Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1883-10-04
COM IN TEMPER.
ANCE REFORM.

tury discusses 1.-The Temperance Out
look" with the following conclusions
THAT the temperance question should
be made political question is most
desirable. No question more vitality
concerns the whole country with
respect to its highest welfare. We
should have temperance men in Office
and temperance laws enacted. But
temperance must be temperance. 1t
must be a sensible and practical scheme
that sensible and practical men will
support which shall bring about the
desired reformation. 1t must be a
scheme which the great majority Of
moral men will recognize to be sound
IN its logic and even in It's justice.
Any thing else than this may, under
pressure of an excitement, achieve
temporary success, but only this will
W !" Pei h'dh0HL OutS VI Gue rampant
denominations. The liquor men are
now more defiant and more numerous,
in proportion to the population, than
in any former period. They work
their criminal mills openly in the face
OF all, and we see the streams of vice
and crime pouring forth from these
sources to lay waste the community
and overwhelm the dkes which phil
Ianthropy has erected. The courts,
the police, and the public officers
generally, seeing the bold mien of
these disturbers of the peace, find it
easier for their weak natures to humor
them and to cannive at their wicked
works than to oppose them. The
great majority of the community are
thus oppressed and tyrannized over by
this minority, who laugh at law and
hound the defenders Of law. The
only end of this enormity will be in
the union of the majority, and this
can never be effected by extreme
measures or fantical pronounciamentog.
Discrimination between LIQUORS that
are hurtful and those that are Gin
moderate use) healthfnl discrimina-
ton between modes of drinking, as
treating and drinking at meals dis
elimination between places for drink
ing Onl y and places for lunch or dinner
discrimination between drinking on
the premises where the liquor is sold
and drinking at home discrimination
between day and night in the SALE
these and other like determinations
are to be made in place of the sweep
ing demands of the ultra men if a
union Of temperance forces is to be
consummated. Without this union
the evil must go on propagating itself
daily, and on the so-called temperance
leaders must rest the blame. They
have constituted an unreasonable
shibole h. When they abandon that,
the en- ny will be conquered, unless
meany lille the enemy shall have CON
quere all the ground and made our
land moral desert Admirable laws.
exactly suited TO diminish the curse
and destroy the political power of the
rum interest, have been introduced
into the New York legislature, and
would have been enacted but for the
solid vote against them Of the So
called temperance members directed
| by their Temperance constituency at
home. This class of reformers will
have their zeal intensified by the
action of Kansas and Iowa and they
may carry few more Of the States
| Would to God theirs was success,
that the rum interest were stricken
to the heart by it But not until
the reaction takes place, and these
men are convinced of their error and
are ready to build on truth and not on
impulse, can we expect that union Of
all good clements which will finally dig
the grave Of Rum and bury him
beyond all resurrection.
|