The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1886-04-14

Ho II Serves as Bulwark to the Rum
.wer-How It Might BE Made Potent
for Good.
People follow the dictates of fashion
a, if she were veritable goddess. No
rnatter what may be the prevailing
mode of dress, they observe it slavishly.
The question as to whether it is becom-
Ing to the individual has no weight;
'it is the fashion," and that settles the
matter. Crinoline or clinging draperies;
high-necked dresses or low corsages;
smooth bands of hair, or frowsy name
of bangs shading the brow; 'peg-top"
pantaloons. or skin-tight ones; high
hats or low-whichever may be the
fashion, that men and women wear.
1t is oftentlmes unbecoming, some
times ridiculous, but all the same it is
followed.
This servile obedience to the whims
OF those leaders of society whose ex-
ample sets the fashion is seen in many
other things than in mere matters of
dress or personal adornment 1t pre-
scribes the style of furniture in our
homes, the patterns of our carpets and
wallpaper, even the architecture of our
houses. 1t decides the manner of sery-
ing our meals, our hours of receiving
campany, our mode of entertaining
friends. And in the fact that fashion, in
the higher circles of society, declares that
wines and other drinks are de rigeur at
dinner, the rum power finds one of its
strongest bulwarks. A host may be
convinced that to do SO is morally
wrong, and yet lack the courage to set
the fashion ut defiance. 1t cost more
than most people know for Mrs. Hayes
to Danish liquors from the White House.
And in the fact that she did thus defy
an unwritten social law, may be found
the reason for much of the cheap wit
and boorish ridicule that was cast up
on her and General Hayes while the
latter was President, and which even
yet crops out in many newspapers from
time to time.
What can be more potent for evil
than the example set in this way for
boys and girls-the men of the next
generation, their wives and the moth
ers OF the next in succession Can any
parent talk soberly to his child of the
danger of tampering with rum in any
shape or form-warn him of the terrible
drink habit which conquers the will,
benumbs the conscience and makes its
devotees the veriest slaves who crawl
Gods footstool-and at the same time
allow wines at his table? Example is
stronger than precept. The child will
follow the first and scorn the second.
The great evil of the fashionable toler-
ance of strong drink is that it perpetu-
ates the vice of intemperance, and
braces up the rum power. 1t furnishes
fresh crop of drunkards among the
men-ay, and sometimes the women
Of to-day, and prepares the way for a
second among the children, by famil-
iarizing them with the Internal stuff.
''Touch not. taste not, handle not is
q precept that can not be too strongly
impressed, a law that can not be too
closely observed.
The evil of which we speak reaches
much further than to the circles of So
ciety wherein this abominab)e fashion
is set. A new style of dress is followed
throughout all social grades down to
the very poorest. The same is true of
this. Though the vast mass of the peo-
pie may never follow the mode of hav-
ing rum in some form upon the table,
yet they fellow those who set and OBJ
serve that fashion by tolerating those
who drink. To drink rum is counte-
nanced in ''our best society" hence
the practice is tolerated by very large
majority of the people of the country.
So long as a man may get intoxicated
and yet retain his social standing
among the class which claims to be our
:'aristOcracy." so long will the mass of
our people socially tolerate q drinking
man.
No more telling blow could be dealt
at the, rum power, no deeper wound
devours the Nations strong men and
youth, tnan for "society'r to put its
stigma on the drink habit. II wine
were banished, not only from the
tables but from the homes of society
people, II the men who drink were
rigialy excluded from all social gather
ing, In his circle, il drinking were
made unfashionable, what . mighty
revolution would be worked! The po-
tent influence Of fashion would be ex-
ert,d against rum and its devotees;
thousands and tens of thousands
OF young men, not yet under the
domination of rum, would be saved,
tho children of to-day would be
FIRE from the terrible danger.
Let q man who is slave to
the habit be as rigidly ostracised
socially as is a woman who has trans
gressed the law Of mora.ity-and there
Is no more reason why he should be
admitted in society than she, for he has
Just as surely lost his honor-and
drinking and dealing in rum would be
recognized as the foul and dishonora-
BILE things they really are. To enter a
saloon openly would not be dreamed
IT by any man who cared for his good
aame; no saloon-keeper. no man who
In any wise handled the Internal stuff,
would be considered socially eligible by
any ono. A revolution. social and NOR
d. would ut once ensue.
This example once set by the people
vho Gre tacitly admitted 70 BE- the lead