The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1874-06-12
THE CRUSADE FoREroLp.

:. ! ne ne following. published two wears ago
IN NJ 'scItol'er.s Monthly. seems now almost
nHe prophecy:
,,,arat,i-p, tramp, tramp, the bows are
f,III ,alI;1s7, ,+.-i;s, now many of theml Sixty
t,,sl,-, every man of which will
| oI-SS S"eiNe months shall have com
| 90 Curst,, lie down in the grave
I'D oI d y GrunAaru! Every year during the
P'ss' uec"Ge mas witnessed the SAME sac
rincei anu SIXTY regiments stand behind
| thiS army ready to take its place. 1t il
to be recruited from our children ga
our children children Tramp, tramp.
tramp'-the sounds come to US in tbs
echoes of the footsteps of the army lust
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 reSistlessly to its
death. What in Gods name are they
lighting for? The privilege of pleasing
an appetite, of conforming to a social
usuage, of filling sixty Thousand homes
with shame and sorrow, of loading the
public with the burden of pailperism, of
crowdmS our priSOn-hOuSes with felons.
OF detraeting from the productive indus
trits OF the country, of running fortunes
anu breeding hopes, of breeding disease
anu "retchedneSs, OF destroying both
body and soul in hell before their finn,
The prosperity of the liquor Interest
covering every department of it, depends
entirely on the maintainenance of this
army. 1t cannot live without it. II
never did live without it. So long as
the liquor interests maintains its present
- I
the sacrifice of sixty thousand men every
year. The cost to the country of the
liquor traffic is n sum so stupendous that
any figures which we should dare to give
would convict us of trifling. The amount
of life absolutely destroyed, the amount
of bread transformed into poison, the
shame, the unavailing sorrow, the crime,
the poverty, the pauperism, the brutali-
ty the wild waste of vital and financial
resources, made an aggregate so vast-so
intellectually 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. Dilettante
conventions are held on the subject of
peace, by men and women who find it
necessary to fiddle to keep themselves
awake. y hue-and-cry is raised about
"oAAlt'iA ohAAAtlrt- tto III tlllN WTOlk 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 wo-
men are suffering thousand times more
from rum, than from any political disa-
bilityl
The truth Is, that there is no question
before the American people to-day, that
begins to match III Importance the
question. 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 divided upon it. The
of the liquor interest, the
vast funds at its command, the universal
feeling among those whose business is
pitted against the national prosperity
and the public mOrils-theSe are enough
to show that, upon one side of this mat
ter, at least, the present condition of
things end the social and political q1es-
tions that lie i'll the immediate future
are apprehended. The liquor interest
knows there is to be great struggle,
and is preparing to meet it. People both
in this country and in Great Britain are
beginning to realize that Christian civ
ilization is actually poisoned at its foun-
tain, and that there can be no purifica-
ton of it until the source of the poison
is dried up.