The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-05-28
THEWOMAN'S CRY FOR HELP.
A Vigorous and Eloquent Letter from
the Sister of the President,
In Which DR.. Crosby Is Handled Without
Gloves and Strong Argument Made
Against the Liquor Traffic.

morning, communication from MISS EIlZaDetn
Cleveland, sister of President Cleveland, in re-
ply to the Rev. Dr. Howard Crosby, on the
question of total abstinence. Miss Cleveland
commences by quoting the following from Dr.
Crosby:
~ do not wonder that excellent women, whose
husbands or sons have become sots, should aovo-
cate total abstinence for every one. we nave
heard a good woman, whose boy had cut his
finger nearly off with knife, wish that there
were no knives in the world; and, II she could
have her way she would have them all destroyed
forthwith It is natural and a woman's cry on
such an occasion excites our tenderest sympathy.
But who will count that an argumentF
Miss Cleveland then says: "The above para
graph from a Calm View of DR.. Nelson by the
Rev. Howard Crosby, in the Evangelist of March
IL, has most pertinaciously haunted me ever
since the perusal of the article last evening.
That this, above any other paragraph, should
most impress itself upon the impressible mind
Of one emotional woman in particular, or OF
woman as an emotional creature in general, will
surprise no man. It is, as the Doctor says natu-
raj; and am certain that mul titudes of women
besides myself are to-day smarting under these
calm words, against the mputation of which every
fibre of the woman nature rises up in revolt
The male animal is very fierce; the female of all
genera is very, comparatively and in general,
uncombative. But the same science which tells
us this tells US also that the mother among all
beasts in defense of her young, is the fercest OF
all living creatures. The lioness, under ordinary
circums tances. is quite easy of conquest;
but the Honess, robbed OF her
whelps no man or beast cares to
encounter Both these phases of the female
nature are undoubtedly natural They belong,
as Bishop Butler said of certain so-called super
natural phenomena to the natural, of which
there arc two courses-the one ordinary, the
other not supernatural, still less superhuman,
but extraordinary. You see Mrs. Foster, that
this mad dog you tell about. is to be put by a
calm view of the thing as it is, into the same
category with cutlery. You have no more real
right to cry about this Embossed beast, because
1t may meet your children on their way to
school and may bite one or two Of them, than
you have to cry out against the manufacture
and sale of knives, because your boy cut him
self once. The perfectly clear thing is-if you
only had head enough to see it--that the manu-
facture Thy fermentation, not distillation of the
mad dog mot very mad, but, only some mad)
good kind) for every one thousand people, ought
to be protected by law from the bullets of
hydrophobia-haters. This calm view of the
evil which because of some, in fact several,
cases of hydrophobia among US, has come to be
called, by unthinking people, a mad dog is
proven by the concurrent testimony of expert
ence, science, scholarship, sound philosophy,
and above all, rightly read Scripture, to be a
good creature of God The calmly Christian
thing for you to do 'on such an occasion, is not
to 60 up and down crying but to stay at home
little mad-dogs bite is good for them, but a big
mad-dogs bite is very bad for them
You ought, if you would only do the thing
you ought instead of the thing you like,
TO mix up little wine and water for your little
BOY at dinner, 80 that he may early learn the
difference between true temperance and this
miserable parody of true temperance called total
abstinence, and be prepared to make manly pro-
test against drunkenness when he shall be grown
up It is simply silly, it is, and, while we
feel the tenderest sympathy for your sorrow,
we must say it, it is silly for you to refuse to
see that knives and mad dogs are equally dan
gerous 1t is as ridiculous for you to demand
that all alcohols shall be banished from the bev-
erages of mankind because this fiery liquor is
burning out the manhood in more ways than by
its consumption of the world, as it would be for
you to demand that all the wells should be dried
UP because men lose their lives by drowning.
IL
could but see it, you foolish woman. Your cry
is no argument It were better you should stop
your crying.
"Dr Crosby, we cannot try we never so hard
we cannot defy or deny nature. God has made
us a CRYING genus We cannot understand how
knives and mad dogs are just alike. We cannot
understand why mad dog should not be killed
We cannot help crying if only one to every 900
human beings is let loose in streets. These
things are too high for US; we cannot find them
nFff / 10 not n1r h1ofo &c o,,rva ofr apd
we dare to say that, through the pure and unso-
phsticated nature of the human mother, Gods
argument against any use of alcohol, except as a
medicine, is given to the world to day.
"When the young queen of Austria, pressed
on every side by the ruthless oppression of the
great Prussian king, fed trembling into Hun
gary, and with her infant in her arms and her
royal crown upon her head, appealed for the
protection of her kingdom to her loyal subjects
there those stalwart Hungarian mobiles rose IN a
mass, and, laying their right hands upon the
swords at their sides, swore in a shout whose
hoarse ring echoes down the years, 'Moriamur
pro rege nostra, Maria Theresa And how they
did die all the world knows 1t is not for rhetor-
ical effect still less for the excitation Of the
'tenderest sympathy that l revert to this
well-nown historical incident 1t is that
1 may call attention to the argument in the cry
of those men, for suppose a mans cry may be
counted as an argument | wish to beg you to
notice those words. 'rege nostra That ex-
preston of those Hungarian mobiles, 'our king
Maria Theresa, instead of our queen Maria
Theresa, has been interpreted to represent an
idea in their minds to suit the mind of the inter
prefer. Woman's rights speakers have made
them an acknowledgment on the part of those
most masculine men that there was woman
who was more man than any one of them, or all
t0gether-more able to command them by
having more that was kingly in her; hence, pro
rege nostra, rather than pro regina nostra
Chivalrous knights-errant of our day make this
expression to indicate the most refined and
splendid chivalry in those Hungarian mobiles, as
If they had said to this threatened and trembling
mother, clasping the future king in her arms:
Never mind now; you shall be just as much SOW
sreign as if you were a king yourself. We will
die to make it so; pro rege nostra-' Now, l take
this expression to mean neither of these things.
1 believe that those strong and straight
forward warriors roared out those words
as the simplest usage to express
their most instant and impulsive expressions
for eli that men, as patriots, should die for. /