Martinsburg independent. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1875-1900, 1883-02-10
The School House to Decide
tile Temperance Question.
Journal of Education

agitating our country, threatening
to disrupt if not destroy old land
marks in politics, sweeping great
States like Maine, Kansas and Iowa,
with majorities of tens of thousands
Of popular votes in its favor, the
whole question rests upon the char
acter of certain chemical substance
called alcohol. If moderately used
1T is good creature, a safe luxury ::
then all this agitation is fanatical.
and this prohibitory legislation par
tisan. But if in truth it is a poison,
and the evils resulting from intem.
perance are only a natural sequence
from the nature of alcohol when
used as a 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 peo-
pie who cling to it, who drink it, or
vote for it. Is alcohol in any guam
tity as a human beverage good or
bad? is the pivotal question on
which the entire argument in this
whole matter rests. Given that land
the logic for or against is as invinci'
BILE as MIME ball. The hallucina-
tion about this substance, ascribing
to it properties it never possessed, is
dispelled by the nineteenth century
touch of science.
The American Medical Associa
ton, our national society of allopa-
thists, the oldest and most conserva-
tive body of physicians in this coun.
try, at their annual meeting in st.
Paul, Mimi, in June last, restated
in a series of resolutions their con-
viction that "alcohol should be
classed with other powerful drugs
that when prescribed medically it
should be done with conscientious
caution and a sense of great respon-
that used as beverage it is
of large amount of
physical and mental disease that it
entails diseased and enfeebled con-
upon offspring, and is the
cause of large percentage of the
crime and pauperism of our large
cities and country" This testimony
of eminent men in the healing art
in our land is more than corroborated
by that of equally profound scientist
on the other side of the Atlantic.
Those convictions, comparatively
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 into prohibitory legisla
tion depends upon the knowledge or
ignorance of the masses of the real
truth about their fayorite beverage.
In no reform can we go far in adj
vance Of the people. We must con-
vince them before we can depend on
their aid. The false idea now SO pre-
valent that "the abuse and not the
use of alcohol is the cause of the
trouble must be dispelled by uni
versal knowledge of the truth about
this thing. DR.. Willard Parker, of
New York, the Nestor of American
physicians, in a recent letter, says;
"We shall never control alcohol un-
til we have taught the people, /.
What alcohol is. 2, What it will do
to us if we drink it. 8. What it will
make us do. | can see no way that
this can be done but through the
schools" A textbook 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 teach
ing in all our public schools would
be the wisest kind of temperance
legislation. 1t is question of in
telligence in the beginning, easily
trolled 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 verdict
of the people, if they understand and
believe the truth in the case. If we
can imbed in the intelligence of the
childl en- of this generation, before
they are contaminated by it, the
scientific facts about alcohol, they
will Danish it and its vendors from