The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-01-23
THE GREAT EVIL In SOCIETY.

A prominent Southern paper truthfully
remarks, "When the dissipated and domi.
neeriug rowdy has been supplanted by tn,
sober, reliable and industrious worker, W,
may anticipate revolution Ia the material
interests Of the State that will of be advsn.
tage to ALL" Is there just and reasonable
man 10 all the land who will not approve
and endorse this assertion And yet, how
few there are who preach it. In every
community, whether in the city or country
there are certain characters who never
work, but who always dress well, who
patronize bar-rooms habitually, are loud
and profane takers, and who hold
about them small crowds of young
men that initiate their conduct as
nearly as it Is possible for them to
do. These captains represent idleness,
lewdness, dissipation, and perhaps crime,
while their followers are but the shadows
of these vices. If the leader in all that is
SO obnoxious and reprehensible could be
suppressed, the followers would be driven
back to industrious pursuits by the very
absence of what they initiate. The youth
OF the country are corrupted and demor-
allied by bad examples. They see the
well-dressed loafer accepted ard patron
lied, and their dullness leads them to sup
pose that they can initiate the despicable
example. And thus they become the
wall-howers Of corner groceries, repeat
ing the flash remarks of the leaders.
dawdling their time away at cards.
burning up their limited intellect with
inferior liquor, and making themselves
the ladder for some superior loafer to
mount upon, as he commands the patron
age OF the man who is looking for popular
favor. These local rowdies are a moral
disease. Their actions are presidential
with the germs of intellectual and indus
trious death. Nothing that is high, or
honorable, or progressive, can thrive in
contact with their vileness. Good health
never spreads. Gangrene corrupts by its
very touch, and taints by its very presence.
Depravity in the social world is possessed
of like characteristics. Humanity follows
That principle on practice which appeals
to the lower attributes of its nature. The
local loafer is this appeal. His actions are
an infection of idleness and vagrancy.
And their presence in the community is a |
tax on all honesty, and temptation to all
virtue.
And to this evil we owe all the troubles
and outrages in the South. The swagger-
ing DULLES, iders and loafers, when heated
and maddened by liquor, insult and assault
peaceful, law-abiding people, and bring on
difficulties in which friends and associates
become involved, and which so frequently
end in blood. When full of bad whiskev.
they are full of fight and then if Repub-
lican meets one, or goes into place where
he happens to be "letting himself out, he
runs risk of being, at least, rudely treated.
But it is not by politics alone they are
stirred up to patriotic" action. An old
grudge, previous misunderstanding or
quarrel, is too often tie cause of these diff
culties, which force resort to deadly wea-
pons, and have but too frequently bloody
10 these rowdies and loafers society owes
most of those terrible tragedies which have
talned every square mile of our American
nap with the life blood of the best and
most worthy of our people. When men
re sober and engaged in business or &C.
upied by the cares of life they are gener- /,
lily at peace with their neighbors and all
he world, and there are no "political
utrages." There is no trouble in
ny community when all are indus
rlously employed, and avoid the resorts d
nd companionship of loafers, rowdies
nd idlers; but unfortunately whenever
election is about to take place, those 9,
lsturbers of the peace of all towns and
ties, the political damagogues and place. :
unters, and their henchmen, set their
gents to work, who soon throw the most 7
sacefu village or neighborhood into wild
sorder, and by infaming the worst pas
ons of even good and quiet people, turn !
EN- into very devils, ripe for any deed, y
} matter how terrible, that will be for the R
rood of the party" This is the fruitful Ell
URGE of all our Southern outrages." 9;
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