Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1873-09-05
The Liquor Interest.


In an article in Scri5ner's Nont6ly for
August DR.. j. G.. Holland becomes enthu.
siastlc on the Temperance question and
expresses his opinions regarding the
liquor interest - in the following en-
phatic terms
Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are
marching; how many of them? Sixty
thousandl Sixty full regiments, every
man of which will, before twelve months
shall have completed the course, lie down
in the grave of drunkard! Every year
during the past decade has witnessed the
same sacrifice; and sixty regiments stand
behind this army ready to take its place.
1t is to be recruited from our children
and our children's children. Tramp,
tramp, tramp - the sounds come
to us in the echoes of the footsteps of the
army just expired; tramp, tramp, tramp
the earth shakes with the tread of the
host now passing: tramp, tramp, tramp,
comes to us from the camp of the re-
cruits. \ great tide of life flows resist
lessly to death. What in Gods name are
they fighting for? The privilege of pleas
ing an appetite, of conforming to social
usage, of filling sixty thousand homes
with shame and sorrow, of loading the
public with the burden of paupelfsm, OF
crowding Our prison-houses with felons,
OF detracting from the productive indus
tries OF the country, of running fortunes
and breaking hopes, of breeding disease
and wretchedness, ofdestroying both body
and soul in hell before their time.
The prosperity of the liquor interest,
covering every department of it, depends
entirely on the maintenance of this army.
1t cannot live without it. 1t never did
live without it. So long as the liquor in
terest maintains its present prosperous
condition, it will cost America the sacri.
flee of sixty thousand men every year.
The effect is inseparable from the cause
The cost to the country of the liquor
traffic is sum so stupendous that any
figures which we should dare to give
would convict us of trifling. The amount
of life absolutely destroyed, the amount
of industry sacrificed, the amount OF
bread transformed into poison, the
shame, the unavailing sorrow, the
crime, the poverty, the pauper-
ism, the brutality, the wild waste OF
vital and financial resources, make an ag.
gregate so vast-so intellectually vast, that
the only wonder is that the American
people do not rise up as one man and de-
clare that this great curse shall exist no
longer. Dilettante conventions are held
on the subject of peace, by men and wo-
men who find it necessary to fiddle to
keep themselves awake. A hue-and CRY
is raised about woman suffrage, as if any
wrong which may be involved in Woman's
lack of the suffrage could be compared tC
the wrongs attached to the liquor interest
"Does any sane woman doubt that wo
men are suffering a thousand times more
from rum than from any political disa
bility?
ha f1.ut 10 hot ic ;.r
before the American people to-day thai
begins to match in importance the tenn
perance question. The question of Ameri
can slavery was never anything but a baby
by the side of this and we prophesy thai
within ten years, if not within five, the
whole country will be awake to it, and
divided upon it. The organizations of the
liquor interest, the vast funds at its com
mand, the universal feeling among those
whose business is pitted against the ma
tional prosperity and the public morals
these are enough to show that, upon one
side of this matter, at least, the present
condition of things and the social and po
litical questions that lie in the immediate
future are apprehended The liquor in
terest knows there is to be great struggle
and is preparing to meet it. People boil
in this country and in Great Britain are
siness-are beginning to realize that Chris
tian civilization is actually poisoned at it,
foundation, and that there can be no pu
rification of it until the source of the
poison is dried up.
"The country is to be sincerely con
graduated on the fact that the wine inter
est of the United States does not promise
much. Little native wine, after all ou
painstaking, finds its way to gentleman'
table. The California wines are a disap
pointment and failure, and the Western
wines are the same. Neither the dry no
the sparkling Catawba takes the place O
anything imported. They are not popula,
wines, and we congratulate the countr,
that they never can be. The lager bee
interest is endeavOring, in convention, tC
separate itself from the whisky interest
claiming to be holier and more respecta
BILE than that. They are all to be Jumped
together. They are all opposed to sobrie
", and, in the end, we shall find them al
nghtlng side by side for existence agains
the determined indignation of longsuf
fering people.
"a respectable English magazine re
ports, as fact of encouraging moment
tiiat OF the nifty thousand clergymen of the
Church of England as many as four thou
spirits! So, eleven-twelfths of the CLERGY
men of the English Church consent to b,
dumb dogs on the temperance question
How large the proportion of wine-drink
ing clergymen may be in this country w,
do not know, but we do know that wine
glass stops the mouth on the subject o
temperance, whoever may hold it, A wine
drinking clergyman is soldier disarmed
lie is not only not worth straw in thu
night; he is part of the tppedinae,,ta of thu
temperance army. We have gooC
many such TO carry, who ought Il
De ashamed of themselves, and who
very soon will be, Temperance laws
are being passed by the various
Legislatures, which they must sustain, OF
go over, soul and body to the liquor in
terest and influence. Steps are being Ia
ken on behalf Of the public health. NOR,
ais, and prosperity, which they must an.
prove by voice and act, or they must con.
sent TO be left behind and left out. There
can be no concession and no compromise
on the part of temperance men, and, mo
quarter to the foe. The great curse of our
country and our race must be destroyed