The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-02-29
The Rum Power.

Public thought is everywhere awakened to
the fact that the rum power is the most
formidable and rapidly growing social and
political evil of our time that must be met
and prappled with as a matter of self-preser-
walton. Leading men and leading newspa-
pers are waking up and talking as they never
talked before. The magnitude OF the evil, the
growing pretensions of the rum power, ana
the alarming increase of its political influence,
begin to attract serious and widespread al
tention, and to inspire plain talk. The New
York Commercial Adoerttser, for example,
few days ago gave utterance to some very
significant and startling words on this subject.
It said:
"The principal point made by the most of
the speakers of the meeting In the Cooper
Institute last night was that rum rules New
York. There are 10000 places where liquor
is dispensed, and as it is estimated that each
controls ten votes the rumsellers' strength
at the polls is represented by 1000 votes.
That this is an effective working force is seen
in the city offices. The rule of rum in New
York is nearly absolute Every year it
tightens its grip The other night in the
assembly chamber in Albany, when the Roose-
welt hig license bill was under discussion,
the audience present were informed by the
speakers for the liquor dealers that the en-
actment of the measure would be followed by
reprisals. Other threats were INDUCED in
and the public given plainly to understand
that the rum power considers itself strong
enough to make it very uncomfortable for
whoever presumes to interfere with it. 1t has
kept the politicians in subsection through
this kind of methods but from the spirit
evinced at last nights meeting it looks as
though the people were waking up at last and
propose to have something to say on the ques-
ton themselves. And it is time. The COM
mon council, in which the most respected
citizens were once proud to sit, has become
the stamping ground for the gin gentry,
who, however, do not by any means conhne
their operations to that spot.
Vigorous and decided action here against
this growing evil would have salutary effect
everywhere. By threats the rumsellers have
so far prevented adverse legislation; but let
the same spirit which prevailed at the Cooper
Institute last night assert itself at the polls
and there is not much danger that the pres
ent state of affairs will continue to exist
The effect of such example would be sweep
ing. 1t would be seen that the defiance of
these people was mere bravado, and their
threats empty boasts. "
The New York Tribune of Sunday, under
the title of "The Heaviest Clog on Pro-
gress," also gave expression to some very
telling and impressive arguments In the
course of that article it said:
"Of what use is it to talk about poverty,
restitution, squalor, misery, here and there,
when it is notorious that tens of thousands are
SO enslaved by vicious appetite as to be in
capable of helping themselves, Indifferent to
the nature of their surroundings, dead to
every progressive aspiration. How can we
reasonably complain of any minor evils while
this gigantic one continues to hamper the ma
TONS advance at every step; while this vast
drain continues to carry off capital, one
years application of which would solve every
social problem that perplexes us? If this is
not practical question, then there is no such
thing as practically. 1t is the one overshad-
owing evil whose existence of necessity pre-
vents the success of reform efforts in all other
directions. 1t is said that the condition of
the working classes is unsatisfactory, that
they do not prosper as they might: the an
swer must be that they can never utilize their
opportunities until they are freed from the
curse of rum. If it is said that our politics
are corrupt, trivial, mean, it must be assumed
that our politics are too deeply entangled with
the liquor traffic to be other than what they
are. If sanitary questions are concerned,
rum still stands in the way of improvement.
If religious progress is discussed, the fact re-
mains that the saloons empty the churches
If education is considered, it is notorious that
the same degrading agency seduces thousands
of our youth. Wherever we turn, in short
we encounter this subtle and sinister agency
1t is blight which lies heavy upon our civil
ization, and which will be cleared away be-
fore that civilization can become an object of
just pride and satisfaction"
Every candid and observing man knows
that this is no exaggeration of the pernicious
influence of this terrible evil Men may diff
fer as to the best method of reaching and cur
ing it, but there can be no honest difference of
opinion in regard to the existence of the evil
itself, nor to the urgent necessity of circum-
scribing it by every possible means. Every
man need not be teetotaler, but every man
should be in favor of the temperance cause
State Gazette, Feb. 10
We present the above to our readers with
out comment. Let the patriot, the christian
and the citizen study the situation. A great
struggle is imminent. Stephen A. Douglass
said in the war against the rebellion there can
only be two parties in this war-traitors and
patriots. In this war against the rum power
good men will be on one side and bad men on
the other. This will be war of christianity
against the blacklist barbarism of all GEN.
turtles.
Word has just reached us that to-day is
Burgess day" when the art galleries will
be opened from AM. to PM to those in