New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1875-06-05
NATIONAL TEMPERANCE CONTENTION

This Convention, now in session in Chicago,
should, from the quality of men who compose
it, be able to take q comprehensive grasp OF
one of the most difficult problems OF the time.
Associations or conventions of any sort serve
the age but little if they do not master the
subject which they have taken as specially,
and direct public opinion to some more rational
Judgment upon it than its usual vague conflict
of ideas and prejudices. In the matter OF
temperance, rcfOrmcrs have to guide them the
experience of many previous crllsades anu
their results, and the discoveries OF scicn-
tifc men and socioogsts in the ques-
ton of alcoholism considered as disease
and social evil. 1t is but reasonable
to expect from their deliberations movements
Of reform in accordance with these solid i0inda-
tons. We arc sorry to perceive that whlic the
motives of the Convention are undoubtedly the
best possible, its mode of action is cropping,
uncertain and little likely to affect public SEN
timcnt. 1t was hardly worth while for the
members to assemble from all parts of the
country to assure us that the Government was
to be commended in furnishing whisky frauds;
and it assuredly was a waste OF breath to re-
quest the medical profession to totally relln-
qliish the use of liquor in their prac-
tee. Any rational physician is open,
of course, to scientific argument IN
proof of the usclessness of alcoholic
stimulant in Il system Of materia medica, but
no such physician will, uncOnvinccd, change
his practice at the mere request of any assocI-
alton. Equally idle was the resolution to III
vite Congress to inquire into the effects of
alcoholic drinks in America. Such inquiries
can only be made i'm prison and asylum rec
ords and it is not likely that that legislative
body will express authoritative condemnation
of the use of liquors as long as it finds 1t
necessary to keep bar open for its own daily
needs in the Capitol, or while the most ap-
parent examples of the evil will be found near
home. Blows which fall on the air are simply
wasted power
Less harmless than these impractcablc reso-
buttons was that proposing to enlist children IN
the cause by urging them to take the pledge
in Sunday schools Send the children to Sun
day-school as much as you please for their re-
ligous instruction. and give them as strong
prejudice against liquor as possible; but it is
not only unwise but unjust to bind man 10y
his own act when he was an unreasOning
child No man with a natural craving for
liauor ever has been so bound /; and why add
the ag-wcight of broken VOW to bring him
down.
Tie trouble is that our friends have dealt
with this national matter too much as we'll
meaning woman would lecture a parcel OF
children on breaking one of her own rules.
The men who drink are not children the
effect of alcoholism upon the physical body,
especially in this climate, its result on the
brain, and hence upon the moral sense, is
real and terrible evil which they can readily
understand, and which they will be the first to
assert ought to be met by the most practical
and direct dealing. An inquiry into the effects
of alcoholism as a disease, the widespread
publication of the results of such inquiries for
the use of mothers and of those who have in
herited the tendency to the disease (one-half,
it il estimated of our popuation), and above all
the establishment in every State of Inebrate
Asyllms where the evil could be scientifically
combatcd, would accomplish more good than a
hundred vague addresses to Congressman or
physicians, which will fall quietly to the
ground.