The daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1873-1877, 1875-06-12
ghe Bully Atgns.
Fools and their Folly.


The national temperance convention. re-
Gently in session at Chicago, unanimously
passed the following resolution:
" Res0EUed that the time has arrived more fully to
consider the relations of the national government
to its responsibility for the alcoholic liquor traffic,
and hereby ask the Fortyiou tn congress to PIC
hibt the manufacture of all alcoholic liquors In
the District of Columbia and in the territories Of
the United States, and to prohibit their mpor alton
from foreign countries; to require total abstinence
from all alcoholic beverages on the part of officers
and subordlnates in the civil and military service;
and to initiate and adopt for ratification by the sew
eral states of the Union constitutional amendment
which shall make the traffic in alcoholic beverages
illegal throughout onr national domain"
Evidently this is good year for fools as
we'll as grasshoppers, and of the two, we
are inclined to think the former are the
greater nuisance-for the grasshoppers 60
and the fools do not 1t is utterly incom
prehensible how men and women outside
of a funatic asylum can meet in convention
| in civilized and enlightened community
and deliberately adopt such resolution as
the one quoted. The traffic in and con
sumption of alcoholic beverages have ex-
listed in every country, among every PEG
pie, and in every age of which history fur
nishes record. They are not modern in
situations, weeds of recent growth which
can easily be plucked up by the roots and
permanently destroyed, They are literal
| ly as ''old as the hills" and their roots 90
down to take hold of the very bedrock of
our physical nature. The appetite upon
which they are based is not indeed wholly
| natural, but to great extent is purely ar
| ti6cial: yet its artifciality rather strength
ems than weakens it, for that appetite and
its qualification supply want, which, how
ever pernicious, is universally felt and can
never be annihilated. The use of tobacco
is OF far later origin than the use of alco-
holic beverages, yet the Indian weed is
burned, or chewed, or snuffed in all parts
Of the globe, and will continue to be en-
oyed as l)ng as the globe is inhabited. Not
all the laws of all the congresses, nor all
the edicts of all the kings, can accomplish
the programme marked out by the idiotic
reformers assembled at Chicago. Men
will drink liquor until the end of time, and
as long as liquor is drank it will be manu-
featured and sold in quantities to suit.
Prohibitory legislation has been tried in
many places, failed everywhere and always
will fail To argue otherwise is to argue
oneself a thoroughbred ass, into whose
head sense can no more be injected than
bananas can be made to grow on an ice
berg.
If an exhibition of superlative assitude
was all that the national temperance con-
vention succeeded in making,we should not
have given that body this frst-class notice.
But such folly does actual harm by impe-
ding the progress of a sensible and much
needed reform. Intemperancs is great
and growing evil 1t cannot be annihilated,
but it can be controlled and diminished.
Universal total abstinence will arrive, per-
haps, with universal goodness, but not be-
fore. Meanwhile excessive indulgence in
stimulating fluids can be discouraged by
precept and example, thereby getting rid
of the most Objectionable features of an in
eradicable propensity of thirsty humanity.
1t was just such nonsense as was ventilated
in the congenial atmosphere of Chicago
which brings all temperance movements
into disrepute, and makes even the honest
advocates of intelligent and practical re-
form the laughing stock of the devotees Of
Bacchus. We wish we could think there
would be no more of this nonsense, but the
grasshoppers W hen they 60 do not carry
| the fools with them.