The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1882-11-18
Temperance Reading.
THE SORROWS OF LIQUOR MEN.

A great and sad lament comes up
from the liquor dealers of the West
The pathos of their lament would be ex-
ceedingly ridiculous were it not for the
sad thoughts which arise as we think of
the results which would flow from any
success of this nefarious traffic.
On September Is, Liquor Dealers
and Manufacturers State Protective
Association met at Rock Island, Illinois,
AS they looked from State to State, and
considered the situation, their faces fell,
and despair sat down in their midst
They must have reached pitiable
mental state before such a report as this
was allowed to go forth to the public:
g In the North the great State of Iowa has
fallen-a helpless victim of ignorant zeal and
blind fanaticlsm-crushed by a blow so power
tul and annihilating that the very hands which
erected II We're startled by its results. A ma
Jorty amounting to any thousands of votes
marked the defeat of our cause, as though the
minds of her people had been ma idon ID by
frenzy of drunken fanaticism, and made utter
~ forgetful of all the principles of Democratic
government of all the te chings of modern
science of all the results of late experience.
For years the Goddess of Liberty will lie there
wounded and ruthlessly trampled upon by a
lot of fanatcised fools and cunning zealots.'
This is one way to speak of great
Temperance victory. These are bold
fellows who can thus denounce the
educated and Christian men and women
of Iowa as ''fanaticised fools and cum
mig zealots." But it requires something
more than the say-so of such men to
make it true. Ii those who carried
Iowa for Prohibition are fools and zeal-
OTIS, who, it may well be asked, are
the wise and true men of Iowa? Would
these liquor dealers and manufacturers
of the West like to institute COM
parison between these opposing hosts,
man by man, and woman by woman,
and hold the result up to the inspection
Of the world?
The passage quoted above is cry of
fear. 1t sounds wonderfully like a
repetition, after eighteen centuries, of
that wild outcry in Ephesus against
Paul, by one ''Demetrius, silver
smith. " 1t is the cry of men who are
about to lose their gain. For, in the
language of that shrewd old Ephesian,
.hcy are ROW crying Out: ''Sirs, We
know that by this craft we have our
wealth"
1t is the cry of men who care far more
ior money than for men, Who ever
heard them bewailing the fact that their
Ubiquitous business meant wreck and
;1lin, for time and eternity, to thousands
Of well meaning men, and loving wives,
and helpless children? Oh! it is q
shameless, pitiful, unmanly wall. And
We do not wonder that it is as false in
It's charges against Prohibitionists as it
y impotent to check the onward march
of virtue, manhood and temperance.
But we are sure our readers will be
| interested in several farther confessions
from this remarkable document. 1t
goes on;
" In the East the tidal wave of social tyran-
ny has been Overlooking two large and fair
States of our Union. The legislative branch
of government of both made themselves the
subservient tools of Purtanism, and, while
the Legislature of Ohio slowly advanced by
contenting self with the passage of obnoX-
ious laws, the Legislature of Indiana made
sudden strides, by adopting resOlutO on to
submit to pOpular vote q Constitutional
Amendment altogether prohibiting the manu-
facture and sale of our commodities.
The west opens to our view perspective
still more somber and gloomy. Kansas bows
still to the scept1r of st. John. Nebraska is
on the very brink of beng engulfed in the
wild maelstrom of Prohibition fury; and Mis-
| souri,, our very next neghbor, barely escaped
| from similar danger.
"Andsouth of us the symptoms are alarming
IN the highest degree. The states of North
carolina and Arkansas need only be men
toned, and tho late appearance of the PrOh5i-
Iloh specter there Will at once recur to our
recollection.
wherever we lock, therefore, North or
South, East or West we find ourselves fairly
encircled by the triumphant and maddencd
armies of our foes. Illinois is to-day more
ike the feeble victim of the robbcr, struggling
to relieve herself from the choking iron grasp
or his hands gasptng for breath, than like
! proud and defiant State, rely ng upon the con-
stitutional principles of individual liberty for
q sh cid and sing an enlightened public SEN
timent for a sword
1t is sad, very sad, to make this sur
vey We wonder that, in view of these
alarming facts, many of them do not
think of reducing their forces and even
of going entirely out of the liquor bust
ness. We are very much afraid that
even more serious dangers threaten
them in the future, and that the liquor
business is likely to lose its chief charm
immense profits. For the women of
the land are beng drilled by their
chosen and gifted leaders for long,
faithful, persistent work in the cam
paign against intemperance. And every
true man will aid them God speed
them in their work.
Illinois and many another State is in
1.-THE choking iron graz of the robber."
We are not sure that we mean the same
power by the rObber that these liquor
men do. In fact, we mean exactly the
op osite. And so we cry them woe.
But we have faith in God, and the no.
BILE men and women of Illinois, of Mas
sachusetts, too, and of sister States, to
believe the time draws near when the
rObber shall be thrOttled, and the crime
of intemperance swept from our land.
Woe to the liquor seller! Woe to the
liquor manufacturer! May their infa-
nous traffic perish .torerer!- Golden
Ruie.