Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1873-12-18
,remnarance and Woman.
Extract from Report of Wendell Philip
lecture.

Temperance and woman
ilExtract from Report of Wendell Phillips
Iecture.l
Some of you regard temperance as 8
local, foolish fanaticism, but l lool
upon Il i. Jue of the permanent eie
meuts with which craftsmanship il
obliged to deal. The tendency OF to
day is toward the formation OF grea
/ cities: evarytlilnG aggregates US into
crowds. Everything that concerns the
government of great cities is the first
! thought of the statesman. 1t is the
problem of to-day, to govern these
great cities, where wealth and brain
are gathered together. Toryism in Eu
rope asks rs IL show how to govern 8
! great CITY, aLu ~ n not do it. Not
| one of our cities Ca. look back for .:
! years and then show Il G0dpl OF sue
! cessful government. l SAID l did not
consider temperance superficial vice.
/ In this country the statesman has to
deal with race that from time imme-
/ mortal has been, first, impatient of 9TH
ers' domination, and. secondly, with
/ the habit of showing their pleasure OF
conquest in intoxicatlOn. The means
here are at everyone's hand. Here
/ the laborer can be drunk a week On the
Elabor Of one day. Take Boston, for ex-
ample. Here there are $500 places
where liquor is dispensed, each prob
ably good for two voters; 1900 votes
are more thon enough tC decide any
election there, and these must always
be consulted in choosing any candi-
date. | believe in the possibility of re-
publican government, but dol|t see
how it is to succeed, for these great
cities, as Boston, have their officers
nominated and elected by the grog
shops. -
This is the great obstacle to the re-
publican government. Your city was
ownedi until within three years, by
less than 500 men; managed aud pill
LACED by less than 500 men. They had
d staff. of 1000. more. When election
day came, one of these men would say
to his satellites, ,.'YOu go down to such
polling place, and make itso unpleas-
ant to decent men that they won't
vote" The satellite might demur on
the ground that such action wOuld send
him, to Sing-Sing, butassurance OF safe
ty would make that all right. He
would want some one to help'him, and
he must find Il man so poor that he was
ready to be solo, and this lnan, SO de-
mOralized, would be taken to the grog
shop OF some man, possibly in training
for an Alderman, and kept there until
in a condition to do his bidding. Now
you cannot rest ballot box upon a
drunken community. New York rep
resents the crowning eXperimentS SOf
self-gOvernment in this country, but
life and property are not so safe in its
streets to-day, under a magistracy born
/ of the people, as in Paris or London,
under magistracy born of the upper
classes. New England says it mas
found q remedy in prohibition; you
say it is useless. Then we ask you,
What do you propose? 1t is the great,
crying need in one of these foci of
wealth and intellectual life.
! In all the manufacturing districts of
this country you can connt perhaps
20J, 900 atoring men. They have been
obliged to work say ii hours each day :,
no mental or physical strength to quail
ify themselves as voters. Suppose
see a tired workman going to his home,
taud, wishing to instruct about the sal
Fary grab, or the Spanish war, or the
Alabama question, should say to him,
"Would not you like to read these 200
page" Of Sumner on the Alabama
claims, OF this juicy extract from But
! Ter on the banking question ?'' The
man SAYS !. s'Let me sleep or drink" 2"
In some great national, critical mo-
ment, when few votes will turn the
balance, these 200, 900 votes will come
in. These men have no understanding
OF the problems. The moment you be-
gin to have such permanent class the
n
7 not go 10 Congress; they are gathering
rinto the sgrear industries. Only their
second lieutenants go to1Congre5s. But
brains have always governed this c0un-
try. Scott, of Harrisburg, has $780,
000,000 under his hands, and, as he
moves from san Francisco to his East
ern lunching place, .eyery-sweep of his
garments knocks down a Legislature.
] don't ask you for justice TO woman.
| come to ask something OF woman. !
don't ask that she may vote, but de-
mand that she shall vote. Say let US
summon to the grand struggle of the
age allthe moral forces we can. Wher-
ever in history you see one sex attempt
anything, you. will find it. is not well
done, and the sex is injured 1t seems
to be the plan of Providence that all
SfeaG Interests SlEtl DeLuiICeftaheH Ny
both sexes. Like literature. Ypacan-
not read Chaucerl and Shakespeare to
your families without eXpurgating, but
you can Dickens and Tennyson.
Chaucer wrote for men; Dickens for the
race. So with art; the statuary ofthe
Greeks was for men for a male civil
ization.s In societywe find the. arena
where men and women meet together
on equal ground. Society, in its keen
respect for women, is ahead of law and
politics.. Society would send a man to
coventry for the very thing that makes
4 man A No. / in the caucus to the lev
ell of society. God seems, TO mean that
together we should work out these
problems Let Woman help Us to make
this great experiment of the peoples
power certaihly successful. -l,,s,