Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1874-05-15
TEMPERANCE NO. q.


the low fox-like cunning Of the trucking
politician, who would barter his respec ta-
bility for the support of the liquor party;
It unmasks the hypocricy Of professcd
friends of temperance who love to sip their
wine or other favorite beverage behind the
curtain, and it brings out the true friend
of the cause in bold relief as champion
for sobriety and reform.
This is not crusade of professional agi.
tators, clamoring for an abstract principle /;
but the spontaneous out-burst OF true and
genuine heroism on the part of women
rendered almost desperate by long contin-
ued and oft repeated wrongs, for which
they have sought in vain for redress. II
is no pleasant hold W recreation in which
these women are engaged, but work of
self-denying hardship dictated solely by a
sense of duty. 1t is the out-croping OF
holy religious impulse, and exhibits a
heroism on their part which contrasts
strangely with the political debasement of
the other sex; and shames our manhood,
while it gloriies her truly exalted nature.
While we have triiled with the question,
and complicated great moral reform with
politics, and have been politically afraid
of the brutal element associated with the
liquor traffic, and have split hairs in our
discussions of public policy, and thus
shown our impotence to save the country
from the gulf of ruin; the women have
taken the work out of our hands, and
organized this holy crusade to redeem
the land from the curse of drunkenness,
and save their husbands, brothers and sons
from the degradation and ruin of this de-
stroying vice. For long weary years they
waited to zee the reform that should pro-
tect them and their loved ones from this
bane OF social happiness in the domestic
circle. They listened to lectures, signed
pledges, encouraged temperance societies,
petitioned and secured legislation, and all
to no good practical result. The poll
ticians played false officers of the law
proved unfaithful, the Clergy were apa-
thetic in their ministrations; editors ig-
nored the subject; while the liquor inter-
est strengthene by the money of which
they had been robbed, organized power
against them; and despairing of all hu-
man aid, and losing all faith in men, in
their extremity they turn to Almighty
God in prayer, as their last and only hope
Thus the Woman's Temperance movement,
began and carried on by prayer, is natural
in its birth and growth, is emphatically a
child of Providence. We hail its advent
with reverence, without questioning the
method or results trusting in the Provi-
dence OF God to work out these in his own
good time and pleasure.
"God moves in a mysterious way,
His wonders 10 perform,
He plants his footsteps in the sea,
An rides upon the Storm"
May Col prosper the right, and give
them t e desire of their hearts as the fruit
of their labors. The experience of the
last half century has demonstrated the
fact that total abstinence is the only ground
| upon which any well-wisher Of society can
stand.
The liquor traffic has been bolstered up
for years, and is strong to-day, simply
through influences which are called respec-
table. Politicians talk about regulating it
| by law; and legislators have been tinker
ing at this job of regulating, until nearly
every variety of legislative action that the
| inventive genius of man can devise, has
been tried, and still the fiery tide of
drunkenness and debauchery rolls over our
land with all the devastating power of lava
from a volcano. REGULATE the liquor
trd6cL AS well might you attempt to
regulate the eruptions of Mount Vessuvius
or the desolating track OF a tornado. Ask
| your doctor to regulate cancer! Ask him
to regulate the hydrophobia Call upon
politicians to regulate bedlam and the
Legislature to regulate pandemonium
Why did not the fremen think far enough
to attempt to re ulate the Chicago and
| Boston confagrations? Regulate The liquor
| traffic. The idea is simply ridiculous !;
most ludicrously absurd, and the original
| inventor of such a mental menstrosity
| ought to secure a patent-right for his sole
benefit The entire business of converting
the grain, which was intended to be the
staff of life, into the elixir of death and
damnation, thus prostituting the blessings
of God, into the greatest curse of human
| ity, as we'll as all the branches of the traf-
| fic, from the monster wholesale liquor es-
tablishment down to the lowest grocery is
INFAMOUS, and ii must be stamped with
| infamy by the combination of all the re-
| spectacle elements Of society against it.
| 1t must be Ldbled with infamy in all its de-
| partmcnts. 1t must cease to be respecta-
| BILE to drink at all it must cease to be re-
spectacle to rent building in which
! liquors are sold. The whole business must
be stamped just what it is; diSrtputdbic and
iafimous. 1t is with reference to the de
velopmento of a more healthy public opinion
on this subject, that we hail with Joy the
| Women's Crusade. Our own vision is so
blinded and perverted hat we can only
see the deformity of this monster vice
though woman's eyes, up-lifted in prayer
for her deadliest foe; fearful in shame
and suffering; as she pleads with
Omnipotence for the extirpation of her
| lifelong enemy. It is the shocking con-
trast of woman, in all her angelic nature
and refinement graphing with fearful earn.
estness the most filthy, degrading and re-
voting vices of humanity that stirs the
public mind to its profoundest depths,
and opens our eyes to see its Nervousness
as we never saw it before.
And if nothing more is accomplished by
the crusade, this alone Is sufficient to inn
mortalize it in the history OF reformations.
That it will reform the saloon-keepers, and
thus dry up these fountains OF iniquity, is
perhaps more than should be expected-so
| degraded and lost to all sense Of shame
or propriety has the liquor-seller fallen,
that he is scarce in the reach of moral
suasion or moral precepts. As well might
they sing spiritual songs and hymns to a
hyena or Benglaeze tiger, or reade the dec
alogue to Polar bear with the expecta-
tion of modifying their cruel natures, as
to expect reform the evil instincts of a
liquor-seller by moral suasion. Nothing
but Almighty Power is adequate to the
task of converting them, and very appro-
priately have they referred the case to
Him; appealing il from the courts of
men to the highsCourt of Heaven-and
their prayers will prevail. Well may the
culprit tremble in view of the justice of
God, who has pronounced a fearful curse
upon this Infamous traffic.
Woe unto him that giveth his neigh