The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-02-13
The Ohio Temperance Movement.

The crusade of the praying women of Ohio
against the rum traffic which few weeks ago
begun in one town, is rapidly spreading all
over the State and is so remarkable in its re-
suits as to attract universal attention and gen.
eral comment. Journals which were dis
posed to dismiss the movement with philo-
sophical paragraph or a fippant item have
come to reconsider The subject now that the
women crusaders have driven the traffic from
more than score of towns and the movement
IL spreading to others. gaining every hour in
first temperance men deprecated the move
ment, fearing that evil rather than good would
result, while the worldly wise whose sensibil-
titles have been benumbed by the presence of
the traffic and only appreciate its great power,
have ridicued it. A New England exchange
before us urges that rumsellers have rights in
their business and that it is an Infringement
for women to enter their premises and engage
in prayer; which, when one comes to think of
it, is equivalent to saying that, if sanctioned
by the law, class have the right to make
drunkards of husbands and cons, to steal away
their brains and fire their passions until they
commit crime, to turn homes into bells and
infiict upon community paupers aud GRIMM
ais, and that the sufferers, the wives and
mothers, are violators of vested rights and
breakers of the peace, when they take the most
efectual moral means to succor those whose
welfare is their own and whose lives are pre-
cious to the n. Yet the journal in question is
respectable and intelligent one and on this
subject represents the sentiment of majority
of the intelligent people of Boston. With
public sentiment like this, tn, inefficiency of
law TO stop the crime of rumseIIing affords no
cause tor surprise; nor is it to be wondered at
that those who have seen the strong arm OF
the law powerless, should ridicule the at
tempt of few feeble women, judged by hu-
man wisdom, to overthrow so gigantic a pow
er.
The Ohio statute is in its essentials license
law with the somewhat celebrated famous
Adair provision which makes the liquor seller
responsible in suit at law for injury inflicted
upon his customers or victims. But we judge
that the law is imperative since it seems to
be the custom for towns of two or three thou
sand inhabitants to have ten or fifteen open
dram shops. The baneful results of this num-
Der of unopposed dealers in country towns
can hardly be estimated here. They become
general resorts and nearly every young man
becomes tippler. Dependence on the
law had failed and the women the
chief sufferers, with no voice in making or
enforcing the laws and without potent influ-
ence on such moral issues, because they are
deprived of the ballot, had no other means
than that of holding prayer meetings IN the
saloons and drinking houses. In no case
have they forced themselves into dram shop,
in no case have they used violence or threats
Where they have been forbidden to enter
they have held their services on the sidewalks.
They were prepared to be ridiculed, but in
their desperation to save their erring relatives,
they have cut away from the prevalent unbe-
lief IN the efficacy of prayer.
The results of their constant labors. we
know Of, or at least partially, through the pa
pers. They have commanded respect. Their
very helplesspess has appealed to the men
who we're doing the bad work and the Chris
tian spirit displayed, has conquered their foes.
30 that in not few instances the dealers
have Joined them in their noble mission.
In brief. the work begun by few women, is
apparently working an entire revolution, and
1t appears as if the whole Christian society
was rising in revolt TO long endured wicked
ness. Whole communities, if the reports are
to be credited, engage in this crusade against
intemperance. Meetings are held in the
churches in the towns where the women have
org inized, and even where they have not, the
saloon keepers are abandoning the traffic.
human reason may condemn the move
men. because it cannot fathom it and the
critic may ridicule T., but the fact remains;
and 1t is wonderful indeed And yet if all the
rells'ous organizations in this city should
unite in crusade against the dramshops. can
1t be doubted but that they would be moro
thoroughly and permanently successful IN
banishing intemperance than the most v;o,-
lent enforcement of the most stringent Law
notsustained by an aggressive public senti-