The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-09-05
HOME HELPS FOR VOTERS FOR
HOMES.

| And what has the home to do with this
question of Prohibition. since the women and
children cannot votc?" Everything The
beginning and end of the whole agitation is
the home Had women and children never
suffered in body. mind and estate from the
drink habit, there would have been no
need of this new issue, of this new party.
of the Pttsburg Convention, or the nomi
nation of St John and Daniel. Had wo-
men and children homes not lain directly
in the track of the whisky tornado that has
swept resistless over the land, there would
have been no need of Washingtonian Socie-
ties. of Sons of Temperance, of Good Tenn
plarS. of the National Union of Christian
Women. Small need of the watch-fires
kndled on every hill, of the voices lifted
in the churches, of messengers travelling
from village to village all over the land,
giving the note of warning, raising the cry
Home. Small need of temperance camp
meetings and conventions, and press agita-
tions but for the danger to the Home. 1t
is this danger that has sent mothers and
wives and daughters of the country to
| their knees and sent them forth again from
their closets strong in the might of an un-
quenchable purpose, born of the very
breath of God. 1t is this danger that has
stirred brave mems souls until they are as
ready to battle against this foe as ever
were men against pestilence and fire and
sword. 1t is, all through. from beginning
to end, grand uprising for the protection
of the centre and source of our National
life. the family and the home. 1t calls for
the manifest and noblest qualities in men.
1t can be no battle waged in a spirit of self
ACKNOWLEDGMENT For once the high notc
ment is founded upon the divine principle
of good will To nau. Ii nothing be gained
beyond demonstration that true chivalry
and the high heroic type of manhood is not
waiting world. We have almost been
forced to consider politics as divorced from
principle We have too often been asked
to uphold plausible and pretentious plat
forms where the thinnest vcneering of re
gard for moral ISSUES covered rotten planl,S
of dishonor We have seen the open smile
take the place of the secret shame at
corruption until platform founded upon
eternal principles of truth and Justice and
honor is a surprise to the world, and breaks
upon its night like gray dawn that it can
hardly believe shall deepen to fullest
day.
Yet this is indeed time when old men
may safely prophesy and young men may
dream theirdreams. Forno highest hope of
national glory aud power that ever throbbed
through the heart of youth, as it looked
forth unsullied upon our country $ life, can
be greater than the glory that awaits us
when this kingdom of Temperance comes,
and the beginning of the glorious day is in
the individual citizen, and the first radia-
ton is i'll the home, tightening and warm
ing the heart of sister and mother and
wife
Think of this. women who hesitate and
shrink and fear, and ask, what you of the
homes can do? Not drunkard in the
land to-day but has drawn after him. down
his track of degradation and sorrow, drag
ging by the very heartstrings that could
not let him go-some suffering woman to
share his shame. There is not boy in the
homes of to-day whom the home can really
protect. or whose life is not bound to some
woman's heart, that will bide with him
through whatever depth of drunken dis
honor lac may pass.
And you ask, what has the home to do
with the question and what can the wo-
men do? The least they can do is 10 have
the courage of their convictions, and on
| this question the conviction of the women
Of the land is far more unanimous than is