Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1885-05-09

W0MENS' CHRISTIAN
Temperance Union Column
METHODS OF TEMPERANCE work.
BY HON. NEAL DOW.

should be no bad thing in society, but
who do little or nothing TO help in
putting away what is bad and bring
ing in what is good. They attempt to
justify themselves for their attitude of
neutrality by finding fault with the
workers and their methods, in what
ever cause. They will not help in for
eign missions because the results are
not in proportion to the outlay; they
say it costs five dollars to send dime
to a missionary field. They will not
help in home missions, because it is
far better, they say, for people to help
themselves. Christian privileges will
be valued, they say, more or less, in
proportion to the sacrifice which peo-
pie make in their behalf They lend
no help to the temperance cause
because they do not approve the meth
DDS OF temperance workers.
One of these nice men was advising
me the other day as to the best meth
cd of carrying on temperance work.
He said you make the great mistake
OF neglecting to educate the people as
to the moral and physiological effects
of strong drink, and laying out all
your strength upon Prohibition.
That Prohibition may be generally
adopted and be success, the people
must be taught that strong drink is
bad, however, and in whatever guam
tity taken; that no good comes from
it in any way; that the drink habit, in
whatever measure, has ard can have
no other tendency than to deaden the
moral sense, to spread poverty, pau
perism, suffering and crime through
the community; to make unhappy
homes, and to change good citizens in
to bad ones, and to make all who come
under its influence bad in every rela-
ton of life. When people have been
properly taught all this, so that the
masses shall realize the truth of it,
you may have some hope of carrying
on successfully crusade against the
liquor traffic. My friend is really a
nice man, wishing well to everybody
and to every good thing; but, some
how, he does not see his way clear to
help, because he does not approve of
the methods employed in Christian
and philanthropic work.
Ny friend is not well informed up
ON the matter he was criticising, and
l told him So If he would come
among us and see for himself what
we are really doing, he would find that
his objection had really no foundation
in the facts of the case. The enemies
of temperance, the friends of the sa-
looms, talk in that way, and he had
been misled by hearing so much of it.
In the early days of the Temperance
agitation, the teaching was confined
entirely to the personal results of the
alcoholic habit, which would be in
duced by the moderate use of strong
drink, and to exhortations to people
to total abstinence, as u matter of per-
sonal good and as Christian obliga-
ton to set right example in the com
community.
There is now as much teaching:ins
this direction as there ever was, and
more, while we supplement it by ex-
hortations to the people to avail them
selves of all possible lawful methods
to put away from them entirely the
temptations to intemperance, to wit
the saloons. There was never time
in the history of the tempera ice agi-
tation when there was so much and so
COOL and effective teaching as now, as
to the inevitable and tremendous mis-
chief coming from the drink habit
There was never time when there
was half SO much or so good temper
ance literature put upon the market
and widely circulated through the
country as to the dreadful results of
the drink habit. There was never
time when so many and so prominent
physicians taught the inevitable mis-
chief OF the drink habit to health and
to prolonged life as now. The testi-
monies on this subject, both oral and
written, of learned and able men, are
widely circulated in the community.
What DIR. Richardson, DIR. Carpenter,
Dr. Lees, Drs Sir Henry Thompson,
Sir VIM. Gull, DIR. Kerr, DR.. Clark and
a great many other prominent physl-
clans have written and said on the
moral and physiological effect OF strong
drink, upon the mind and the body, is
known, or ought to be, to all temper
ance workers.
There are great numbers of tenn
perance workers who contine their
teaching entirely to personal consider
atoms All over the Northern States
there are Reform clubs-blue ribbon
men, red ribbon men, white ribbon
men, Gospel temperance men-who, in
all their talk, say nothing of Prohibi-
ton. There was never before in the
history of the temperance cause so
much of this teaching as there is now,
and 1t is far better calculated TO reach
the masses of the people than any
Temperance teaching we ever had be-
fore Edwards, Woods, Stuart, Spring,
Beecher, Marsh, Delevan, Seargent,
Potter, Cheever and many others like
them in the old time, reached the
churches and moved them to active
help. more than any of our present
teachers can; but they did not touch
the masses of the people so much.
So you see, my friend, you are mis-
taken in your opinion that we temper
ance workers of to-day neglect the
the teaching OF foundation Sruths OF
the temperance reform. There is a
significant, though an incidental, proof
of this in the bitter and vehement
antagonism to our teetotal talk of
some very prominent doctors OF di-
vinity who denounce us unsparingly
because we do not recognize the diff
erence between fiery LIQUORS and wine