The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1879-03-20
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pie will agree that the Incorporate use
of alcohol is the parent Of three'fourths
Of modern disease, crime and pauper'
ism, and also that the habitual moderate
use of alcohol does rather more hurt
than good, there are yet points on which
intelligent people do differ in most
material sense. These points are
almost too. numerous to mention, but
among them are the part alcohol plays
after having once been taken into the
system, the cause of drunkenness, it's
cure, the effects of legal and moral sua-
sion, and the like, all of which are fac
tors in the alcohol problem. In this
country the efforts made to stay the tide
of intemperanCe have been endless, and
have included everything, from Wash.
ingtonian societies, Sons of Temperance,
total abstinence pledges and the like,
to crusades against gin.shops by praying
women, and the enactment Of laws
against the sale of liquors.
1t may be a Notifying conclusion, but
it is, nevertheless, one warranted by ex-
perienCe and truth, that no one Of these
agencies, or all of them together, have
lessened to the amount of l per cent; the
number of drunkards in this country. 1t
is we'll known fact that the passage of
what have become to be known as Maine
liquor laws, have, if anything, increased
intemperanCe in the communities where
they have prevailed. They may have,
in the case of alcohol, reduced the guam
tity sold, but at the same time statistics
show that decrease in the use of alco.
hol is invariably followed by an increase
in the use of opium and other drugs,
whose effect is worse than that produced
by alcohol. The people who joined the
sons of temperance and similar organi
cations are not usually drunkards, but
people who do not drink, and who, as a
general thing, never would become in
temperate. All the sots who have, with.
in the last fifty years, been reclaimed by
prayers, signing of pledges, or temper
ance organizations of any kind, can be
counted on ones fingers. Sir William
Gull touches the principles involved in
this point when he says, that "there
comes a time in drinking, when habit
becomes second nature, and this habit
becomes an overwhelming impulse; and
you can no more trust drunkard than
you can an opium eater, or any other
man whose habit has become strong"
The same authority also makes point
worthy of note when he says that he be-
lieves in hereditary tendency, not to
drunkenness per sc, but to that in which
drunkenness is ncluded"-meaning by
this, mental and moral defects. These
hereditary defects and tendencies are
the diseases whiUh should be treated, and
not their result-drunkenness. Early
training will reach these defects, and in
many cases will obliterate them; if, how
ever, suffered to progress until they re.
suit in the habit of intemperance, or
any other bad habits, they become al
most inCurabe.
This view of the case opens up new
prospect; and if correct, shows the entire
inutiity of laboring to reform sots, or to
cure drunkenness by shutting up saloons
1t proves that the proper care for drunk
enness should be confined to efforts that
would remedy those mental and moral
defects whose result is drunkenness. A
person who is properly educated, whose
tendencies are trained Alright, who
has a we'll balanced character, will not
become thief But otherwise he may
probably become thief; and intelligent
people would hoot at the idea that the
way to cure him would be to set him to
sign pledge not to steal, or to cure him
by endeavoring to put all valuables where
he could not get at them. Here is a man
who filCbes pocket t-books as a profes.
sion-would it cure him if all pocket
books were suddenly obliterated? Not
at all; he would simply go to stealing
something else. Deprive the sot of al
cohol, and he will find morphine or some
other drug wherewith to continue his
intemperanCe. There are bit two rene.
dies against thievery; the obliteration by
education, of the tendency to that crime
in the young, and the permanent con.
finement of the confirmed thief. About
the same thing is applicable to the con
firmed sot. Permanent restraint is about
the sole remedy; or confinement for such
a time as will enable the effecting ofsuCh
moral, mental and physical changes in
his constitution as will make him new
creature.
1t is a good thing that this alcohol
question is receiving the attention Of
earnest, intelligent men. At the present
time there is an amount of misdireCted
effort in the interest of temperance that
becomes at once painful and absurd
Here are numbers of good ladies who
are undertaking to pray and sing drunk
enness out of existence, aud who are
wasting their time just as absolutely as if
they were trying to cure bandy.legs or
Club-feet by the same process. Drunk
enness cannot be cured, as rule, but ii
may be prevented When this fact is
thoroughly understood, and the process
es of bringing about are thoroughly com.
pretended, then nay the world expect
some substantial results from the labors
of reformers. But the present system is
wholly illogical and absurd; and in these
respects it may be illustrated and located
exactly by supposing that efforts should
be made to get rid of smallpox (l) en-
tering secret society, securing certain
grips and passwords, including a white
apron, after kaving taken a solemn oath
never to have the small -pox; (2) signing
a pledge never to have the smallpox;
(3) praying and singing that smallpox
may be extinguished, and (4) passing
laws that no person shall give the small
pox to another Chicago Times.