The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-09-20
Rev. W. F. Crafts Points Out Various
Evils OF Intemparanee.

''What the First Century of Temper
ance Work Has Made Certain About
the Cause of Intemperance, was the
subject selected by Rev. Wilbur F.
Crafts for his morning discourse at the.
First Congregational Church yesterday.
The speaker recounted the history of
the Temperance cause from the time
when DR.. Rush and the Philadelphia
College OF Pharmacy sent series of
resolutions to Congress in 1885, asking
for heavy tax on alcoholic liquors, to
the General Assembly of the Congre-
gationalists in 1886, when DIR. Lyman
BeeGher, as chairman of a committee
to report on the best means of checking
the evil of lntemperance, urged upon
the churches and members not to ex--
press or allow themselves to believe
that nothing could be done to stop the
increase OF drunkenness, but to 90 on
with the fight, and make total absti-
nence their battle-cry. He then point
ed out what he said were the five prn-
cipal facts proved by the first century
OF Temperance warfare. Physicians
everywhere, he said, were unanimously
of the opinion thai the use of alcoholic
liquors in any form was injurious to,
the health. Lager beer was particularly
injurious. An eminent doctor had said
that forty-nine out OF fifty cases of
Bright's disease which he had treated
was caused by drinking beer. Lunacy,
that was yearly on the increase, was
chiefly "saloonacy.' Suicide, which
/ was committed largely among the Ger
mans, was u result OF beer drinking.
/ The United States census was the au-
| thority on this. 1t cites Milwaukee, a
German city, where lager beer is made
and drunk in vast quantities, as having
larger percentage of suicides in proper
ton to the population than any other
city in the Nation. Insurance statis-
ties show the greatest longevity in
those sections of the country where to-
tai abstinence prevails. Intemperance
was the direct cause OF nine-tenths of
the crimes committed. The speaker
cited q remark of a Justice of the Peace.
who had told him that niue out of
every ten who came before him in the
course OF year charged with q crime
or misdemeanor excused themselves on
the ground that they were drunk at the
time. Alcohol had dozen aliases, but
it was the same criminal under them
'lIl' 1 IlC olOI VI lIOi RlOO pICCIC1 = CC-'
itOrial was told by the speaker, in which
that great journalist said that alcohol
was devil, whether in whisky, beer,
champagne or Heidsieck. His fellow
editors laughed at him and said that
Heidsieck was only u brand of cham
payne, not a separate liquor. well,
boys" said Greeley, I'm the only
man in the office who could have made.
such mistake" The failures of the
century, said the speaker, had been the
license System and the moderate drink
ers. Prohibition was the only cure, and
no other proof was necessary than to.
point to the fact that saloon-keepers
spent vast sums of money to prevent
/ the enactment of Prohibition laws. But
! prevention was better than prohibition.
The greatest work was TO save the
drunkard before he became one. This
must be done in the churches. at the
homes and firesides During the Tenn
perance crusade, saloon keeper,
whose place was entered by band of
praying women, said: ''Why do YOU
come here to save the men? We punch
the last ticket here for hell. Save 'em
/ uptown, before they get down here.'
/ -CAicaq0 Ne10S.