The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-07-12
The Question of the Age.
from the New York Tribune.


the test of good government is the
greatest happiness of the greatest
number. If this be true, it must be
owned that no government extant is
satisfactorily conducted. For obser-
Yation shows that as a rule political
energy is expended upon secondary
concerns, while politicians employ
all their dexterity in avoiding action
upon the great problems which most
deeply involve the destinies of the
masses. There is to-day in the Eng
disappearing countries no such tre-
mendous, far-reaching, vital question
as that of drunkenness. In its i'm
plications and effects it Overshadows
all else. 1t Is impossible to examine
any subject connected with the pro-
gress. the civilization, the physical
well-being, the religious condition of
the masses, without encountering this
m0nstrous evil. 1t lies at the centre
of all social and political mischief. 1t
paralyses benefcent energies in every
direction. 1t neutralizes educational
agencies. 1t siences the voice of re-
ligion. 1t battles penal reform. 1t
0bstructs political reform. 1t rears
aloft a mass of evilly-inspired power
which at every salient point threat
ems social and national advance;
which gives to ignorance and vice
greater potency than intelligence and
virtue can command which deprives
the poor of the advantages of modern
progress; which debauches and de-
grades millions, brutalizing and sod
dening them below the plane of
healthy savagery, and filling the CEN
tiers of population with creatures
whose condition almost excuses the
immortality which renders them dam
gerous to their generation.
All these evils, all this mischief, all
this destruction of human souls and
intellects go on among us daily and
hourly. There are none so ignorant
or inattentive as not to have personal
experience of some of them some
hearth darkened some family scat
tered; some loving heart broken
some promising career ruined some
deed of shame done. Yet how hard it
is to get this gigantic evil attacked
seriously. Temperance organizations
have indeed been fighting it for
years, yet popular inertia has re-
sisted their utmost efforts. But has
all been done that might and should
have been done by the organized
agencies that represent the higher
life p? What are doctrinal points, for
example, compared to this ever. pres
ent, ver.active, insidious influence ?
What are sectarian differences by the
side of this national curse? Can the
churches told their hands and fiatter
themselves that their duties are all
fulfilled, while the masses prefer the
saloon to the pulpit, and while rum
rules in politics and society 4? Are
the higher educational agencies do
ing all in their power to advance
civilization while they ignore this
obstacle to progressP Can any polit.
ical organization be said to represent
the best aspirations and the strong
est needs of the people, while this
abiding source of misery and crime
and poverty is allowed to spread and
flourish?
There is needed something of that
sacred fire which kindled into mex
tinguishahle heat the zeal of the AbOl-
itionlsts and which compelled the
Abandonment of human slavery, to
rouseIthe national indignation and
adherence against this very much
greater evil. Nothing short of this,
IL is to be feared, will impel time
serving politicians to approach in a
spirit Of earnestness a subject which Is
distasteful to them mainly because
they think they cannot afford to do
without the help and support of the
class who derive from the degradation
of the foolish and ignorant the means
whereby they continue 10 rule and
plumber those whose sagacity is proof
against their snares.