Gallipolis journal. [volume] (Gallipolis, Ohio) 1837-1919, 1874-05-21
GALIIPOLIS, OHIO, THURSDAY. MAY II, 1874.

| ana make MIN worse than the brute
Were our State to license a thing
that causes the moral and physical
degradation of it's citizens, is it not
evident that these men would take
fresh courage in their diabolical
work? Dare any advocate of this ini-
quitous proposition, stand before his
Maker and pretend that he does not
kaO~ that these men would be
strengthened in their opposition to
these self-sacrificing women2 Lii
cense strikes at the very life of tenn
perance, and the moment that we le-
galize the saloon business, that mo-
ment will the saloon keepers expect
that the present movement will be
shorn of its strength. AS it would
be an irreconcilable inconsistency to
legalize a crime, we cannot protect
the business by law, without affirming
that it is right. The distillers and
brewers of the country and their
horde of satellites, petition State leg
islatures to admit that the business
is not wrong, by granting it the pro-
lection of law, so that these praying
and beseeching women will of neces-
sity be compelled to cease their en-
deayors to reclaim the erring. What
might not rum-seller attempt to do,
If his Internal business were any bet
ter protected than it is at present?
Recent Sample Room exhibitions
in Gallipolis may help to elucidate
this subject. know one thing he
would do. He would give men liquor
just as long as they could walk a
crack in the floor, and should their
grieyed wives go and expOstulate
with him, he would contemptuOusly
fiaunt his commission in their faces,
and defy them. License furnishes
a fortification behind which the wick
ed remain entrenched, and when the
tears of the suffering, and the pray
ers of the pleading. urge that their
waron humanity shall cease, they will
yell back defiantly that their business
is legalized by the statute of the
State" | fear that the blood of the
innocent, will be found upon those
who sign the death warrants of their
fellow-men.
From thousands Of homes in this
broad land to-day, little ragged and
bare-footed children, with an anxiety
producing a picture of woe upon
their features, have gone out in quest
of an inebriate father. Go, you who
are in favor of these deadfalls
being established by law, go with
one of these Bacchanalian worship
ers of "The little Brown Jug" to
the place that he calls home! Be
hold the pale face of that poor woman !
See how the innocent little ones cling
to her faded garments, and crouch
with very fear at the first sound of
their. fathers footsteps, for they un
derstand that he is drunkard! The
evidences of want and extreme suf-
fering, of cruelty and shameful neg
lect, are seen on every hand-all the
result of fiery alcohol! In fact, the
entire management of that mans
human affairs seems to have been
turned over to the devils own hands.
But some may think that this picture
is overdrawn. Iwould that it were,
but it is not. / believe that in the
cities of New York State, hundreds
of mothers with their little ones, their
hearts almost bursting with grief,
have stood before the licensed rum
sellers door this day, and plead with
that dealer in Heavens name, to give
no more liquor to the one to whom
they cling for support. Could any of
these consistent and intelligent tenn
perance" men behold such things,
and then help on these death dealing
rum-sellers, by voting to give them
the legal right to poison our humani-
ty? But what says the rum-seller
upon this subject? Il never sell to
drunkards, etc, but confine my bust
ness strictly within the limits of the
law" Oh! no; of course not; but
he would feel no cOmpunctiOn what
ever in making a drunkard in the
east possible time, by giving a sober
man all the liquor that he could pay
for and stand up with. After it is too
ate-after he has made a moral
and physical wreck of that man, and
got him clear down on his back in the
gutter, then the rum sellers friends
are in favor of prohibitiOn-to that
man! Now say that this theory is
not right After allowing that man
to partake of the poison till it has
become part of himself-the con
trolling part; after he has gone on to
that extent that he feels that he mast
have it, TO compel the rum seller to
give his fations to new recruit, who
has perhaps just entered upon the
years of his majority, | say is very
wrong. Better, yea a thousand times
better, that every drunkard now on
the face Of the earth should be al
lowed to drink himself to death dur
ing the ,ext few years, than that
others and greater numbers of com
parativeE temperate men, though |
some OF whom are already far
within the circles of the whirlpool,
should b, permitted to follow in the
Bame footsteps, and at last join the
= &nnumerable number of the lost, that
nave passed on before.
1t is frequently said by way of jus
ifcation of license, that the laws
which wenow have are as dead let
ers upon the statute books. What
matters tat? Suppose that our off
ters of Justice do lack the moral cour-
hge to execute (even when petitioned
Ito do sol the laws, in accordance with
their Official oath; is that any reason
WHY we should scar our consciences
as witha hot iron, by passing enact
ments il favor of the vicious and ruff
fianly elment of society, in order to
have something that can be put in
| pa..ao x,,;hout inoitinO the dire ven