Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1888-03-02

IL he would sanely calculate he would |
find that most of his trouble and the dis
poverty, and shame that he has
suffered from are due to his indulgence in
drink. AS he goes on taking it he has to
pay for it; his condition becomes lower,
but his purse is not increased; and as he
sinks under this combination of greater
outlay, decreased income, waning health,
fading prospects and sense OF ill-desert he
seriousness fthese ills in alcohol. Finally,
the drink-crave sets in, and he sacrifices
everything, his poor family, adding him.
self and tuem to the pauper or criminal
list, and at last becomes a hopeless lost
drunkard. AS to the capitalist we'll, he
looks upon the problem from a different
point of view. He has plenty of amuse-
ment, he has plenty of money, he has
plenty of diversion, he is lot thus con-
stantly driven to alcoholic drown his cares;
in fact, he finds that taking alcohol makes
him less fit to conduct his business, and
therefore from business principles he re-
stricts himself. Therefore a large business
is oftentimes safeguard against indul-
most moderate use of alchol has a harden
ing and coarsening effect, aud leads the
capitalist to treat the poor laboring man
more harshly than he would if he re-
allied he was his brother in the sight of
God.
"How clearly we see that this is the fact.
Just look at this country at the present mo-
ment. We find wages are low, the labor
market is disturbed and agitated, business
is generally depressed, hundreds of thou
sands are starving in the country. But the
drink traffic hourishes. The last returns
show very large increase in the revenue,
and if We look at the returns from the
breweries We fluid they are almost phenom-
email. There is one business that flourishes
OH all other businesses, and that is the
drink trade; and if business men would
really consider the facts in this direction
they would find that they would sell in
fnitely more Of their goods it they would
help to crush out this awful traffic. Why,
by the destruction of the drink evil some
two or three hundred million pounds
taking the direct and indirect effects of al
cohol-would actually be distributed in a
ratio of fve-sixths among the laboring
population. And would not that practice
ally solve all the difficulties about rent and
tenancy, food, and education which now
are so to the fore?
what knd of State must spring from a
groundwork of an individual and social
life thus poisoned and perverted by the
drink curse? It is easier to understand
than describe. The key to it is given in
the fact that to this day the State permits
itself to derive its largest revenue from the
system which debauches and degenerates
the race. Aud it is but natural that under
such circumstances politics should be de-
graded and foreign to the spirit Of morali-
ty. And yet, friends, politics ought to be,
true politics are, the faithful application OF
morality to national affairs. Present poll
tics are so corrupt that even sincere Chris.
tians and temperance reformers do not re
alize what an evil thing they say when de-
claiming against bringing temperance int
politics because it is q moral issue! How
can we expect, under such circumstances
moral Legislators or moral laws? Well, WI
might as easily expect-in fact, easier-t
make silk purse out of sows ear.
think, from the remarkable concurrence o
evidence obtained in my researches, tina
, it is owing to the alcoholic habit that tn
cold, calculating, soulless hypocrisy whic
we call diplomacy is allowed to rule tn
t highest interests of the State; and fro1
this springs the necessity for great armie
r and navies and war, with all its untol
) evils. To alcohol we owe, believe, full
, nine-tenths of all the evils which at prese1
r afflict individuals and society,""