Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-06-07
Governor st. John.

The following extract is from recent
speech by Kansas temperance governor :
Abraham Lincoln said, Il" This government
cannot exist half slave and half Free" IL
is no less truth TO say that this govern
ment cannot exist half drunk and half sober.
It must eventually become all one or all the
other. Hence, in this struggle between So
briefly, that builds up and strengthens, and
drunkenness, that tears down, corrupts and
destroys civil government, it becomes the
duty of every citizen who loves our country
to put forth an earnest effort to make Of
this sober nation. II honesty and sobriety
rule our land, the prosperity and happiness
Of our people will be unbounded, -but IL
the rum power is TO control, the fate Of this
nation will eventually be as disastrous as
that of Beshazzar Of old. The manufac-
ture and sale of intoxicating liquors as a
beverage is either right or it is wrong
there is no neutral ground that anyone can
occupy touching this matter. IL right, it
should be placed upon an equal footing with
every other legitimate business; If wrong,
no amount of license money can ever make
it right. We are told that it is necessary
that dramshops should be legalized in order
to control them that from them is derived
great revenue. / love my country, | hope,
as well as almost any citizen can. | honor
our flag; but if there is any one criticism
more severe than all others that / would
pass upon the government under which we
live, it is that it is paying great national
debt to-day-a debt sealed by the blood OF
our bravest and truest men-by deriving a
revenue from that which every one knows
to be wrong. 1t is better, it seems to me-
if we desire to control an evil, to prohibit it,
rather than directly or indirectly sanction il
by law. am persuaded from what have
seen to-day in the city of New York and
from what have seen in the cities Of the
East, that the law here and elsewhere fails
to control the saloons, fails to regulate them
but that they trample the law under foot
here as they do everywhere where they have
the sanction of the law given them, and pro
lection thrown around them. Now then, il
it is wrong, there is but one way to do, and
that is, to blot it out, drive it from the land
No individual, no nation, ever was success
full in going into partnership with that
which was wrong, and government, let II
be city, state or national, that undertakes tc
derive a revenue by giving sanction OF law
to that which is wrong, will meet period
in its history when it must crush that evi
that is thus sanctioned, or by that evil bt
crushed. Yes; but they tell us that we can
not prohibit we cannot blot it out we can
not drive it from the country. If the Amer
lean people will take hold of it as they ough
to, if they will array themselves against it
if they will be brave, we can rid this gov
eminent of almost any great evil i'll oul
midst. 1t is a sad commentary upon the
civilization in which we live, if we, in THU
day and age, are to acknowledge that ther,
exists in our midst anything, the power O.
which for evil is greater than the power O.
the whole people for good.