Holmes County Republican. [volume] (Millersburg, Holmes Co., O. [Ohio]) 1870-1895, 1873-09-25
Fireside Department.
Tramp, Tramp.

Ps oohp3 eAS
marching: how many of them?
Sixty thousand Sixty full regi-
ments, every man of which will,
before twelve months shall have
completed their course, lie down
in the grave ofa 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 child
ren's children. ssTranp, tramp,
tramp-the sounds come to us in
thesechoes 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 recruits. A
great tide of life flows resistless-
ly to its death. What in Gods
name are they fighting for? The
privilege of pleasing an appetite,
OF conforming to a social usage, of
filling sixty thousand homes with
shame and sorrow, of loading the
public with the burden of pau
perism, of crowding our prison
house with felons, of detracting
from the productive industries of
the country, of running fortunes
and breaking hopes, of breeding
disease and wretchedness, of des-
troying both body and soul in
hell before their time.
The prosperity of the liquor in
terest, covering every department
of it, depends entirely on the
maintenance of this army. 1t can
not live without it. So long as
the liquor interest maintains its
present prosperous condition, it
will cost America the sacrifice 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 trifiing. The amount
of life absolutely destroy ed, the
amount of bread transformed
into prison, the shame, the una
valling sorrow, the crime, the pow
erty, the pauperism, the brutali-
ty, the wild waste of vital and
financial resources, make an ag
gregate so vast. so incalculably
vast, that the only wonder is that
the American people do not raise
as one man, and declare that this
great CT rse will exist no longer.
Dilettante conventions are. held
on the subject of peace by men
and woman 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 to the wrongs
attached to the liquor interest.
Does any sane woman doubt
that woman are suffering thou
sand times more from rum than
from any political disability?
The truth is that there is no
question before American people
to-day that begins to match in
Importance the temperance ques-
ton. The question of American
slavery was never anything bat
baby by the side of this; and we
prophesy that within ten years,if
not within five, the whole coun-
try will be awake to it, and di-
vided upon it. The organizations
of the liquor interest, the vast
funds at its command, the univer-
sal 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 the
matter at least, the present con-
dition of things and the social and
political questions that lie in the
immediate future are apprehend-
ed. The liquor interest knows
there is to be a great struggle,
and is preparing to meet it. Peo-
pie both in this country and
Great Britain are beginning to
see the enormity of this business,
are beginning to realize that |
Christian civilization is actually |
poisoned at its fountain, and that
there can be no purification 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
dees not promise much. Little
native wine, latter all our painstak-
ing, finds itsway to gentleman's |
table. The California wines are
a disappointment and a failure,
and the Western wines are the |
same. Neither the dry nor the
sparkling -Catawha takes the
place of anything imported. They
are not popular wines, and we
congratulate the country that
they never can be. The lager
beer interest is endeavoring, in
convention, to separate itself
from the whisky interest, claim
ing to be holier and more respec-
table than that. They are ali to
be Jumped together. They are
all opposed to sobriety, and, in
the end, we shall find them all
fighting side by side for exis-
te1ce the Determined indign IA
ton of a long-suffering people.
A respectable English maga-
zine reports, as a fact of encour
aging moment, that Of the fifty
thousand clergymen ofthe Church
OF England, as many as four thou
sand actually abstain from the
use of spirits! So eleven-twelfths
Of the clergymen of the English
Church consent TO be dumb dogs