St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1884-08-07

wastes SS00.000,000 of the wealth
created by toll and thrift and drags
down thousands of families from com
fort to poverty; which fills jails. peni-
tentiarics, insane asylums, hospitals
and institutions for dependency; which
destroys the health, saps industry and
causes loss of life and property to
thousands in the land lowers intel
lectual and physical vigor: dulls the
cunning hand of the artisan: is the
chief cause of bankruptcy, insolvency
and loss in trade, and by its corrupt
ing power endangers the pcrpetuity Of
free institutions.
That congress should exercise its
undoubted power and prohibit the
manufacture and sale of Intoxicating
beverages in the District of Columbia.
in the territories of the United States,
and in all places over which the gov
eminent has exclusive jurisdiction
that hereafter no state shall be admit
ted into the union until its constitution
shall expressly prohibit polygamy and
the manufacture and sale of intoxicat-
ing beverages.
We earnestly call the attention of
the laborer and mechanic, the miner
and manufacturer, and ask investiga-
ton of the baneful effects upon labor
and industry caused by the needless
liquor business, which will be found
the rObber who lessons wages and
proves the destroyer of happiness and
the family welfare of the laboring man,
and that labor and all legitimate in
dustry demand delivermce from the
taxation and loss which this traffic i'm
poses, and that no tariff or other legis-
latiOn can so healthily stimulate pro-
duction or increase a demand for
capital and labor or produce so much
of comfort and content as the suppress
sion of this traffic would bring to the
labOring man, mechanic or employer
of labor throughout our land.
That the activity and cooperation
of the women of America for the pro
motion of temperance has in all the
history of the past been strength and
encouragement which we gratefully
acknowledge and record. In the later
and present phase of the movement for
the prohibition of the liquor traffic by
the abolition of the drink saloon, the
purity of purpose and method, the
earnestness, zeal, intelligence and de
vOtiOn of the mothers and daughters of
the Woman's Christian Temperance
Union has been eminently blessed by
God. Kansas and Iowa have been
given here as sheaves of rejoicing; and
the education and arousiug of the pub
lie mind and the demand for IL cOnsti-
tutiOnal amendment now prevailing
are largely the fruit of her prayers and
labors, and we rejoice to have our
Christian women unite with lis in the
movement to the polls, that, sharing IN
the labor that shall bring the abolition
of this traffic, she shall join i'll the
grand "praise God from whom all
blessings how," when by law our boys
and friends shall be free from legal
drink temptation. That, believing in
the civil and political equality of the
sexes. and believing that the ballot i'll
| the hand of woman is right for her
protection and would prove power
ful ally for the abolition of the drink
saloon, the execution of law, the pro-
motion of reform in civil affairs, and
the removal of corruption in public
life; thus believing, we relegate the
practical outwOrking of this reform to
the discretion of the prohibition party
| in the several states according to the
condition of public sentiment i'll those
| states.
That gratefully we acknowledge
and praise God for the presence of his
| Spirit guiding the councils and grant
ing the success which has been vOuch-
safed in the progress of the temperance
reform, and looking to Him from whom
all wisdom and help come, we ask the
voters of the United States to make
the principles of the above declaration
II ruling principle in the government
| of the nation and of the states.