The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1885-06-18
TEMPERANCE DEPARTMENT..

TEMPERANCE DEPARTMENT.
EDITED BY THE woMEN's CHRISTIAN TEN
PERANCE UNION.
OUR MOTTO FOR GOD AND HOME AND
NATIVE LAND.
OUR STATE MOTTO: TN DUE SEASON WE
SHALL REAP II WE FAINT NOT.
Monthly meeting second Tuesday 5 p.
M, at HeadquarteFs. Woman's Prayer
meeting, every Thursday afternoon at
2.30 p. m.
Hnrrah for Greenville we shout and
every hill clad in God IS own beautiful gar
ment, and every soul that is awakened to
a better and purer life in Augusta county
echoes back the shout.
In the second instalment of the High
land crofters story, which he has written
for the Glasgow Mail, Dir. George McDon-
aid speaks very telling word-we might
almost call it sermon-against whiskey.
He declares that the habit of whiskey-
drinking is one that might to be viewed
with loathing as thing that yields many
deadening influences, rendering men cal
lous not only to the special vice itself, but
to worse vices as well. "a habit,'' he
says, (which, though not bad, yet leads to
endless results that are all and, We need
not be tender over. would follow it to
its grave without a great flow of tears.
There are just two sides to this temper
ance reform, and this call of total absti-
hence and prohibition is the dividing line
If ladies have champagne and punch at
stylish morning parties. can they won
der at husband or son, brother or lover
take few steps further in the same di
rection? If clergymen at a reception of
their own. have punch bowl as part of
the entertainment, can they condemn the
young man who INDUCES at his club, or
with his associates ? Can any good argu-
meLt be found against bar-room liquor
drinking on moral grounds as long as it is
the right thing" for religious and refined
people to transfer the bar-room to their
homes ? A fearful responsibility lies at
the door of society and the church.-Na-
tlonal Bulletin
WHY SHOULD WE HAVE PROHIBITION
Prohibition interferes with two classes
of people-those who want to sell and
those who want to buy. The demand calls
for supply. and the supply creates demand.
The law acknowledges that liquor selling
is the enemy of good order. A saloon
built under the shadow of a church or
school house. is not the less a curse. 1t
cannot be made so bright with flowers or
birds but it is passed with shudder by all
pure-minded people. The light that streams
out from it's windows is the light from the
very gates of hell. Who would think of
blessing its radiance as they pass by 1t
is pest, snare, but the law sanctions it,
because the "seller and the buyer have
rights it is bound to respect" The law
can punish man for the result of liquor
drinking, but it cannot prevent his buying,
because it gives permission to the dealer
to sell. 1t makes it respectable to sell,
therefore it must be respectable to buy.
But the law is for the promotion of good
order, for the protection of all the people
for the progress of civilization. 1t says
the home is the safety of the nation and
or TO of 1,xro
it's enemy to undermine and destroy. The
law knows it depends on it's own life for
the intelligence of the people, yet permits
a system which continually weakens the
strong and Overcomes the weak. Sanitary
regulations will not permit miasmatic
wells, infected CLOTHES, or cess-pools the
government will stop ship away out in
the sea, lest it has yellow fever or cholera
on board, but the danger and death and
infection OF saloons go right on. 1t takes
the manufacture of oleomargarine In hand
and prohibits it. The people shall not eat
fat or tallow for butter. Rut the corn and
rye and barley and fruit is ground up, and
rotted and poisoned and sold and drunk,
and the law smiles when humanity pleads
for prohibition, and says lit can't be done.
Go right on with your educating the
young, with your reform in the parlor and
the churches, and after awhile there will
be less demand and the supply will be less. =
Is not the law made for a help? The sup
ply of past years is responsible for the de-
mand of to-day hence the law is respon-
sible for the present and the future curse
of drunkenness. Lawmakers cannot ig-
more this truth. Voters cannot ignore it.
The majesty of the law demands it shall
vindicate itself. for the law is ''by the
people and for the people. National Bal
Iofi9