St. Landry democrat. (Opelousas, La.) 1878-1894, 1880-12-25

The Lake Charles Echo does not
seem to understand the wisdom or
philosophy of letting Whisky alone. 1t
treats Whisky as a responsible agent, a
roaring lion seeking whom he may
devour." Dropping all badinase, We
do not believe in the way the Echo ana
temperance lecturers generally treat
the subject Of temperance. They preach
total abstinence, which is not temperance,
and rail Unexpectedly against whisky,
and against the manufacturers and
vendors of whisky. Those who will
fully abuse the use of whisky are treated
as poor deludcd victims, who have been
sacrificed against their wills. There
is about as much reason or logic in this
as there would he in blaming the Creator
for putting the tree of forbidden fruit
in the garden of Eden, whereby man
was tempted to sin; and as there would
be in attributing to the fruit thereof
tile moral power of compelling man to
sin. The materials of which whisky is
made were put here for good purpose,
and whisky itself for many good pur-
poses could hardly be dispensed with;
the criminal ones are those who abuse
the use of it, and the batteries of the
anti whisky preachers should be turned
against them and not against the object
they abuse. God punished Adam and
Eve for using the forbidden fruit, and
cursed the ground for their sake; but
He did not curse the tree that bore the
fruit-it was not guilty of any crime.
Whisky is harmless those who use 1T
to excess are the criminals, and they
should be punished accordingly. This
way of personifying an inanimatc object,
and attributing to it the powers of q
free agent, and representing human
beings as its powerless victims, is a
fraud and delusion the tendency is
to excuse the real and responsible crimi-
nails, and make an inanimate object the
scape- goat. When Adam was brought
to task for his crime, he said Eve, the
woman whom thou gavest me- she
made me do it; and Eve said the ser
pent made her do it. What the serpent
said on this occasion, is not reported J;
but we suppose his answer would have
been, that Eve was more than willing to
do it, or the Lord should not have let
him do it. But at any rate all three OF
these sinners were free from the pre-
vailing cant of modern temperance re-
formers-tbey did not blame an inani-
mate object, neither the tree nor its
fruit. When man gets drunk now
and kills his brother man, the cry is ::
Whisky did it. And when he is tried
for the crime, he is acquitted on the
ground of temporary insanity caused by
whisky. The criminal popular senti-
ment that excuses the murderer because
lie is drunkard, is caused more or less
bv the miserable doctrine of the So
called temperance lecturers, that Whisky
did it, that the real criminal is Whisky,
that the poor victim man is nothing but
a powerless victim in his hands and
that Whisky prompted, any more than
the knife or pistol could that was
handled by the poor, helpless, numbering
drunkard. When a man marries a
woman and wastes her property in
drunkenness, and finally caps the
climax by deserving her or knocking
her brains out, we are told by the anti
whisky preachers, that Whisky did it..
We say that the man did it, and ought
to be punished accordingly. If every
drunkard was put to work on the public
roads, sent to the penitentiary, or put
in a public pillory, and, if committing
murder while drunk, was given thirty
nine lashes OH the bare back for getting
drunk, and hung for the murder, we
would soon fail to hear the cry: Whisky
did it. We believe that the crusade
against Whisky, is not only quixOtic, but
hurtful, for it diverts attention from
the real criminals, the drunkards. We
have seen reformed drunkards, though
they are rare, and VIC have very little
faith in them till we see whether or not
they die sober, but they always blamed
themselves for their past conduct, and
not the Whisky. A crusade against
Whisky costs but little, except gas
therefore it is pleasant way of indulg-
ing sentiment. The temperance preach
ers and papers are not going to single
out the drunkards and make war on
them. The politicians are not going to
make laws to punish and imprison them,
aud if they did they would be indiffer-
emily executed. Domestic training may
do great deal, and the method Of the
ancient Spartars, who aimed to disgust
their children by the exhibition Of a
drunkard, is probably the best. But
we believe the best defense against
drunkenness is sound mind and a
sound stomach, and these come mainly
by inheritance. A father, who has been
a drunkard, and reformed after trans
hitting the disease to his children,
should not be surprised il some of bis
boys love Whisky to excess; and a
mother, though society" debars her
from strong drink, but who abuses her
stomach with all other kinds Of decoc-
tions and connections, can not reason
ably expect any other result than
tlrunkards among her sons. Mothers
who deluge their stomacbs day after