Wheeling register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1878-1935, 1886-10-14

appeal and they ask for it such acceptance
and such active response as the gravity
and urgency. of the matter shall
demand. The evils of the liquor traffic as
embodied in the American saloon system
have reached magnitude and degree of
destructiveness that threaten the founda-
tions of government. society and the
home.
DRIVEN TO THE WALL.
The time has therefore come when polit-
cal parties and private citizens must take
sides openly for or against the traffic with
its methods and its results. Neutrality Is
henceforth impossible; indifference is
henceforth a betrayal of the trust involved
in citizenship. The anti-salOon
Republican movement recognizes and
prOclaims this state of things.
The American liquor traffic, whatever it
once may have been, is no longer q legiti-
mate and law abiding branch of trade,
saving to supply natural and enforced
demand for any commodity, however
harmful The saloon system, encouraged
and directed by the distillers, brewers and
wholesale liquor dealer has become vast
and vigilant organization for forcing a
market for intoxicating drinks.
GAUDY CHEsTNUTs.
1t creates demand where none before
existed, that it may profit by supplying
that demand. it artiicially stimulates an
evil habit that it may thrive by pandering
to it it methOdiCally breeds debauchery,
poverty. anarchy and crime for pay it
purposely seeks to multiply the number
of drinkers, and hence OF drunkards it
invades every new community; demands
tribute from every home and lies in wait
with fresh enticements for each new
generation of youth; it deliberately
fosters the treating custom,
and intensifes the widespread
social pressure toward drinking by in
venting new pretexts for treating and be-
ing treated. Each one of our
drinking places forms distinct cen
ter of aggressive forces and skillful de-
vices for spreading the drink habit among
men. Every plausible temptation and
solicitation that trained talent can suggest
is used to entrap the young, the igno-
rant the toiling and the homeless, with
the knowledge that customer once Sc
cured is usually customer for life.
The saloon system is an ac-
tive cause, not IN innocent re-
suit. 1t is the present, not the
child, of the mass of human misery,
which everywhere accompanies it. Ex-
perience indicates that four-ffths of
American drinking and drunkenness is
due in the first instance not to any natural
appetite of our people, but to the presence
and sleeplcss efforts of this gigantic engine
working seven days week and twenty
hours day, unrestrained by any scruple
and every where cOntemptuous of public
right. If the saloon is the evening of So
ciety 1t Is.
THE SPECIAL FOE OE THE WORKINGMAN,
and his home. Defective laws and unjust
customs which bear hardly upon labor
ought to be and must be reformed, but the
central cause of the unthrift and the re-
sulting unrest among wage workers is the
frightful waste of the wage fund included
in the gross receipts of the saloons. The
ABSORPTION of the earningSOf labor by the
dramshOp, representing direct yearly
waste of hundreds Of millions of dollars,
also prOpOrtiOnately destroys the ability OF
the working class to purchase and con-
sumo the neceSsaries and comforts of life,
thus greatly curtailing production and
trade, diminishing the sources Of employ
ment and tending to hold wages At the
lowest level.
These are the powers and the torch
whose unrestrained contact curses society
and threatens civilization itself. With
either factor removed the curse and the
danger would be virtually ended. Only
moral pressure, acting through the centu-
ries, can reach the former, only legal
weapons, whose action may be made swift
and conclusive, can reach the latter.
What shall be done? The National Anti
Saloon Republican Conference, represent
ing the predominant sentiment of Repub-
licans and good citizens exgywASre,
answers that the saloon
OUGHT To DE
put out OF existence, that the people of
each State and municipality ought to have
the opportunity whenever desired of de-
Gliding when and how this shall be done,
and that until destroyed the saloon ought
to be crippled by every restraint and dis
ability which local public sentiment will
eufor ce and made to reimburse rs much as
possible of the public loss it causes.
1t is believed that this policy, backed
by vigorous enforcement
of law commends itself to the common
sense and the conscience of the people and
that on this platform all reasonable friends
of temperance and public safety can unite
and work. 1t has the merit of simplicity.
1t is perfectly practicable and it adapts
itself to the needs and the possibilities of
all sections
YES, VERY, VERY FLEXIBLE.
1t is flexible without being indefinite.
1t does not require community which IS
ready for prohibition to tolerate taxed or
untaxed saloons until an entire State, in
Guiding great cities, has reached the same
level of opinion and action. it does not
compel city to submit to IiOt of free
rum until they are prepared 20 enforce a
total suppression of the liquor traffic with
in their limit of time. II does not
attempt to apply rule uniform and arbi-
trary i'll details to sixty million people
living under widely varying conditions.
AND A LONG TINE, TOO.
1t allows for the limit of time as factor
in this as in every great reform and gives
scope TO those educating agencies which
are everywhere at work with prodigious
energy, and which are rapidly bringing
albright minded men to one conclusion.
The address particularly urges the Pro-
hibitionists to vote with the Republican
party and not waste" their strength on
third party. Having thus taught the
present generation to look to it for leaders
in every great reform, the Republican
party could not now refuse to hear and
heed the summons to this forward move
ment without abdicating its place and
passing at once into history.
NO?
But the Republican party is not going
to retire, and least of all is it going to
pass out of existence through the gateway
of cowardice in the presence of great re-
sponsibility coupled with a noble oppOr-
tunity. The masses of the party are