The Toledo chronicle. [volume] (Toledo, Tama County, Iowa) 1873-1924, 1874-05-07
Great Temperance Move
enent.

For years, and years, and weary.
suffering years. multiplied into de-
rcades, have the women OF America
waited to see that traffic destroyed.
which annually SENDS sixty Thousand
of their sons, brothers, fathers and
husbands into the drunkard's grave.
They have been impoverished, dis
gracel, tortured in mind and body,
beaten, murdered. Under tho i'm.
pulse Of maddcning liquors the hands
that were pledged before Heaven TO
provide for, and protect them, have
Withdrawn from them the means of
life, or smittcn them in the dust.
Sons whom they have nursed upon
their bosoms with tenderest love and
countless prayers, have grown into
beasts, OF whom they were afraid,
or have sunk INTO helpless and pltiiul
slavery. They have been compelled
| w CIV VI lIcit S(Ss Nltu III ei-S
presence oil fathers whom 1T would
have been bliss for them to hold IN
honor. They have been compelled
TO bear children to men whose habits
had untitled them for parentagc--
children net only tainted by disease,
but endowed with jebased appetites.
They have seen themselves and their
precious families thrust into social
degradation, and cut off forever from
al desirable life by the vice of the
men they loved. What the women
OF this country have suffered from
drunkenness, no mind however sym
pathetic, can measure, and no pen,
however graphic, caa describe. 1t
has been the untathomable black gulf
into which infatuated mullltules OF
men have thrown their fortunes, their
health, and their industry. and out Of
Which have come cnly,-ln fire and
strench, -dishonor, disease, crime,
misery, despair and death 1t is the
abominatiou of denominations, tho
curse Of curses, the hell OF bells.
For weary, despairing years, they
have waited TO sec the reform that
should protect them from further
harm. They have listened to lee.
lures, they have signed pledges, they
have encouraged temperance societies,
they have asked for, and secured leg.
islation, and all TO no practical good
! end. The politicians lave played
: them false !; the officers of the law
are usiaithtul; the government re
, venue thriyes on the thritlincss oil
: their culse; mullitudcs of the clergy
are not only apathctic III their pull
pits, but selt,indul gent III their social
habits; newspapers do not help, but
rather binder them; the liquor inter
c est, AIMED with the money that
s s''e"s have bough. thsm prosperity
. ofs~rlzes against them fashion op
poses them; million fierce appeli
? ties are arrayed against them, and
. losing all faith in men, what can they
2 do: There is Int one thing 10,
+, lheEl To do. There Is but one direc
! t,oi, III which they can look, and that
, Is upward The women.s temper.
: ance movement, begun and carried
s on by prayer, is as natural in its birth
and growth as the oak that springs
| from the acorn. If God and the God
: ike element in woman cannot help,
A there is no help. If the pulpit, the
5 press, the politicians, tho reiormers,
the law, cannot bring reforms, who is
, left to DO it but God and the women:
! We bow to this movement with
} reverence. We 90 no. stop to qucs-
tlou methods; we do not PAUSE to
query about permanent results. We
simply say to the glorious women
] engaged i'll this marvellous crusade
May God help and prosper you, and
qlte you the desire Of you' Hearts in tie
fruits Of yonr Mbors -
; II becomes mon 10 be either hum.
bly, helpful or dumb. We who have
dallied with this question; we who
have dspassionately drawn the line
between temperance and total abs,i-
ncncc; we who have dcplored drunk
: enress with wine glasses in our
hands; we who have consented TO
involve great moral reform with
politics. we who have been political.
~ afraid OF tho power OF the brutal
element associated with the liquor
traffic: we who have split hairs in
our discussions Of pubic policy, We
who have given social sanction 10
Eab!ts that in the great cities have
made drum kards of even the women
themselves, and led Their sons and
ours into a dissolute life, we who
have shown either oar INV ilinencss
or our impotence to save the coun.
| try from the gulf that yawna hafo,o