The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1884-01-26
WOMEN AND RUM.

WOMEN AND RUM.
Ninety-nine per cent. of the respecta-
BILE women in the country, maids, wild
ows and matrons. are heart and soul
opposed to rum in all its forms. To
woman there is not only nothing in
rum that is pleasant, but there is moth
ing that is not misery. A man may
find some comfort in intoXicants, while
he is drinking them, and till the horri-
BILE reaction comes. He finds comfort
in the bar-room for it is always warm,
and there is always an eXhileration
and lifting-up of spirit, in drink.
While drinking he has, or thinks he has,
something of a good time, and when
he staggers home, no matter how
wretched that home may be, he is in a
condition that makes cold and hun
ger endurable. The rum supports him
till its effects passes off, and then
more rum restores him to new life, and
80 on.
OF course it comes to an end, and the
end is wretchedness itself, but till the
stomach is gone, 50 that rum will not
excite it, there is some compensation in
it for him.
But his wife and children! While the
husband is in the warm grog-shop, they
are shiyering in the wretched hovel.
Rum takes the place of clothes, and
fuel, and pleasant surroundings for him,
but they have the cold, the dirt, the rags
and squalor to endure without that Sup
port.
They have the wretchedness while the
husband and father is away, with the
absolute certainty that his coming is to
add brutality to the other misery they
are enduring. Cold and hunger are
certain to be supplemented with kicks
and blows. Brutality invariably brings
up the doleful train of hunger, cold and
| want.
The father, absorbed in business, may
not note the growing color on the face
of his son, and the other unmistakable
evidences of the gnawing appetite which
is consuming him. But the mother,
with her keen instincts, is never de-
ceived. She knows his out-goings and
his in-comings; she marks the progress
OF the destroyer, and long before the
| father begins to suspect the truth, the
mother is certain of it. Woman-like
she shields her son, and keeps the hor-
| rid truth in her own breast, where it
| burns like coal of fire.
She has daughters who are to be mar
ried, and there comes another danger.
Who is to be the custodian OF their hap
| piness? Is the destroyer to mar their
lives? Son or daughter it is all one
Rum threatens both.
Rum is the one standing dread of
every woman in the land. Rum is the
one threat that hangs over every wom-
ans life. Rum is the standing menace
to peace and happiness in every house
hold. Rum is the one haunting ghost
of every woman who has husband son
or daughter. Other vices have limita-
| tions-this has none. Other vices may
be cured, or. at the worst, Il man may
care something for wife and child with
other vices, but rum is the one giant
vice that roots out of a man every scin-
tilla of affection, and every atom of
tenderness. 1t is the king vice which
includes all the others. There is in it
dishonesty, brutality and murder.
There is nothing that is bad that is not
possible for drunkard, nothing that a
woman most breads in the direction of
the bad but what in n drunkard is more
than probable, almost certain.
Is it any wonder that good women,
universally, are willing to do anything
to curtail its power for evil? Is it any
wonder that almost universally they
are the foremost supporters of every
proposition to kill it out? They know
its misery better than men do, for they
are its chief victims.
Upon the women of the country a
great duty devolves. This over-shad-
owing curse, this aggregation Of vices,
this epitome of misery, has impudently
setup its claim to the control of the
country. 1t has announced its deter
mination to increase its power for evil
by intrenching itself behind law, and to
this end proposes to make the laws. II
has announced itself above law The
brewers and dstillers have organized
to prevent any interference with their
horrid business, any curtailing of their
power to spread misery and death. They
are organizing n new and effective raid
upon the women of the country, strik-
ing them through their sons and hus-
bands.
How are the women to meet this at
tack! BY organization. Let them or
ganize as have their natural enemies,
the rum-sellers. Let every township in
the United States have its organization
of women, the purpose of which shall
be to develop public sentiment against
rum and for the promotion of sobGety.
Let them refuse all companionship with
rum. either in the drinker or seller
They have the power in their hands
to make drinking not only unfashlon-