The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1883-02-02
Temperance Reading .
TEMPERANCE TEXTBOOKS IN
PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

We are apt to think and speak of the
traffic in alcoholics as the cause of this
evil, intemperance; the dram-shop as
q the head and front of our offendino'':
while, in point of fact, the manufacture
and sale of these beverages are only
symptoms of the malady, indicating q
widespread and dangerous demand for
the same by the people. There the
trouble lies. The people like these
drinks, believe ''small amount is ben
eticial," "a moderate use'' is right;
danger lies in excess and no begin
ner ever expects to represent that
excess. The almost omnipresent
saloon is only the supply for this wide
spread popular demand. The demand
IS me dtSeGSe. The abundant presence
OF the supply holding out temptation
fosters and increases this demand, and
should therefore be prohibited, not pro-
tected, by law; for law should make it
easy Tor men to do right, and hard for
them to do wrong. But traffic in any
commodity indicates, first. and most
important of all, a demand for the arti-
Gle sold; secondly, that money can be
made in its sale; and lastly that society.
tolerates the trade. Cut off its demand
and you will shut up any trade. No
"vox populi' could be raised in Amer
lea to defend the trade of Demetrius the
Ephesian. His "silver shrines'' repre-
sent no popular want. The goddess
Diana is not worshipped here, but Bac-
chus is; that is our trouble, and when
we try to prohibit his shrines we are
trying to cut off the supply of popular
demand.
In President Hayes last message,
near the close of his administration, we
find this sentence: "Polygamy will not
be abolished in Utah if the enforcement
of the law depends upon those who
practice and uphold the crime.' The
self-evident truth in that statement
holds with equal force in this reform.
Our Government depends upon the will
OF the governed, and we can not expect
Prohibitory laws to be enacted or sue
cessfully enforced while a majority of
the people represent the demand for
the thing prohibited. The great heart
of the people is loyal to the popular
conviction of the right. No movement
can be carried, no legislation will long
be sustained, that is in direct violation
of the positive, active convictions OF the
masses. Popular conviction, to con-
vince the people, is the task before any
one who would carry any great move
ment in this American Republic,
especially if that movement implies a
change in personal habits of the people.
When we analyze this fatal demand we
find it originates largely in a mistaken
notion as to the real character o. the
beverages. The danger of using alco-
holics is not appreciated by the mass OF
the people; good is expected where evil
alone is possible. Appreciation is born
of knowledge. When the Ephesians
came to appreciate the idea of one, only
true God, Demetrius' trade was gone.
In the mighty presence of truth error
fell back abashed.
Could we by any widespread, uniyer.
sal method teach the youth and chill
dren of the rising generation, before
appetite is formed, the real facts about
alcohol as revealed by modern science,
in thirty years the saloon, with the laws
protecting it, would live only in histo-
ry. Such teaching is possible. There is
no reason why total abstinence from
alcoholics should not be taught as
science in our schools or colleges as
well as the science of proper ventilation
and other phases of Hygiene. Textbooks
setting forth the truth, and exploding
the fatally false notion that a limited
amount of alcohol is safe as beverage,
are prepared, and already are sent on
their mission.
1t is not claimed that such instruc.
ton will reform the drunkard who is
under the power of appetite, but that il
will warn and save the uncontaminated
from coming in to fill up the gaps made
every year by the sixty thousand graves
over which stands the hopeless epitaph:
mo drunkard shall inherit the King
dom of God"
Do you say this is "a shot at long
range''-that law will bring the remedy
sooner? Not so long; the boys of eleven
years in the schools to-day will, in ten
years, be voters. If the schools have
made these boys intelligent total alb
stainers, you have the popular convic-
ton necessary, we have seen, to carry
and maintain any great movement in a
land where the people are the law
makers.
What you would have appear in the
character of any people must be
wrought into that character through the
Schools" is an axiom in education we
cannot afford to neglect in so gigantic g
reform as this. The evil is not q
tangible, local institution that can be
reached and abolished by a sweep of the
pen, backed by bullets and bayonets,
like the slavery of the South, but one OF
individual habit, having its roots in ap-
petite, often with tendencies toward it
that are pre- natal. 1t must, then, be
met with methods as universal in their
application.
We have no institution reaching all
classes, in the most impressible period
of life, at all commensurate with our
public schools. To these we look. as
the instruments in the hands of science
destined to bring ultimate emancipation
to the race from the awful drink-cu
The German loves his lager, believes in
it, and whoever would deprive him of
it stands before him as an intruder upon
his personal rights; but convince him,
teach him in childhood and youth the
real nature of his beloved beverage, and
the TeutoD even will join in that on
ward march of civilization that would
drive out of human use the entire brood
of Alcoholics, now the strongest Grim
inal force in the world.
'From the white tents of the Crusaders
The phantoms of glory have gone;
But the zeal for humanity's welfare
In humanity's heart lives on"
--Mary H. Hunt.
What Whisky and Clock Jones Did.