Daily press and Dakotaian. [volume] (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1875-1880, 1878-07-16
TEMPERANCE.

tFMPEkANCE.
Is II q Popular or Religious Movement!
AS one anxious for the practical advance.
ment of the temperance cause in the com.
munity, l feel called upon to say few
words through the columns of your journal,
in relation to the remarks of Mr.. Haskell,
who spoke Sunday evening last in the tenn.
perance pavilion. His harangue was one of
the strangest Efforts ever listened to and
whether IL was his intention to puff up
circuses and side shows, or show the evils
of intemperance, or not, up to the present
am unable to determine. That Mr.. Haskell
has done the cause no good was evident in
the fact that the meeting was failure in
one thing, its main object, though some
money was raised by the sale of some vel.
low covered literature, giving the speakers
circus experiences, and by collection taken
up, for his benefit. The course pursued by
Mr.. Haskell and others, who think as he
does, will not benefit the temperance cause
in my opinion. We live in community Of
churches and ofchurch goers; as fine COM
munity indeed as there is on the globe, of
its population. Here nearly every religious
sect is represented, and every sect has a
church in which the word Of God is preach
ee so that every one may hear; now it is a
fact that majority OF the drinking men in
oil communities do not attend temperance
meetings for the purpose of hearing the
bible expounded, especially by one who has
no knowledge of it whatever, for it requires
trained wisdom in its interpretations,
but to hear. something said about practical
Temperance and how they may shake them.
selves loose from this terrible thraldom.
These men are not seeking religion, if they
were they we'll know where to go and find
it. They are seekingfor present and not
future good. Their motto is Sufficient for
the day, is the evil thereof" They do not
want to be told that hell fire is the punish
ntfor drunkenness they do not want to be
told that drunkenness is crime and that the
drinking man will never see the kingdom
Of heaven. What they do want is practical
talk upon very practical subject; to know
that men have broken the chain, that by
stunning the rum shops, and associating
themselves with men of temperance char
acters they may regain that lost by unre
strained appetite. Indeed there is an a5un-
dant field for thinking man for a sound,
practical discourse without constantly drag
ing in the name of the Deity; or reading,
if reading 1t can be called, lot of bible
psams. Turning these promiscuous gath
crings into religious congregations is not
beneffting the cause as any one may learn
who listens to the remarks of many in the
crowd. The reform club, in put
ting the bible away and dispensing with the
chaplain, who, by the way, when picked
from among the laymcn is sometimes very
'unny fellow, did good thing in a practi-
,al way, and men who rarely enter church
lnder any conditions have by this practical
means been saved, and to-day stand redeem
ed among their fellows. This question OF
bible reading has been cause OF trouble
in many of the states. 1t was so in the
public schools of Massachusetts,, until wise
and thinking Legislators had 1t abolished.
1t is always SO in new community and no
catholic wishes TO listen to the mutilated
version by that prince Of scoundrels, King
James, when he goes simply TO attend
practical temperance meeting. A catholic
does not wish his own Douay bible butch
cred and blundered through by illiterate
men when it is done more for cant than a
of the good. Yet catholics who
would be temperate and wish to be workers
IN this cause are debarred by ''clap trap"
from coming forward, though they are we'll
and ably represented by an independent
few in this community, and taking an active
part in this grand movement for the public
regeneration. So l say let religious cerc.
Monies be kept out Of the temperance meet
ngs in the pavilion, where all may meet on
common platform and work in unison for
he amelioration of the unfortunate.
JOHN H. CASSIDY.