The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-08-04
WOMEN AND THE SALOON.
The Direst Enemy of Domestic Happiness,
Purity and Peace.

fNINO oAGOON,
The Direst Enemy of Domestic Happiness.
| Purity and Peace.
Yet, though the saloon brutalizes
and degrades men, and increases the.
friction of all progressive effort i'm
mensely, the suffering which it en-
tails upon women is heavier and keen
er. The maternal grief involved is
but one phase of the subject If the
saloon wrecks thousands of lives and
homes, its victims go to ruin with par
alyzed sensibilities; and when they
are lniilcting most pain upon those
who love them, they are at least capa-
Bile of realizing the truth. The liquor.
whose habitual use dulls all the facuI-
ties, extinguishes conscience, shame
and self-respect in the course of its
destructive work, and the hardened
drinker will sacrifice every thing to
his master passion without scruple or
hesitation; but the women who are
doomed to bear the heavy burden of
relationship to drunkards are indeed
to be pitied. The domesticity from
which few of them can escape forces
upon them perpetual experiences so
heart-breaking, so revolving, that their
existence is a prolonged tragedy. All
the caprice, petulance, unreason,
tyranny, brutality engendered by
drink is expended upon them All the
social degradation and modification of
the position falls upon their heads
The living man chained to a corpse is
not more terribly situated than the
wives and daughters of the saloons
victims. Liquor eliminates all the
drunkard's good qualities, reinforces
all his worst vices, and, having thus
transformed him, sends him home to
torture and abuse those whom it is his
first duty to cherish and protect. At
the sacrifice of her future happiness,
the wife may sometimes obtain a di-
vorce; very often, however, her in
ability to support herself compels her
to endure her torment, or the reluctance
to expose her children to reproach
constrains her to bear every thing. 1t
Is seldom that women are so situated
as to be able to resume a celibate life
without submitting to serious hard
ships, and perhaps in a majority of in
stances they can secure a separation
only by facing restitution.
There is no evil which operates so
directly, and with such disastrous
potency, against the family as the
saloon. In fact, it is the direct enemy
of domestic happiness, purity, and
peace. Even in its mildest manifesto
tions it alienates men from their homes;
creates in them habits of selfish indul-
gence; gives them sensual interests
apart; brings into competition with the
innocent recreations of the home circle,
coarse, vulgar and extravaganza amuse-
ments. In its more pronounced opera
tons, it stops at no such trihes as the
production of mere discomfort, but,
proceeding without disguise, turns men
into wild beasts and then lets them
loose upon their families. What makes
this especially shocking is that we are
all acquainted with its truth, yet that
we have hitherto tolerated it passively.
The horrors to which drink ex-,
poses women are worse than those.
of slavery. The sufferings of the wives
and daughters of drinking men are
more acute and constant than most
men are probably capable of expe-
riencing. We all know this, yet we
go on calmly in the old way, as if we
either thought women ought to be thus
abused, or believed that, though the
matter was pitiful, no help could be
found for it. Much has been written
of late years about the alleged quick
ening of sensibility, the enlargement
of humanitarian tendencies, the revolt
against cruelty in all its manifestations.
Is there not danger ofthe moral atrophy
engendered by self-conceit, where il
lusions so fiattering can co-exist with
the natural life we are livingP Famil-
iarity with evil must have blinded us
alarmingly when we can seriously be-
lieve that we have reached real height
of reform; that we have attained a.
stage of civilization pure enough to be-
proud of; that there is no special need
for concern because of the sins that do
most easily beset us.--AtLdntic.