The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1888-09-07
The Conflict Between Man and
Alcohol.


We have been one hundred years con-
vincing science, religion, the profession, the
Judges who administer the criminal laws,
and the great mass of the people, that all
cohol is poison, and that its manufacture,
sale and use is the organized destruction of
individuals and the body polite. The
nature of the legislation which is TO remove
and renoyate all is now to be considered
and enacted and enforced. Whoever be-
lieves that the destruction of The liquor
traffic is not national issue has made a
mistake. Whoever does not comprehend
that the removal of that evil is a duty,
which the nation is about to perform fails
to discern the signs of the times. Every
where the question is up. In the North
and in the South; in Massachusetts,, New
York and Ohio, throughout the West and
Southwest in every State the agitation is
irrepressible, because the evil is gigantic and
omnipresent. 1t is impossible 10 suppress
these conclusive efforts of the social system
to free itself of this foreign and destructive
element. It must be eliminated or society
will die. 1t is of no use 10 cry peace, for
there is no peace. Peace without com
plete cure would be the most dangerous
symptom. 1t would Indicate tie destruction
of vital power, presaging decline and death.
The American people must do something.
What had we best do next?
The Washington movement swept over the
country, some fifty years ago, like a tidal
wave from the sea of life. That movement
was moral suasion in its most powerful
manifestation. The great wave subsidized,
and the enemy came in once more like a
flood of fire, and there be those who believe
that the last state was worse than the first
Was, then, the Washington movement
wrong? Nay, verify, but it was incomplete.
The tremendous public opinion which the
discussion evoked should have been crystal
LIKED into the enduring form of State and
national law. The triumph then would
have been complete and the work secure.
We have at least learned something; and
we are still learning more and more, that it
is what we save that makes US rich. De-
post all the savings of reform in the solid
banks of constitutional and statutory legls-
lation, State and national, and the liquor
traffic will rot pauperize this generation of
laborers in the field Of temperance reform.
We shall have most precious inheritance
to leave to the generation which comes after
US. We shall not repeat the mistake of our
fathers. Whatever we advance we shall
hold by the authority of law. The one all
essential thing remaining to be done is to
put forth every effort to secure political ac-
ton. State political action is important,
but national political action is all-important.
I have endangered to indicate why it is in
dispensable, and the only action which can
render that of the State either permanent or
efficient. If either should wait for the
other, by all means let the States wait on
the nation; let all the people of the states
concentrate upon one grand effort to amend
the national constitution, so as to prohibit
the manufacture, the sale, the importation,
the expectation and the transportation of
alcoholic beverages anywhere within the
limits of the national domain. That is the
way to rescue and preserve the States.
Senator HENRY w. BLAIR,
in The Temperance Increment: or, the Conflict
between MN and Alcohol.