Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1873-04-26

by issues, created by demagues. to SUIT
the tastes of the World and all papers
of the same stripe.
LETTER FROM ASHLAND CITY.
MRssRs. EDITORS: The Legislature
has brought its arduous labors to
close, and in some respects is not un-
like the fable of the nativity of the
mouse Especially is this true of the
Tipping Bill. Hopes were raised that
were doomed to disappointment The
friends of Temperance had just reasons
to suppose that something would be
done by the Legislature to stay the
tide of destruction that is sweeping
over our State as a bosom of desola-
ton. But instead, shapeless, inert
abortion was brought forth, awaiting
the vivifying influence of the people to
impart to it life and energy. So alb
normal was this creature of hasty leg
islation that the Governor was con-
strained, from clear sense of consti-
tutional duty, to interpose his veto,
rather than costly legislation should
grow out of it, when it would finally
be declared unconstitutional by the
court of last resort. Many believed
when the passage of the bill was first
announced that they could see the sill
yer lining around the dark cloud that
has so long obscured our moral skies,
and thought the sunlight of deliver
ance was just ahead; but not so.
Our town has an undeseryed reputa-
ton for drunkenness, and that an op-
portunity to correct this (Which many
thought within theirreach) made them
jubilant. There are few villages where
there are fewer citizens given to intox-
ication than Ashland City. Yet a
stranger here upon public days, not be-
ing able to distinguish citizen from
stranger, would conclude there was a
drunken set here, which is not the
case. If the question of License, or
No License" had been submitted to
the vote of the town, tipping would
have been voted down by three or four
to one, and would be killed in the dis
trict by handsome majority But
why could not the Legislature meet
the question fairly, and hit it squarely
in the face, and not seek to throw res
possibilities on other mems shoulders,
that itwould not assume itself. Drunk
enness and drunkard making are right
or they are wrong. There is no mid
die ground. If right, the lawmakers
ought to have said so, and have said to
the people, this is a business with
which you shall not interfere. Or
they should have said, it is wrong and
we desire no help from the people to
stop it, and the State shall no longer be
a particeps criminis to the nefarious
business. But, say its advocates, it
pays considerable revenue into the
State Treasury Admit it pays its
thousands by way of revenue, and yet
by crime, paurerism, ignorance and all
its collateral vices, it abstracts from
the same treasury its tens of thous-
ands in dollars and cents, as the courts,
jails, poor houses, aims houses and
penitentiary clearly demonstrate, to
say nothing of blasted hopes, blighted
intellects, squalid poverty, mental suf-
fering. degradation and death that ca n
not be estimated in dollars and cents.
We hope to live to see the day when
our proud old State will no longer en-
ter into partnership with one class of
her citizens for the purpose of preying
upon the others. Every license granted
by the State virtually says For stip-
ulated consideration paid me by John
Doe, | have entered into partnership
with him for the purpose Of making
drunkards of some of my best citizens,
robbing some of life, some of health,
some of responsibility, all that patron
ize us of their hard earnings, for all
of which the only return we propose
to make them is poverty, wretchedness,
and desolation, TO be handed down as
an heirloom to their posterity, and cur
object in doing all this is money, every
dollar of which, that goes into the
State treasury, is stained with blood,
wet with tears, and vocal with groans,
and the vail of woe wrung from the
hearts of widows and worse than or
phans, creatures of our own manufac-
| ture.
If these things must be so, in Gods
name let the State do what she can to
make restitution for the wrong she has
done and is continuing to do. Let her
say to the besotted inebriate, although
have assisted in taking from you
your patrimony, your health and res
pectable position in society; to the
widow, | have taken from you your
husband, or, | have converted your
once happy home into pandemonium;
to the tattered and uncared for or
phan, | have taken from you your all,
reduced your family from affiuence to
abject poverty, your father is now pay
ing the penalty, in the State prison, of
q crime he committed when under the
influence ofintoxication, your mother,
weak and delicate flower, transp!anted
from the genial cline of a happy home,
around do1ting fathers hearthstone,
to the inhospitable region of drunk
ards home, sunk beneath the touch of
verse winds, and now sleeps in an
unknown grave, with 20 kind hand to
strew spring flowers upon her last rest
ing place and now to, in some sort,
atone for the wrong already done, |
eolor,ol., ,,roo,,ea III % Cor tho futura