Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1882-10-16
temperance,
THE SCHOOL-HOUSE TO DE
eide THE TEMPERANCE
QUESTION.

In the temperance movement now
agitating our country, threatening to
disrupt if not destroy old land marks
in party politics, sweeping great
states like Maine, Kansas, and Iowa
with majorities of tens of thousands
of popular votes in its favor, the
whole question rests upon the char
acter of certain chemical substance
called alcohol. If moderately used
it is a good creature, safe luxury;
then all this agitation is fanatical,
and this prohibitory legislation par
tisan. But if in truth it IS a poison,
and the evils resulting from intern
perance are only natural sequence
from the nature of alcohol when used
as beverage, then as such it is bad
bad per se,-and it is wrong to so
use it, wrong to sell it, and suicidal
for the state to legalize its traffic;
and the fanatics are the people who
cling to it, who drink it, or vote for
it. Is alcohol, in any quantity as
human beverage, good or bad ? is
the pivotal question on which the en-
tire argument in this whole matter
rests. Given that, and the logic for
or against is as invincible as Mimic
ball. The hallucination about this
substance, ascribing to it properties
it never possessed, is dispelled by the
18th century touch of science.
The American Medical Associa-
ton, our national society of Allo-
pathistS, the oldest and most con-
sentative body of physicians in this
country, at their annual meeting in
st. Paul, Mimi, in June last, restat-
ed in series of resolutions their con-
viction, that "Alcohol should be
classed with other powerful drugs
that when prescribed medically it
should be done with conscientious
caution and sense of great respon-
sibility." That used as a beverage
it is productive of a large amount of
physical and mental disease: that it
entails diseased and enfeebled con-
stitution upon offspring and is the
cause of a large percentage of the
crime and pauperism of our large
cities and country" This testimony
of eminent men in the healing art in
our land is more than corroborated
by that of equally profound scien-
lists on the other side af the Atlantic.
These convictions, comparatively
new, have fought their way step by
step against the combined forces of
long-established habits, appetites and
prejudices, and to-day are being for
INFLATED into prohibitory legislation.
The success of such legislation de-
ponds upon the knowledge or ignor-
ance of the masses of the real truth
about their favorite beverage. limo
reform can we go far in advance of
the people. We must convince them
before we can depend on their aid.
The false idea now so prevalent that
"the abuse and not the use of alco-
hol is the cause of the trouble" must
be dispelled by universal knowledge
of the truth about this thing. DR..
Willard Parker, of New York, the
Nestor of American physicians, in a
recent letter says: eve shall never
control alcohol until we have taught
the people, /. What alcohol is 2.
What it will do to us if we drink it
3. What will it make us do. | can
see no way that this can be done but
through the schools" A textbook
teaching these elementary facts in
the hands of every child in the land
so soon as it is old enough to read, is
what we want. A law requiring such
teaching in all our public schools
would be the wisest kind of temper
ance legislation. 1t is question of
intelligence in the beginning, easily
controlled if we then let on the light,
but no easy task if we wait until it
becomes one of the imperious appe-
tite.
All history proves that it is safe to
trust great questions to the verdict of
the people, if they understand and
believe the truths in the case. If we
can imbed in the intelligence of the
children of this generation, before
they are contaminated by it, the scien-
tific facts about alcohol, they will
DANISH it and its vendors from the
pale of human society when they
come to be voters in our places. The
Star of Bethlehem of the temperance
reform stands over the school-house.
THIN CURSE OF DRINK.