West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1883-01-31
The School. House to Decide the
Temperance Question.


now agitating our country, threat
ening to disrupt if not destroy
old landmarks in party politics,
sweeping great States like Maine,
Kansas and Iowa, with majorities
of tens of thousands Of popular
votes in it's favor, tho whole ques-
ton rests upon the character of a
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 parti-
san. But if in truth it is poison,
and the evils resulting from intern
perance are only a 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 a human beverage,
good or bad ?'is the pivotal ques-
ton on which the entire argument
in this whole matter rests. Given
that, and the logic for or against is
as invincible AZ minnie ball.
The hallucination about this sub
stance, 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 meet
ing, in St. Paul, Mimi, in June
last, restated in a series of resolu-
lutions, their conviction, that CAL
cohol should be placed with other
powerful drugs; that when prescri-
bed incidentally, it should be done
with conscientious caution and a
sense of great responsibility"
That used as beverage it is pro-
dactive of large amount of physi-
cal and mental disease; that it en-
tails diseased and enteebled consti-
tutions upon offspring, and is the
cause of large percentage Of the
crime and pauperism of our large
cities and country" This testi-
mony of eminent men in the heal
ing art in our land is more than
corroborated by that of equally pro-
found scientists on the other side
of the Atlantic.
These convictions, mparatively
new, have fought their way, step
by step, against the combined
forces of long-established habits,
appetites and prejudices, and to-
day are being formulated through
prohibitory legislation. The sue
cess of such legislation depends on
the knowledge or ignorance of the
masses of the real truth about their
favorite beverage. In no reform
can we go far in advance of the
people, We must convince them
before we can depend on their aid.
Ic ldlSc llcd IlOW 81 pIoNalD III
that "the abuse and not the use of
alcohol is the cause of the trouble,"
must be dispelled by a universal
knowledge of the truth about the
thing. DR.. Willard Parker, of
New York, the Nestor of American
ysicians, in recent letter says:
We shall never control Alcohol un-
til we have taught the people.
1. What Alcohol is; 2. What it
will do TO us if we drink it;
3. What it will make us do. I can
see no way that this can be done
but through the schools" A text
book teaching these elementary
facts in the hands of every child
in the land as 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 temperance legisla-
ton. 1t is question Of intelli-
gence in the beginning, easily
controlled if we then let on the
light, but no easy task if we wait
until it becomes one of imperious
appetite.
All history proves that it is safe
to trust great questions to the ver-