The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1874-05-08

ueVll OI nlWScli1 anu tHcu u1hk
war on the good?
THE GREAT TEMPERANCE MOVE
For years, and years, an
weary, suffering years, multiple,
into decades, have the women c
America waited to see that traffi
destroyed, which annually send
sixty thousand of their sons
brothers, fathers and husband
into the drunkard's grave. The,
have been impoverished, dis
graced, tortured in mind ant
body, beaten, murdered. Unde
the impulse of maddening liquor
the hands that were pledged be
fore heaven to provide for, anC
protect them, have withdraw
from them the means OF life, o.
smitten them in the dust. Sons
whom they have nursed upoI
their bosoms with tenderest low
and countless prayers, hav,
grown into beasts, of whom they
were afraid, or have sunk into
helpless and pitiful slavery
They have been compelled to GOV
er Gheir eyes with shame in the
presence of fathers whom it would
have been bliss for them to hold
in honor. They have been com
PEELED to bear children to men
whose habits had untitled them
for parantege-children not only
tainted by disease, but endowed
with debased appetites. They
have seen themselves and theiI
precious families thrust into So
cial degradation, and cut off for.
over from all desirable life by the
vice of the men they loved.
What the women of this country
have suffered from drunkenness, no
mind, however sympathetic, can
measure, and no pen, however
graphic, can describe. It has
been the unfathomable black gull
into which infatuated multitudes
of men have thrown their for
tunes, their health, and their in
dustry, and out of which have
come Only,-in fire and STENCIL
dishonor, disease, crime, misery,
despair and death. 1t is the
abomination of denominations, the
curse of curses, the hell of bells
For weary, despairing years,
they have waited to see the re-
form that should protect them
from further harm. They have
listened to lectures, they have
signed pledges, they have encour-
aged temperance societies, they
have asked for, and secured legis-
lation, and all to no practical good
end. The politicians have played
them false; the officers of the law
are unfaithful; the government
revenue thrives on the thriftiness
of their curse; multitudes of the
clergy are not only apathetic in
their pulpits, but self-indulgent in
their social habits; newspapers do
not help, but rather hinder them ;
the liquor interest, armed with
the money that should have
bought them prosperity, organ
lied them; fashion opposes them
q million fierce appetites- are ar
rayed against them, and, losing all
faith in men, what can they doi
There is but one thing for them
to do. There is but one direction
in which they can look, and that
is upward! The women's temper
ance movement, begun and car
ried on by prayer, is as natural in
its birth and growth as the oak
that springs from the acorn. If
God and the God-like element in
women cannot help, there is no
help. If the pulpit, the press, the
politicians, the reformers, the law,
cannot bring reform, who is left tc
do it but God and the womeni
We bow to this movement with
reverence. We do not stop tC
question methods; we do moi
pause to query about permanent
results. We simply say to the
glorious women engaged in thi
marvellous crusade: "MAY Col
HELP AND PROSPER YOU, AND CIV
| 1OO IhE OEOAhE 1OOl
HEARTS IN FRUIT OF YOUR LABoRs =
1t becomes men to be eithe
humbly helpful or dumb. w
who have dallied with this ques
ton; we who have dispassiOnatel,
drawn the line between temper
: ance andItotal abstinence; we VIII
have deplored drunkenness wit
wine-glasses in our hands; W
, who have consented to involve
: great moral reform with politics
3 we who have been POLITICAL
l afraid of the power of the brutl
a element associated with the liquo
traffic; we who have split hairs
: our discussion of public policy
VIC who have given social sane
ton to habits that in the gres
cities have made drunkards {
even the women themselves, an
: led their sons and ours into q di
Q solute life; we who have show
# either our unwillingness or OF
/. impotence to save the countl
: from the gulf that yawns befol
= it, can only step aside wit
shame-faced humility while Il
great crusade goes on, or hearth
y give to it our approval and oil
L aid.
r This is not q crusade of pr
1t fessional agitators, clamoring f
j. an abstract right, but an ente
If prise of suffering, pure and devc
ie ed women, laboring for the owe
" throw of = concrete wrong. 1t
- no pleasant, holiday business
which these women are engage
VI but one of Tself denying hardshi
D. pregnant in every part with
d. sense of duty. 1t is the offsprin
n of q grand religious impnl
which gives to our time its o
superb touch of heroism, and !
he deems it from its political debai
W. ment of the degradation of
FER materialism. 1t is q shame
In manhood that it is necessary;
av is q glory to womanhood that
\ y is possible.
" If the experience of the last c.
VI fury has demonstrated anythil
lty it is that total abstinence is
il. only ground on which any W,
cal wisher of society can stand. ]
est liquor traffic has been bolste
The up for years, and is strong tod
g." simply through influence which
len deemed respectable. 1t must
made infamous by the comb
~. ton of all the respectable
80 ments of society against it.
uiu must cease to be respectable
io1 drink at all. 1t must cease to
the oaoootaLlo 20 ront a br;I6;or