The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1886-10-08

However Men May Disagree az TO the
Manner of Killing 1t, the Awful Neces-
sity of Its Death Is Apparent.
Public sentiment is well-nigh om-
nipotent 1t enacts laws; it speaks
through the judges charge; it gives
eyes to policemen; it governs the
crowd on the street. and like subtle
atmosphere pervades all things, and
with commanding power And pub
lie sentiment is rising up against the
saloon. Every day enlarges and inten-
sites the conviction that the dram-
shop is an altogether useless and ire
deemably wicked thing, that it is
burdensome barrier equally in the way
of the highest civilization and of en-
lightened Christianity. Though toll
Grated in the past, its baleful, dreadful
influence has always been felt and pro-
tested against by the noblest philan-
thropists, as well IS by the wretched
widows and orphans from whom it has
taken the husband and the father.
Nay, many a time the poor inebriate
himself, the victim of his appetite, has
cursed the saloon as the occasion
OF his downfall, his evil habits,
his loss of character, his broken
health, his rags and miseries and
blasted hopes. The hour is drawing
near when the very idea of a man,
made in the image of God, running
into corner groggery to take drink
of rum while standing or his feet will
seem utterly preposterous and absurd.
10 be sure, such a procedure was once
the fashion; and so was the gaudT
dress, made up of the colors of the.
magpie and the harlequin, in which
Oliver Goldsmith used to strut about
to his own infinite delight, but at which
the world now ieerS as fantastic and
Iudicrous. There never was any neces-
sity for man to stand up to a bar and
to pour alcohol down his throat: and
henceforth such habit will be deemsd
ineXcusable, because undignifed, un-
manly, disreputable, as well as moral
ly pernicious in example, and tending
only toward the degradation of hui
manity and the destruction of humani
happiness.
Men may differ widely about the
whether taking glass Of
wine is sin per Sc, whether total alb
Stinence, or the use of a thing with
self-restraint embodied in the word
Temperance shall be the Christian
law, whether the absolute prohibition
of the manufacture and sale of ardent
spirits is practicable or otherwise, ETC..
etc. but surely there is, or ought to be-,
no ground of difference among all
good and thoughtful men on the de-
mand that the saloon must go. 1t has
already wrought mischief enough,
without ever doing one iota of benefit.
To attempt to put into language even
a few of the awful crimes that have is-
sued directly from the saloon would
seem like the Outburst of rant. And
yet no words can begin 10 convey any
just conception of the various forms of
vice and misery, of intellectual as well
as moral debasement caused by the
saloon. 1t Is infinitely pathetic
and narrowing for us 10 i'm
agine just one nights doings IN the sa-
looms of this broad land. Who can bear
to think of the prOfanities, of the
CuISCSs VI lllH
wits. of the violent and angry words,
of the bloody encounters, of the MUIR
ders, of the scalding tears and bitter
agOnies, and unspeakable remorse
which were produced by the saloons
during just the last twenty-fOur hours?
And what shall we say when we re-
member how these things are multi
piled during all the seven days of the
week and the fifty-two weeks of the
year? There is hardly family among
our sixty millions of the people which
has not been struck somehow and
somewhere by the saloon devil; and
therefore it is certainly wise and just
for all our families to combine for its
overthrow. Let us agitate to make the
saloon disreputable, to secure ample
legislation against it, to help judge
and jury and policemen to feel and do
their duty with regard TO it; to create
a public sentiment rendering it dis
graceful to peddle out standing drinks
and equally disgraceful to swallow
standing drinks--in short, let us be
loyal to humanity and to Christian
civilization and to God by crying
out and acting on the cry: Down
with the salOolr'-C Christian at Work.