St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1883-09-07
Temperance "a Political Ques-
ton.

An editorial in the September Cen
tury discusses "The Temperance Out
look" with the following conclusions ::
That the temperance question should
be made political question is most
desirable. No question more vitally
concerns the whole country, with re-
spect to its highest welfare. We should
have temperance men in Office and
temperance laws enacted. But tenn
perance must be temperance. 1t must
be sensible and practical scheme,
that sensible and practical men will
support, which shall bring about the
desired reformation. 1t must be IA
scheme which the great majority of
moral men will recognize to be sound
in its logic and even in its Justice.
Anything else than this may, under
pressure of an excitement, achieve IL
temporary success; but only this will
be IA permanent cure of the rampant
abomination. 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 over
whelm the dikes which philanthropy
has erected. The courts, the police,
and the public officers generally, see
ing the bold micn of these disturbers
of the peace, find it easier, for their
weak natures, to humor them, and to
connive ut their wicked works, than to
oppose them. The great majority of
tI Il Il
tyrannized over by this minority, who
laugh at law and hound the defenders
of law. The only end of this enormity
will he III the union of the majority !;
aud this can never he effected by eX-
treme measures or fanatical pronun
ciamentOS. Discrimination between
liquors that are hurtful and those that
are lin moderate uSe) healthful dis
elimination between modes of drink
ing, as treating and drinking at meals /;
discrimination between places for
drinking only, and places for lunch or
dinner: discrimination between
drinking on the premises where the
liquor is sold and drinking it at home
discrimination between day and night
in the sale, these, and other like dis
examinations, are to be made in place
of the sweeping demands of the ultra
men il Il union of temperance forces is
to he cOnSummated. Without this
union, the evil must 90 on propagat-
ing itself daily; and on the so-called
temperance leaders must rest the
blame. They have constituted an un-
reasonable shibboleth. When they
abandon that, the enemy will be con
qucrcd, unless, meanwhile, the enemy
shall have conquered all the ground
and made our land II moral desert.
Admirable laws, exactly suited to di-
minish the curse and destroy the polit-
ical power of the rum interest, have
been introduced into the New York
legislature, and would have been en-
acted but for the solid vote against
| them of the sO-callcd temperance mem
bers, directed by their ''tcmperance'
constituency at home. This class OF
refOrmers will have their zeal intcnsi-
fled by the action of Kansas and Iowa,
and they may carry Il few more of the
states. Would to God their success
were really success ; that the rum in
tcrest 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 elements which will
| finally dig the grave of rum, and bury
| him beyond all resurrection.