Los Angeles daily herald., 1888-08-19
FOR CONGRESS. SIXTH DISTRICT
REEL h. TERRY, OF Fresno.
The Temperance Element i'm
Politics.

Inc RcHahCS AM
Politics.
In the current Presidential campaign
the Prohibition party will cut bigger
swathe than at any time in our previous
history. Its candidates are men of I'M
usual character and respectability, fal
discounting the smirched st. John.
The temperance element is not a new
one in the intellectual and moral factors
of American life. Half century age
the Washington society made its advent
in the United States, and it did far more
effectual work than any society or com.
bination in the interests of temperance
before or since. Its advent was justified
by the extraordinary amount of drunk
enness which characterized multitudes
amongst all classes of the people
Whisky was as cheap as water, twenty
cents gallon being the standard price
of the new and crude article, &
condition to which, par parenthese, the
Republican party, through its devotion
to the tariff, and its enmity to the In
ternal Revenue system of taxation, with
consequent free alcohol, would again
bring US back. In ordinary boarding
houses, in the days of untaxed whisky,
it was the fashion to give the boarders q
dram of whisky before and after every
meal. Even the ministers of the Gospel
frequently drank to excess. 1t was ex-
cesses of this conspicuous character tina,
created the Washington society.
A late phase of the Temperance agita.
ton was the Father Mathew progress
through the United States early in the
fifties. His crusade had a marked re-
formatory effect upon the people.
The present temperance movement is
in some respects revival of the ole
Washington movement, with a distinct
ly defined political inspiration. There il
widely divergent opinion as to whether
in the scope to which it has been extend
ed, it is really beneficial. Those wht
believe that it is not comprise many
earnest and honest advocates and prac
tisers of temperance; those who believe
that it is, undoubtedly equally earnest
and honest. are now in the Prohibition
movement.
In all ages of the world men have
drunk stimulants, and men of might
purpose and value at that. The proper
use of stimulants is consecrated in the
scriptures and by the practice of nearly
all Christian communions. Christ, who
consecrated wine for the marriage feast
of Cana, said that the drunkard should
not enter heaven. The same inspired
writer who said, ''Look not thou up.
on the wine when it is red, wher
it giveth his color in the cup, when
it moveth itself aright," has abounded in
lively SMILES of its useful and innocent
employment.
All the strong and conquering people
of the earth have been users of stimu.
lants. The men who sat around the
trenches of Troy and drove
Eneas into Italy, used it as freely as
did the descendants of the fugi-
tives whose adventures were commemor-
ated by the pen of Virgil. The soldier
VI oil dk 0S 10 CobOAt1d1r q uilukcI, auO
he has never been noted for imbecility
in any line. Shakespeare puts into the
mouth of Iago this rollicking couplet:
And let me the cannikin clink, clink,
And let me the csnnikin clink;
For the soldiers man,
And life's but span,
why then, let the soldier drink.
We are afraid We will shock our Pro-
hibition friends by the statement that
never since the world began has drink
ing to intoxication, in ratio, been less
than it is to-day. Occasional drunken
ness there is now, as there has always
been, but not half 80 much as character
lied the Scandinavians when they
quafed mighty mead in Walhalla, or the
Greeks when they filed mighty beakers
with ruby wine on and around high
Olympus. The world has been getting
soberer with the advancing tide of human
progress.
Sixty years ago the hero of English
drawing rooms was your roysterer who