St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1884-04-10
Good TempIar Gathering.
AN ENTHUSIASTIC MEETING AND AN
ABLE SPEECH FROM JUDGE SMITH.


the annual meeting of the third district
union of Good Templars at Lyndon
vile the 9th ult. After the formal
opening at the morning session Rev.
Z. Owen gave pleasant address OF
welcome, to which a response was
made by Rev. B. NJ. TillOtson. Re-
ports from the various lodges were
then read and were in the main en-
cOuraging. Excellent music was fur
nished by Riverside, Burke Mountain,
Hillside, Selleck, Crescent, Garfield,
Harmony, McIndoe's and Echo lodges.
The afternoon session was devoted. to
miscellaneous business.
In the evening Judge Walter p.
Smith gave forcible and eloquent
public address. After portraying the
evils of intemperance he came to the
/ question of how to control the traffic
and said =
''Some of the states have taken this
evil in hand and passed laws of various
| kinds and hope to curtail if not to
Danish altogether intemperance. In
our own state in 1852 the first laws
eating liquors became a part of our
statutes. At almost every session of
our Legislature since that time this law
has received amendments to cover its
vulnerable points and make it more
stringent and etfectu Let me say
| that it does honor to the intelligence
and integrity of the representative
men of Vermont that for thirty years
this law has stood unrepealed upon
our statute books and every step taken
in the direction of change has been one
forward and not backward. 1t would
seem that our present law was suffi-
ciently perfect to meet every possible
contingency. Nevertheless it is broken
aud some say it is failure for that
reason. Compare the violation of
temperance laws with the violation of
laws for the punishment of murder,
arson, theft, robbing and the long
catalog of crimes which men commit.
Are those laws broken ? Let the state
prisons, and houses of correction make
answer. Are those laws failures Far
from it. Society would be insecure
without them. Whether with them
society is safe depends not SO much
upon the laws as upon their execution.
If less time was spent in prOclaiming
against the impertectiOns of the laws
and more spent in the proper selection
of officers to execute them and in sus-
tanning those officers in the perform
ance of their unpleasant duties, there
would be not only fewer complaints,
but much less cause for making them.
another of these influences at work
III the direction of temperance reform
is the organized effort outside the law
under the head of temperance societies.
These organizations supplement the
in this great work. While having the
same object in view, their methods are
widely different. Our statutes upon
the subject are mainly at the rum
seller. 1t is only when a man by the
use of liquor becomes so intoxicated as
to endanger the public peace that the
law takes him in hand and then to i'm
pose "A fine of only five dollars and
costs. lie may drink as much as he
pleases and buy of whom he likes and
go unpunished provided he keeps in IA
presentable condition of sObriety.
Temperance organizations on the other
hand mainly seek to reach the rum
drinker and this through the affections
and higher nature. These two infiu-
ences constitute the upper and neither
millstones, so to speak, between which
it is hoped this evil at no distant day,
will he ground to powder. Our statute
law proceeds upon the theory, that
there will he rum drinkers so long as
there are rumsellers, and therefore
seeks to cut off the supply. Temper
ance organizations, on the other hand
proceed upon the theory that there
will be rumsellers so long as there are
rum drinkers and therefore aim to cut
off the demand. 1t is undoubtedly
true that there will be rumsellers so
long as there are rum drinkers, but the
converse of this proposition is not true
namely, that there will be rum drink
ers so long as there are those to be
found who are waiting to sell
''To prove this, take any communi-
ty you please-your own for instance.
YOu have in this town large number
of citizens who never touch or taste
intoxicating liquor. From these citi-
zens surely the rumseller gets no gain
and receives no encouragement. Yet,
there never was time probably when
these same citizens, if they had desired,
could have purchased all the liquor
they wanted. Suppose now you in
crease the number of such citizens
until not one could be found in your
town-and such thing is possible
who either tastes or handles it, what
would become of the rumseller ? 1t is
plain that for want of patronage he
would reap no profits and the illegal
traffic would soon die of neglect. The
law has done much, is still doing and
will continue to do much. Let this
upper milestone keep grinding away.
1t has already ground the rumseller