The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1884-05-16
Temperance Reading.
Society and the Saloon.


Two significant episodes occurred on
the same day in this city within the
past week. A speaker addressed a
meeting of liqnor-dealers, and told them
that " saloons are benefit to the COM
munity, and said that the Temperance
movemehtwas . scheme of the rich to
crush the poor" Elsewhere the agents
of the Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children were rescuing the
helpless little ones of two families from
the neglect of drunken mothers. Per-
haps it is only to audiences of LIQUOR
dealers that any speaker would venture
the assertions above cited; would claim
for the agency that degrades even ma
ternity the character of benefit. Per-
haps it is only before such an audience
that any speaker would describe the
Temperance movement as scheme of
the rich to crush the poor. To crush
the poor! Ask the poor, bloated wretch
whose constituencies appetite has
broken up his home, killed his wife,
sent his children adrift, alienated his
friends, destroyed his opportunities,
blasted his existence, if he believes
this. Ask the haggard wife of the
drinking artisan, as she strives, at the
risk of brutal usage, to secure from the
weeks wages which he has destined to
the saloon some pittance wherewith to
keep the life in her famiShed children
and her wresched SELF Ask the stunted
boys and girls whose parents swill away
their humanity over stale beer in tene-
ment-houses if they think movement
which is to obtain f them the unknown
blessing of tender treatment is scheme
of the rich against the poor Ask the
thousands who in many devious ways
have drunk themselves to ruin and
shame and physical, mental and moral
wreck if the saloons are benefit to the
community.
When vice and degradation, immoral
ity and crime. brutality and obscenity
ali that is earthly, sensual, deyilish-
is recognized as beneflcent, then, and
then alone, will the claim put forward
for the saloons be recognized as valid.
When the interests of the poor are seen
to consist in the perpetuation of power
ty, in the blocking of every avenue of
es ape from squalor and abiect indi-
gence, in the propagation of all foul
and filthy habits and tendencies, in the
extinction of shame and decency, in the
glorification of sottishness and self-in-
diligence, then, and then alone, will it
be admissible to say that the Temper
ance movement is scheme of the rich
to crush the poor.
The saloon is an institution which
makes the poor poorer continually. If
only half the annual expenditure of the
wage-earning classes upon drink were
saved, the elevation of those classes
would proceed by leaps and bounds.
The saloon, however, is ever lying in
wait for the social wage-earner. In this
great city, on any of the main avenues,
he can not walk a block without pass
ing mandatory of misery. At every
turn the purveyor of drink entices him.
gets between him and his family, be-
tween him and his manood, between
him and his happiness. The pervading
influence of rum pursues the slaves of
appetite increasingly, and makes their
lives constant struggle or a succession
OF disastrous falls.
This subtle, prevalent influence is the
bitterest curse that rests upon modern
civilization and it will destroy civiliza-
ton if it is not itself destroyed. For
the discomfort, the anarchic tendencies,
the sedtious doctrines, the dangerous
dispositions that are manifesting in
centres of population, together with the
vices of administration which alarm the
thoughtful and the difficulties in the
way Of reform which are due to the in
tractability of the material dealt with
all have their spring and origin in that
habit of drinking, that potent drink in
fuence, which battles the enthusiasm of
the reformer, and laughs to scorn the
appeals of religion, of reason and of
self-respect. This evil influence is
degrading and brutalizing society, and
progress will be slow and unsatisfac-
tory until public opinion is formed
which refuses TO palter with the abuse
longer.-M Y. Tribune.