of whom
ought to be. hung. Laughter and ap
plause. / mean every one could be
hung if he could be indicted. What il
the method? Why one of the Leaders
says to one of the tools on election day
$50 down to that polling booth and
make it such scene of ViOlence and
outrage that no decent man will want
to go there" But that man unaided
can not accomplish the business. He
must seek the assistance of others and
where shall he get them? He must
get score or two of men already hall
sotted and take them to some corner
grocery, whose keeper is training for
an Alderman, and must there create
the disorder necessary for the success OF
the plan; SO that brings us around to
the fact that intemperance is thecon.
venient instrument. 1t is the machine
by which the demagogue cam control
and neutralize the ballot box.
The tendency of population in these
days is toward the great cities, bufit is
a fact that great cities have never been
governed on thoroughly Republican
principles; that is, there is no great city
in this country in which there have not
been times when life and liberty and
property were imperiled and destOyed
by mobs in open defiance of law.
The domestic craftsmanship ofthe
next thirty years is to grapple with the
problem of governing great cities. The
country hangs on it. Great cities are
the centers of thought, of journalism,
and of liberties. Out from them raxiiate
all the rays of civil, industrial and in
tellectual life. Now, what is a great
city? Why, it is half million of
men, embracing inevitably a ceftain
proportion which we call criminal de-
moralized, or dangerous classes. Be-
hind them are from 5000 to 10000
drinking saloons. Behind thesA fhe
great force of modern society, 500, ,000,-
600. There is the trinity of the peril of
great cities. How are you going to
grapple with it?
The lecturer did not regard intem,
perance as skin disease. 1t was one
of the
TASK OF MODERN CRAFTSMANSHIP.
Now, modern domesticstatesmansh
has these three elements to deal with:
1st, a race whose besetting is this neces-
sity for material stimulus; I'd, race
that has shaped its institutions so that
six millions of men share its sovereign
ty; Sd, a race whOses ystem, perfect as
it is, gives man the means of being
drunk month ON the wages of a
week. The education that is acquired
in schools cannot grapple successfully
with this problem. In Boston we
gather $4,000 boys and girls under the
roofs of our school houses. With in
finite cost, with great pride, laborious-
ly at work day and night, we lift them
up to intelligence and virtue for the
ballot; and then on the other side, ac-
cording to the police, 300 open pitfalls
into hell, through which $4,000 adults
drop into pauperism and the States
prison; With one hand we lift and
with the other we cripple. The educa.
ton of pauperism and crime that is in
temperance. You can't laugh it aside;
you can't sneer it out of importance.
The Yankees thought they had discov-
cred a remedy for this evil, and that is
prohibition. If this invention don't
work we will invent another, for the
evil must be met, Look at New York.
Her great counties, with infinite labor,
roll up their Republican majorities, ,and
when the echoes of triumph are just
filling the atmosphere, and the total
success is made out, the drunken city
manufactures enough votes to balance
it, and you haven't found yet, no
white man has yet devised, the rem
edy.
A young, eloquent widow of a SOL
dier, Mrs. RockwOod, of Boston, tells a
story of a Western city, where a
wealthy man, a large landholder, was
walking through its streets with
comrade, and said to him: "Give me
the vigor to pass that door," which led
to saloon, "and will share my lands
with you tomorrow" He couldn't do
it. Nobody but God can plant in a
human soul the vigor Of resolution
which can trample his appetites under
his feet. But one thing he could do,
one thing law could do, one thing the
welfare of republican institutions de-
mands, and that is, TO sl,H that qoer,
Immense and prolonged APPLAUSE:
ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION.
Mr.. Philips then proceeded to discuss
the elements of education, the press,
the pulpit and politics. Speaking OF
the press, he asked: What is IN editor?
He is \ man who makes his bread out
of his subscribers. He can not afford to !
fly in their faces. OF course you can
not expect to grapple with an angry
question, and starYe on it, That would
be martyrdom. Now and then you
find a man willing to be a martyr for
an idea, but youd0 not expect to find a
martyr in. every editorial chair. God
does not fling martyrs around in regi-
ments.
The editor might as well shoot his
subscribers with bullets as with new !;
ideas. He can't afford it. Laughter.
Some FIVE years ago, said the lecturer, |
l took to a Massachusetts, editor an ar,
ticle criticising Massachusetts, magis-
trate. He read it over and agreed to
print it, when, CHANGING at the last SEN