Dodge City times. [volume] (Dodge City, Kan.) 1876-1892, 1888-02-02
WHO IS RESPONSIBILITY

The Seller and the Drinker Sharers in .
Temptation that Works Both Ways
See that young man go rceling home
to his mother--drunk. Look in at this
other home smitten with poverty; see
the man, who might have made it
beautiful and happy as 1.-THE field which
the Lord hath blessed" as with wild
eye and nervous hand he slams open
the door; see-but do not look too
closely at the face of the wife which
struggles so to conceal the infinite
pangs of shame and sorrow and dread
that burn within. Glance at-but in
the name of all that is pure and sweet
in life. don't read too carefuily-the
''crime-sweepings of the world which
so largely fill the pages of the morning
dailics. Now, who does all this? Who
is responsible for it?
Some say the saloon does it, and
forthwith curse the saloon as the sum-
nun, matun, the one snpremely bad
thing allowed to exist among us.
Others say. the drinker himself is the
guilty wretch. and hold him to be re-
sponsible for the ruin he has wrought
and for all the anguish in the other
hearts that ache because of his self
wreck and shame. Did he not know,
before he touched the intoxicating
cup. the possible demon that lurked
within it? But why ask whether the
liquor-seller or the liquor-dcaler is
the guilty partyp
An earnest and intelligent Temper
ance man in this State, writing of the
value of law as an educator, and Of the
necessity of holding the drinkcr, as
well as the seller. responsible for his
crime. says law on our statute-books
prohibiting drunkenness would be as
if we employed heralds whose duty it
should be to cry daily and hourly in
every city. in every village, in the
highways and by-ways: Remember,
young men, the guilt of drinking to
intoxication; beware of taking the first
step on the road that leads to drunken
ness" Were it crime, he adds, to
drink to intoxication. all men who
furnish the liquor eli her for money or
gratuitously, would be treated rs a
party to the crime.
There are in Chicago. with pQpu-
lation of over 100000, over 1000
saloons. Any census which should
gather up the list of drunkards and of
drink-cursed homes in this city would
present hideOus, an awful picture.
If there were no drinkers, undoubtedly
there would be no saloons. Is it then
the drinkers who make the saloonsp
Partly. But remember, it is equally
true that the saloons make the drunk
ards. 1.-The devil tempted me" said
Eve. The Tempter is bartender in
every saloon. Even of books it is said
that ''books are not bought; they are
sold" Take, for example, even such
a book as General Grants Memoirs"
more than half million copies of
which were sold. Does anybody
imagine that any such number
would have been bought had
the book merely been put upon
the shelves of the book store? 1t was
the organized system of canvassing
agents who, taking the book from
house to house, sold it, when other
wise it would never have been bought.
The same thing is largely true of in
toxicating liquors. No other form of
traffic, trade or business is pushed
with more enterprise. And every
saloon is a systematized temptation,
an organized conspiracy against every
thing that is good. The business is
wicked, devilish, criminal AS the
Supreme Court of the United States
has just affirmed, the State has a per-
feet right to extinguish the business,
and to do this summarily as it would
abate any other nuisance. But the
temptation works both ways; each
party, seller and drinker, is tempter
to the other. Not one or the other is
guilty; both are responsible.-Chicago
d1,ocOfo