The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-08-01
THE LIQUOR INTEREST.

y
) before twelve months shall have
completed their course, lie dowr
in the grave of drunkard
) Every year during the past decade
; has witnessed the same sacrifice;
andssixfvs regiments stand behind
this army readyato take its place.
1t is to be recruited from our chill
dren and our children7s children.
q Tramp, tramp, tramp, "-the
sounds come to us in the echoes OF
the army just expired; tramp,
tramp, tramp-the earth shakes
with the tread of the host now pas
sing: tramp, tramp, tramp, comes
to us from the camp of the re-
cruits. A great tide of life flows
resistlessly to its death. What in
| Gods name are they fighting for?
The privilege of pleasing an appe-
tite, OF conforming to a social
usage, of filling sixty thousand
homes with shame and sorrow, of
loading the public with the burden
of pauperism, of crowding our
prison houses with felons, of de-
tracing from the productive in
dustries of the country, of ruin
ing fortunes and breaking hopes,
of disease and Indebtedness, of de-
stroying both body and soul in
hell before their time.
The prosperity of the liquor
interest, covering every depart
ment of it, depends entirely on the
maintenance of this army. 1t
cannot live without it. 1t never
did live withoutit. So long as the
liquor interest maintains its pres
ent prosperous condition, it will
cost America the sacrifice of six
ty thousand men every year. The
effect is inseporable from the
cause. The cost to the country
of the liquor traffic is a sum so
stupendous that any figures which
we should dare to give would con-
vict us of trifiing. 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
pauperism, the brutality, the wild
waste of vital and financial resour-
ces, make an aggregate so vast
so intellectually vast, that the only
wonder is that the American peo-
pic do not rise as one man and de-
clare that this great curse shall
exist no longer. Dilettanti con-
ventions are held on the subject of
peace, by men and women who
find it necessary to fiddle TO keep
themselves awake. A hue-and-cry
is raised about women suffrage, as
if any wrong which may be in
yolved in woman's lack of the suf-
frage could be compared to the
wrongs attached to the liquor
interest.
Does any woman doubt that
women are suffering a thousand
times more from rum than from
any political disability
The truth is that there is no
question before the American peo-
pie to-day that begins to match in
Importance the temperance ques-
ton. The question of American
slavery was never anything but a
baby by the side of this; and we
prophesy that within ten years, if
not Within five, the whole country
will be awake to it, and divide
upon it. The organization of the
LIQUOR interest, ihc vast funds at
its command, the universal feeling
among those whose business is
pitted against the national pros
perity 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 political
questions that lie in the immediate
future are apprehended. The liz
uor Interest knows there is to be n
great struggle, and is preparing to
meet it. People both in this coun-
try and in great Britain are begin
ing to see the enormity of this
business-are beginning to realize
that Christian civilization is ac-
tuaIly poisoned at its fountain,
and that there can be no purifica-
ton of it until the source of the
poison is dried up.
The country is to be sincerely
congratulated on the fact that the
wine interest of the United States
does not promise much. Little
native wine, after all our painstak-
ing, finds its way to gentleman's
table. The California wines are q
disappointment and q failure, and
the Western wines the same.
Neither the dry nor the sparkling
Catawba takes the place of any
thing imported. They are not
popular wines, and we congratu-
late the countrp that they never
can be. The lager beer interest Is
endeavoring, in convention, 20 sep
arate itself from the whisky inter
est, claiming to be holier and more
respectable than that. They are
all to be lunped together. They
are all opposed to sobriety, and, in
the end, we shall find them all
fighting side by side for existence
againft the determined indignation
of long-sufEering people.
A respectable English magazine
reports, as a fact OF encouraging
| moment, thatof the fifty thousand
i clergymen of the Church of En-
| gland as many as four thousand
| actually abstained from the use of
spiritsl So, eleyen-twelfths of the
clergymen Of the English Church
4 consent to become dDmb dogs on
the temperance question: How
large the proportion Of wine
| drinking clergymen may be in this
country we 90 not know. but we
! do know that 9 wiDe-giass stops
the mouth on the subject of tenn
peraHce, whoever may hold it a
wine drinking clergyman is q sol
der disarmed. He is not only
not worth a straw in the fight; he
is 3 part OF the igspedimeAed of
the temperance army. We have 3
| good many such TO cary, who
I ought to be- ashamed of them
! selves, and who, very soon
Il will be. Temperance laws
are being passed by various
Legislatures. which they must
snstain, or goover. soul and body,
to the liquor interest and infnence.
Steps are being taken on behalf OF
the public health, morals, and
prosperity, which they must APP
81 prove by voice and act, or they
Il must consent to be left behind and
: LETT out. There can be no conces-
sion and no compromise on the