The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1874-02-20
NEW TEMPERANCE CRUSADE.

In portions of the State of Ohio, the
women are waging a fierce war against
the sale of all intoxicating drinks. The
plan is very simple one, in its way:
the women of town get together and
visit, in a body, place of business
where intoxicating drinks are sold.
The means of reformation employed,
are singing and prayer. These ladies
of Ohio enter a saloon, and, if permit
ted, begin to sing, and then kneel and
pray. If the keeper of the saloon proves
contumacious, the ladies then with
draw, and begin singing and praying
in the street in front OF the offending
saloon. In Ohio, the plan, judged by
results, has worked very well; whole
towns are now left without a whiskey-
shop. In some places, more than
twenty dealers in whisky have signed
the pledge, not to sell whisky.
But will not the lovers of strong
drink still indulge their thirst, at what
ever cost, or sacrifice it may require?
We have noticed that the man who
drinks secretly, and rcfrains from drink
in public, because he may be disco YER
cd and censured, is uniformly the first
man to be killed by drink. 1t is the
making, not the selling, o. strong
drink, that lies at the bottom of intoxi-
cation. Efforts to stop the sale of
whisky, however successful, will prove
ephemeral, so long as whisky is made.
Another trouble is, that SO long as
we have the depressing influences re-
sulting from bad government, Unequal
ity of the price of labor and price of
capital, and the strained and unprofita-
BILE life most men are compelled to lead :,
we will have, also, that false, and, yet,
is mainly begotten by stimulating
drinks. The cause of intemperance, in
Ohio, as elsewhere, is not the quantity
of whisky offered for sale, but it is in
the dread mon have of facing their
misfortunes,-in the want they feel of
encouragement to meet the ills, woes
and trials of life, and the lack of sub
stantial business profits and of home
pleasures. The women of Ohio will
simply feel ashamed Of their doings,
after awhile, when the excitement of
the moment dies away, and when they
see they have been crusading against
the effect, without, in the least, dis
turbing the cause. Whisky is an evil,
and ought to be abated; but no amount
of singing and prayer, indulged in even
nv ladies' ran revolufiopizo tho ,,,,o
titles of people who have been fed
and live upon stimuIants of one kind,
or another, and who are wholly unable
to live without employment and who
are not accustomed to singing and
prayer.
But it may be, that, were we living
in Ohio, and were n woman, and had a
drunken husband, or q lot of good-for-
nothing sons, we might write differ
emily. In most cases, one forms an
opinion from his own surroundings and
from his own interests. Not being an
Ohio lady, we are ready to waive any
opinion we may have as to what be-
the ladies of Ohio, or what may
advance the cause of temperance in
that State. All we claim to know, is,
that no want of tho human family was
ever destroyed yet, in the way the
ladies of Ohio arc attempting to put
down the drinking of ardent spirits.
---
One of our exchanges says that Gov.
McIIncry will formally request Senator
to rctract the charge made in