The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1883-09-29
The Drink Demon.


New York, Rev. Father Elliott, c. S.
P, delivered an eloquent address, from
which the following is taken:
"Not all that the Church can do is
able to persuade many of her members
that their foolish hospitality in lavishly
serving drinks to visitors sets a bad ex-
ample to the children, sets up false
standard of enjoyment, leads the chill
dren as they grow up to deem beer or
punch essential for the entertainment
of friends, and fosters the delusion that
the absence of intoxicating drink at
social entertainments is a mark of
stinginess. Gentlemen, such practices
are based on false maxims For it is
clear as day that drinking to entertain
friends is very.apt to become conviv-
ial habit which is the fruitful source of
intoXication. Some men, rather than
be called stingy by those whose praise
or blame is of no account any way, run
the risk of teaching their children at
their own hearth the charms of vice
the most destructive of all human well
fare. Then, too who does not know
that young men should confront the
allurements of the saloon and the beer
garden armed with a certain wise dis
trust of the use of drink in any quantity?
But, If drink is common thing at home,
where's the harm-the boy will say-of
spending an evening with some friends,
playing > cards, singing songs, or
chatting, in the back room of the liquor
storep The young man who fancies
that he can drink moderately when,
where and how he pleases is pretty sure
to become a drunkard Even the very
best example of total abstinence at
home, the kindest andsmOst persuasive
explanation of devout parents of the
evils of excessive drink, the most dread
ful- results of the vice among near
relatives (and how few families are
quite without this lesson?) are not
enough in many cases to restrain the
younger members from the allurements
of this vice. The Evil Spirit seems to
have spent his greatest cunning in dis
guising the horrors of intemperance.
The poets genius is enlisted to write
drinking songs, the wit of the neigh
borhood is often frequenter OF the
saloon, the most grotesqse and laugh
able incidents are connected with intoX-
ication or partial intoXication, orators
are told of whose eloquence was only
displayed in drink, such snowy virtues
as generosity, physical bravery, attach
ment to old friends, are sought to be al
most identified with the free use of
| dTinks. Yet all the time drunkenness
is most hateful and loathsome vice.
| No heart so hard as the mans who robs
his child to enrich his enemy. No man
so frightfully cruel as the one who turns
himself from loving husband into q
wolfish brute. No murders so cruel as
those done upon friends, and some
men. No music so sad as the heart
rending merriment of the saloon. No
irony so devilish as that which calls Joy
the death dance of immortal souls
about the liquor-dealer' counter.
"Now pretty nearly all convivial
drinking is done in saloons. 1t goes by
the name of treating. Treating at
home is confined mostly to tipping fe-
males, and though in some localities a
dreadful evil, still ON the whole is not
to be named in comparison with the
evils of saloon-drinking. The enorm-
Gus, almost countless, revenues drawn
from the people by the liquor business
is for the most part the tax that foolish
good nature pays for other people S
drinks. That is why the drunkenness
of men is almost inseparably associated
with saloon going; because the practice
of treating belongs to the saloon. Hence
our Temperance Union is firmly set
against the saloon. Against all saloons?
you ask. Well, there is what Bishop
Ireland calls an ideal saloon; and he
calls for Diogenes with his lantern to
find it in actual life. Show me a saloon
where treating is not allowed, and it
will then be in order to discuss whether
there is no danger in resorting there.
No. Stay away from saloons. Stay at
home. Attend an innocent amusement.
Read an entertaining book. Subscribe
for and read good newspaper. Spend
the evening with some respectable
family. Join debating or literary So
ciety, or gymnasium. But keep away
from the saloon. Is not that good adj
vice? 1 should like to see any man,
old or young, Irish or American, Cathol-
ic or non-Catholic, who will have the
face to say that "Keep away from the
saloon y is not good advice. 1t is that
advice that the National Union of the
Temperance Societies of the Catholic
Church in America insists on making
public, ringing it out from the public
platform, spreading it out before the
reading public in the newspapers, whis-
pering it in the ear of the friend and
relative: keep away from the saloon. "