Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1883-01-01
Temperance.
A LTQUOR-DEALER'S TALK
WITH HIMSELF.

No small job 'kiah, (Which means
myself) this of bringing a decent
man down to this damning business !
If we liquor-dealers don't know that,
nobody does. Now, had to choke
out my conscience, and it was
small bit compared to some peoples.
I had enough to give me a sharp
quake when | begun thinking to go
into this. / had to stuff down throat
over and over; license makes it all
hight; which any fool knows is just
sham lie. Then / had to get my
heart hard as to all my old father
and good mother had said hundred
times in my hearing, about the shame
and mean guilt of this dirty business.
What / used to hear in church and
Sabbath-school where / went when a
boy just matched with what they
said. My wife, too, and all our
folks-some of them drink and vote
for Hcense-all disliked it, 1 knew,
and wished I'd keep out of it. But
the devil in me held the bride, and |
went in. So
| know, as an honest man, that
this whole business is a mean fraud
on the society. Do | not know that
not one grain of wheat, not kernel
of corn, or so much as fiat turnip
is raised or added to the common
stock from years end to years end?
| Not one stroke of work, adding a
farthing's value to anything! | do
nothing but destroy! Destroyed
bread-corn makes the liquor. Then
l take it and 90 about destroying
hands, feet, eyes, minds, bodies and
souls, and with them go farms, mills,
banks-everything labor uses OF gets.
The man OF business can't be found,
from pulpit and senate, from hod-
man and scavenger, who can stand,
once get my hand fairly on them.
Give me chance, I'll upset any liv-
ing man, OF work man can do. That's
the business
Next: it's a mighty eXtortion ]
live by. Other business get ten to
twenty per cent profit, and can live
and let live. Look at mine, | gave
sixty dollars for barrel of whisky
double it at once with water, retail il
at ten cents per glass, or, al
nine hundred per cent advance. We
know a drunkard, in his thirst tor
ture, will sell his blood for drink, anC
so we put the price on. There is NJ
other eXtortion like this known
Why if a set of men were licensed t.
do all the flour business, and should
buy it at ten dollars per barrel, an(
force the buyers to pay ninety dol
lars (one-tenth our advance) it would
wake up bread riot the land over
I wonder our robbery don't do thu
same.
Besides this, liquor sellers as ;
class must, all the time, defy society
We know as well as anybody wha
an internal trade we are in. W.
know every good man and woman
and little child abhors it, and we, il
our better moments, feel much a
they do as to it. We know the aw
full slaughter of young men, caused
by the traffic. We know that tn
cries of widows, the choking woes o
orphans, and graveyards, foul wit
drink-bloated corpses that murders
and the herd of human crimes, al
are piling up a reckoning for us. /
for one, have not lost all idea o
judgment-day. | got it at my moth
er's knee, and never a mother woul
train a boy to be dram-seller. Six
ty thousand go down by our blood
sickles every year. Aha! that ism
a comfortable work to have though
over. We couldn't bear to think Q
it if we did not get used to defyin
society. | couldn't.
These temperance doings, we lie
uor men know about them, of cours
we do, and we know, too, that if on
in ten of the temperance people wer
as determined and defiant of oppos
ton as we liquor sellers are, our deaG
ly business couldn't live a month
We know they are not. So we def
society. See this We in this traffic
in the United States, count a fe'
IS thousands, hundred or two, ma
be; and we defy fifty millions. th
II population of the country, nearly a
IS of whom, in heart, wished the az
3, cursed work was done away. 1
judge here, a party hack there,
1t city council, or county board yonde
1t quake at the shaking of our spear
s about offices, so we shake it, an
Re defy fifty millions of outraged pee
Re pie. 1t can't be so always, | know
is Sometimes | wonder why ministers
% churches: judges, courts, and tt
IT masses do not rise upon us with ha
ter, and brand, as they would q
st upon any other band of organize
q murderers, for that's what we real
st are. The Thugs of India were L
d more so. They struck in secret, an
IL swiftly; we, under cover of Law
murder openly and slowly, but v
ID make away with more victims thu
II they did. Then, the lying, dow
right lying, we liquor men have
lc hire, and pay for, too, specially
as late, about Maine and Kansas, al
L IL /