The Middlebury register and Addison County journal. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1883-1885, 1883-04-20
the country, and one well qualified to

before us--the Chicago Tribune. In a
recent number it says: "How is it
with the saloon-keepers ? Their es-
Establishments are the yawning pits
into which is poured the great bulk of
the earnings of the labor of the city
they are the nurseries and schools of
crime; to them are due the drunken
ness Of men" (italics ours) ; "the
wreck of families, the impoverishment
of the multitude. In their places the
victims are poisoned and robbed of
their strength, their health, their in
te%lligence; their business encourages
the wife-beaters, and the thieves,
burglars and r%ufians. BY it boys are
educated to be drunkards, and
brought up in idleness, vice
and bestiality. BY them idle
ness and vice are taught to take
the place of industry and sobriety.
Everything that is criminal, debasing
and villainous finds it's natural birth
place in the saloon; and nothing pro-
duces or promotes these that is not
destructive of decency, industry, thrift
and good morals"
This utterance of the Tribune is
taken from the Chicago Adoance of
March 8, which adds editorially:
"Take Chicago alone. Ten days ago
a man on the west side came home
drunk, and whipped his wife to death
in the sight of her child. The saloon
did it. The next day a drunken man
murdered another in a saloon in the
same neighborhood. Liquor did it.
Last week two noted desperadoes met
in a saloon and fought to the death of
one and the wounding of the other
with revolvers. Whisky did it. More
than three-fourths of all crime is
traceable directly to the saloon. There
is only one privileged class in this
Countrywide liquor dealers. They
steal and rob and murder and plumber,
and grow rich and great"
W. will invite nc more witnesses.
1t is not pleasant to contemplate the
terrible facts as they put them; but do
they not prove conclusively our posi-
ton? The Mount Defiance of the
drink-trahic is the dram-shop. That
held, nothing can dislodge the enemy.
He steadily and fearlessly broadens his
encampment and increases his havoc.
1t is not for a moment claimed that all
dram-shOps are precisely alike. Their
localities, their patrons, their proprietors
may and do vary in many particulars,
but alcoholic mixtures are always es-
sentially the same their inllaming of
all brutal passions and enfeebling of
all higher impulses, their war upon
virtue, thrift and peace, upon the
home and human happiness-these are
ARRAYS and eDerywhere essentially the
same. Well has Judge Pitman said of
alcohol without it much of the
machinery of evil would stand still.
1t is the life of the clearinghouse and
Of the brothel, and surely these are the
hot-beds of crime"
Look at the force holding this Mount
Defiance , We have at least four
times as many dram-shops as churches
with an attendance Overwhelmingly
larger seven days in the week.
Can this stronghold be captured
However formidable, unless this is
done the campaign will continue
losing one.
Our next question shall be,
HOW SUPPRESS II DRAM-SHOP ?
We shall clear our mental vision
and help the desired answer by first
stating how this cannot be done.
, l. 1t cannot be done by doing moth.
ing. Some gentle souls who fairly
{ understand the case, see the ruin going
, on and the only remedy, al
the same time shrink from vigorous
| action in the faint hope and
vague impression that somehow what
? ought to be will be that increased
knowledge upon the subject and in
creased sympathy for the woes inflicted
5 or the irresistible forces of Providence
= will bring the dramseller to see hi:
fault aId voluntarily abandon the
business or that these influences vii
take away his patrons and SO starvt
optimism is wholly illusory. No evil
t under which humanity groans ever
l cares itself, so long as its victims last
Y This is true, even where the evil ha,
: no potent motive. Dealing with weak
human nature, its hold is sufficiently
= guaranteed by the simple nature anC
fact of evil. But let that evil, Xix,
. the slave trade or drink traffic, be re
r inforced by the appeals of avarice ant
S every vile passion, then its dislodg
e ment is possible only by overwhelming
j prolonged and well-ordered assault.
Dramsellers wish to be let alone
but there is not a precious interest il
home, church or State which they d.
not assail by the essential and inevita
Y BILE nature Of their business. At it.
touch property rots into beggary ant
pauperism domestic peace curdles int
bitterness and cruelty ~health-bloon
and vigor give place to gaunt emaciatiol
e or blotched and bloated deformity; Grim
witch his leprous and bloody hand
: stabs public peace and safety. Chill
dren, if not born to idiocy, forsake tn
g school and church for the goal ant
e gibbet, and yet this business, ever
t when defying the most sacred law
- frach E.. +LO Nnxrt,tinnC onI oAn