Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1878-11-21
The Problem of the Grog-Shop.

Has not the Temperance movem ent
In this country been too exclusively a
moral appeal? Has it not forgotten
too much the nature and the circum-
stances of the evil? Temperance ad-
dresses are largely descriptions of the
effects of drunkenness. They are
tragicomedies, in which the speaker
seeks to make his audience laugh at
the antics of the drunkard, and cry
over the broken heart and ruined home
of his wife and family. Ibis strain is
varied with laundering denupciatiOns
of "the moderate drinker," compared
with whose insidious infamy the i'm
moderate drinker who totally i'm brutcs
himself is an object of pity rather than
of freprobatiOn, and with these are
mingled chemical and sanitary statis-
ticts. The appeal, however, is moral,
and the remedy usually proposed is
absolute prohibition. The friends OF
"license," however stringently regu-
lated, are regarded as mere Laodiceons,
or worse. But this mere moral appeal
to renOunce drunkenness because it
produces crimeand unhappiness and
disease is too arid. 1t fCrgets the per
sons to whom it is addressed, and the
conditions of their life. Consequently
there are the excitement and fury of u
revival, vast temporary enthusiasm,
and swift backsliding.
For what Is drunkenness? It is in
Its origin the perversion Of natural
taste for social enjoyment, ard it is
most prevalent among those who have
the least opportunity for such enjoy
ment. When 1t has fixed itself upCn
1fa Ufnfirr1 ~ ic 10 ororolxy Il
physical conditions. The usual temp
main strength Of his moral will to break
up the habit. His home is bare and
desolate, and the preaching urges him
to prefer 1t to the coZy end warm and
social "saloon." His system, enfeebled
by excess, Graves the siimulant, and
the exhortatiOn Is simply not to take
1t. He needs especially every kind OF
support and assistance and diversion,
and he is told to help himself. This is
a relief which fOrgets the nature of the
disease. That OF itself suggests the
remedy. The drunkard seeks social
enjoyment illicitly. Supply it to him
lawfully, show him that he can crafty
his natural tastes without shame To
himself or harm to his family or
6Ocloty. GiV0 10 In6 weak system
which Graves "a little something" a
little something that will cheer not
inebirate. The druukard knows the
misery that drunkenness produces, for
he is its victim. He does not wish tc
hear OF that. The incipient drunkard
knows it also. What they want is
something to take the place of drunk
enness, something that will help them
TO help themselves. If all the money
that is yearly given to support talking
upon the subject were devoted to do.
ing something in the way suggested,
the 'liquOr interest" would be con.
frOnted with something that it would
fear. "Holly-Tree" inns upon a great
and general scale, public coffee houses
like those in Liverpool, neighborhood
clubs which would develop and illu-
strate the neig hborly sympathy which
is now not suspected, and the supposed
absence of which is most mischievOus
all these and similar enterprises
would be a temperance movement
which would aid the moral appeal and
the sanitary argument with those
social sympathies and supports which
are indispensable to the prosperity of
the work.-Editor's Easy Chair, in
Harper's Magazine for December.