Smyrna times., 1873-08-13
The Liquor Interest.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are march
ing: how many of them? Sixty thousand! |
Sixty full regiments, every man of which will, |
before twelve months shall have completed |
their course, lie down in the grave of
drunkardl 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 chidren's children. Tramp,
tramp, tramp"-the sounds come to us in the
echoes of the footsteps of the army just ex-
plred; 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 resist
lessly 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 pauperism, of crowding our prison-houses
with felons, of detracting from the productive
industry OF the country, of running fortunes
and breaking hopes, of breeding disease and
wretchedness, of destroying both body and soul
in hell before their time.
The prosperity of the liquor interest cover
ing 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 interest maintains its
America the sacrifice of sixty thousand men
every year. The effect is inseparabe 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 convict
us OF trltlng. 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 resources,
make an aggregate SO vast. go incalculably vast,
that the only wonder is that the American
! people do not rise as one man and declare that
this great curse shall exist no longer. Dilet.
tante conventions are held on the subject Of
peace, by men and women who find it neces-
sary 10 fiddle to keep themselves awake. A
hue-and-cry is raised about woman suffrage, as
If any wrong which may be involved in
womans lack of the suffrage could be COM
pared to the wrongs attached to the liquor
! interest
Does any sane woman doubt that women are
suffering thousand times more from run than
from any political disability
The truth is that there is no question before
the American people to-day that begins tc
match in Importance the temperance question.
The question of American slavery was never
anything but baby by the side of this and
We prophesy that within ten years, if moi
within five. the whole country will be awake t
it, and divided upon it. The organization of
the liquor interest, the vast funds at its com.
mand, the universal feeling among those whose
business is pitted against the national prosper
ity and the public morals-these are enough t
show that, upon one side of this matter, a.
least. the present condition OF things and the
social and political questions that lie in tbs
immediate future are apprehended. Th'
liquor interest knows there is to be a grea
struggle, and is preparing to meet it. People
both IN this country and in Great Britain arr
beginning to see the enormity of this business
are beginning to realize that Christian civil
ization is actually poisoned at its foundation
and that there can be no puri6catiOn of i
ntil the source Of the poison is dried up.
Meantime, the tramp, tramp, tramp sounds
on,-the tramp of sixty thousand yearl!
victims. Some are besotted and stupid, som,
are wild with hilarty and dance along thu
, dusty way, some reel along iE pitiful weakness
some wreak their mad murderOuS impulses OF
, one another, or on the helpless women anC
children whose destnies are united to theirs
) some stop in wayside debaucheres and infamie
for moment, some go bound in chains from
, which they seek in vain to wrench their bleed
, ing wrists, and all are poisoned in body ant
soul, and all are doomed TO death. Whereve
they move, crime, poverty, shame, wretched
ness, and despair hover in awful shadows
! There is no bright side to the picture. w
' forget: there is just one The men who max
this army get rich. Their children are robet
in purple and 6ne linen, and live upon dainties
Some of them arc regarded as respectabl
a members of society, and they hold convention
to protect their interests Still the tramp
tramp, tramp goes on, and before this articl
can see the light, five thousand more of ou
poisoned army will have hidden their sham
and Rhn N.c 4,
e august.