Lewiston teller. [volume] (Lewiston, North Idaho) 1878-1900, 1880-08-20
Agent fJr the "Teiler."
Selling Liquor to Indians.

Tell us of greater crime than to
sell an unfeeling savage the liquor that
fires his brain to madness, that opens
the roadwa} for him into the fields of
butchery and blood. That darkens
his soul to every principal of preserva-
ton and snaps, as it were, the props
that holds him in abayance to civiliza-
ton and savage kindhood. When his
mind is fired with liquor every pre-
.judice, every passion and every hate
revives within him, every resentment
or imaginary retribution heretofore
visited upon him through justice or
defence, enkindles at the fires Of dead
ly hate long seated and long nurtured
in his unfeeling and unrepenting
bosom. And what Is to be gained by
that white man who thus exposes the
'unwary, the children, the maids and
mothers. our wives and ourselves to
this onslaught of savage Indignation
and revenge2 He sells our peace and
the peace of all that people bordering
or adjacent to the savage tribes, for a
price SO trivial that humanity is Knocked
in his cowardly inhuman person. He
sells our lives, he trades US off in muir
der. He gives to the Indian those
means for our destruction at the price of
a cayuse or at that other price-the
privilege Of carnality with their de-
mented female savages. What greater
crime grins upon the category of the
worlds criminal docket What pun
ishment is adequate to the wretch who
SO betrays the flesh and blood Of kind
hood and tries to anihilate every trace
of virtue within his own soul. He is
worse than the robber upon the public
highway for he has gain for his object
and not the general deprivation of vir
tue as is offered to the savage by this
Xiend who barters liquor for life, lay
ing waste property and pouring upor
us a stream Of misery, the memory O.
which remains and cannot die till his
tory is lost forever. Woe be to tina
man who thus betrays his trust as
citizen, who stands between the savag'
and us conniving at our death, and en-
couraging untold misery upon us
The robber, the murderer, the adulter
er, the seducer and the slanderer, the,
each can be forgiven, but who can will
ingly forgive him who invites the In
dian among us under the mask of Ii
quor, to seduce our wives, our mothers
eur sisters and our daughters, and la
In ashes our cabins and our home.
These are crimes we think that Aeave
must hesitate to forgive, that dishor
ored virtue will cry alosd to heave
for vengeance, and every mate feelin
Of public contempt will DO turne
against him. Too frequently do W
see the drunken savage in all the in
aginary glory Of conquring herr
brandishing his keen edged butche
knife and defying those who chance I
meet him on what he appears to thin
his victorious war-path. Had he b,
other savage companions in liqut
when these passions, controlled by dee
seated malice, possess him, we woul
chronicle with more regularity rep
tit,on of past massacres the recalling
which events swoons many who a,
yet the waiting sufferers Of those drea
full days. The trade is made; the
quor is placed in some concealed plac
the Indian finds it, the moments
horror begins, while the cowardly a
sassin of all that is dear to as. cri,
and chuckles at what he considers
personal gain. Let us find him an
the consequences be to him.