The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-05-05
TEMPERANCE FooLIsHNEss.


are thousand facts bearing upon the sale
and use of intoxic9nts which are known
and read of all mem yet, somehow or other,
they seem to be powerless in effecting any
substantial change in the habits of men or
in their methods with the traffic. Has the
habit OF drinking such mastery over men
that it must be transmitted from one gen.
Grafton to the next with undimnished force,
in spite of all that can be said or done to
lessen its ravagesY No material change for
the better has been noticed in all these years
of temperance work-shall we say temper
ance foolishness?' Some men have been re-
formed and the children of some who were
themselves dissipated have lived sober lives;
but, on the other hand, many of the most
pitiable specimens of besotment are found
among the children of those who were most
abstemious and who were marked for their
devotion to the cause of temperance and reli-
gion. Why is this? Is drunkenness in its
various stages human inheritance? Shall
every parent look upon his own household as
the coming army of drunkards in spite of
his teachings and example? 1t seems so.
That the temperance work of the last half
century has diminished drinking among
church people and driven the traffic from the
church. is beyond dispute; but are not the
tippling-houses of to-day more mischievous
than the taverns of fifty years ago, kept usu-
ally by the best men in the community? Is
not drunkenness as prevalent and debauch-
ing to-day as it was then? Do the drunken
children of sober men behave any better than
the children of drunkards, when the habit is
formed. and they have graduated from the
home sideboard through the gilded saloon to
the haunts of the vicious and besotted?
To every well-wisher OF his race whether
an ardent worker in the temperance cause,
or in the church, or only genteel looker-on,
the facts which surround us are alarming.
Is the temperance work therefore foolish
ness? To very many it appears to be, but
we remember that at one stage of Christianity
the preaching of the cross was called foolish
ness, yet it proved to be a power even in the
hands of the unlearned and untitled. Is
there any such a crown for the cause of
temperance
Whether the temperance work is foolish
ness or not, something has aroused this
Nation, and other nations no less, to certain
class of facts that cannot be pooh poohed out
<~f es~L H. e Al
traffic is Immediately responsible for this
awakening we need not consider, we only
melton the fact. 1t is certainly not the tenn
perance workers so-called that are most
prominent at this time in Weighing the liquor
traffic in the balances of public opinion.
No man in America is further from being
temperance fanatic than Rev. DIR. Crosby, of
New York. 1t is only few years since he
was the target of temperance orators and
Temperance editors because he refused to
pronounce their shbboleth He thought
there was better way than total abstinence
or prohibition, but he assumed duties in the
line marked out by himself that has led him
to write as bitter things of the traffic as Neal
Dow ever did. A few weeks ago he addressed
meeting in Steinway Hail. New York. 1t was
not temperance meeting, but in discussing
the glory and the shame of the great metrop-
oils he unearthed a class of facts that has set
the people of that city, and of the nation as
well, to such sober thinking as has not been
often known. Speaking of the city's debt
of 800, 900, 900, he says that the debt is owing
to the scoundrelism of the officers and that
men are elected to the municipal offices, not
because of merit but because they keep
liquor saloons which are useful to the party.
He's says: 'The men whose business it is to
ruin the bodies and souls of Others to rob
them of their hardearned wages and drive
their wives to beggary and suicide are chosen
to make our city ordinances v They are
men who attend prize-fghts; dirty. vulgar
men. whom you would no sooner allow to
enter your house than you would the small
pox. Crime and poverty to a great ex-
tent start from the saloon, OF which there are
1900 in the city, taking out the women and
children, one for every thirty-fiye men. AL
lowing three-sevenths of these not to drink
at all, there is one saloon for every twenty
drinkers. The keepers all get rich. 1t Is
easy to see where the pauperism and
misery come FROM" Having stated
these facts, the Doctor startled his audi
ence, many of whom were foreign
born by saying that the saloons are mostly
in the hands of foreigners, and he appealed
to them as men who have at heart the good
of their adopted country to aid in the re-
moval of this shame.
The New Norl, Trihnnn in q renent 90 ro-