The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1888-02-22

Coloridgo says in one place very aptly :
Truths, Of all others the most awful and
interesting, are too often considered so
true that they lose all tho power of truth,
and lie bed-ridden in the dormitory OF
the soul, side by side with the most
dcspiscd and exploded errors"
In dealing with the saloon--and in this
discussion the word is now used as re-
cants--the thing most to be feared is the
AS soldiers in war look on wounds and
death till they grow hard Of heart, so
the people have become 80 familiar with
the plague Of drunkenness that it has be-
come commonplace. They do not feel
what they see, or truly understand what
they know-that it ruins all 1t touches.
THE DRINK HABIT CANNOT BE PRE-
VENTED WHILE THE SALOON EXISTS.
The evils Of drunkenness furnish the
argument for the necessity of prohibition
for two reasons that can not be gainsaid.
First, allowing that some drinking be-
gins and goes. Independently of the
saloon, it is yet substantially true that the
drink habits that issue in drunkenness
originate III the, saloon and are fostered
byit. Secondly, long experience demon
strates that these evils can not be pre-
vented while the saloon exists.
It is an old story. AS far back as 1886
colony, recognizing the relation
between drinking places and drinking
habits, from an instinct of self-preserva-
ton, enacted feeble sort of statute seek
ing to regulate and restrict the trade in
intoxicants. For 251 years society, in .
hesitating and irresolute sort of way. has
gone on enacting regulatfve and restrie-
tive statutes, every one Of which is bot:
toned upon the recognized evils that Aow
forth from the liquor-traffic. II is enangh
this 25l years Of effort to protect society
by statutes that protect the liqu0r-trafic
vain and worse, for license gives the sane
ton of Government to a traffic that
Christian conscience condemns as essen
tally evil, and so, by the force Of custom,
made possible by statute law and growing
out of it, educates the people TO- call t'evil
good and good evil" Few worse ealam
tiles can come upon people than to use
statute law so as to forget or despise di-
vine law. Yet it is just this calamity the
people have brought. upon themselves
they have, by giving, through license
laws, the sanction of Government to what
they know to be evil, confounded their
sense of right and wrong. But this they
have done with sort of protest of con-
science; they have pleaded with them
selves, as condonement for deliberate
wrong-doing, that their license-laws were
regulative, restrictive, preventive, and In
themselves tended to protect society
against an evil that society itself made
legal. To such logic have we come! AS
children, half in play and half in earnest,
and not afraid in their ignorance, might
gravely pile up little sand-heaps, imagin.
cd TO be dykes against q swelling and
angry sea
It is doubtless tho purpose Of this con-
ference, in ordering report on temper
ance and prohibition, not simply to de-
clare its own positions (that it has done
before this time), but to do something to-
ward fostering right opinion and senti-
ment among the people.
What, then, does the saloon cost us
We begin on the lowest plane-that OF
money values. The lowest reputable es.
innate of the direct drink-bill of this
country is 5000, ,0O0, 900 per annum count
ing what goes for imported as we'll as
American intoxicants, the highest esti-
mate-and it is made with good reason
is 5000, ,0O0, 900. This is not all, or most
The bill for consequential damages
must come in, and it more than doubles
the figures already named. What is lost
to drunkards and drinkers in earning
what society has to pay for in.
adequate protection against crimes that
originate In drink and drunkenness
what it costs to support the multitudes
made helpless through waste and disease
issuing from the drink habits of the peo-
pie; what is lost to legitimate business
all this added together, as the highest au'
thorities show, costs the American peo.
pie nearly s2,OOO,O 600 year by year
Such figures make us dizzy-as those
that tell the distances Of the fixed stars.
All this is wasted and worse. It Is idle
to answer that the makers and the deal.
ers get 1t and it remains in the country.
Who are these men who reap 80 vast q
harvest oCt Of the homes Of the people
impoyerishing millions that =, they may
grow rich ? All told, there are less than
800, 900 men engaged in the liquor traffic
less than one to every one hundred Of the
whole population. And to these the
whole people pay this tribute Of nearly
81, 900, ,0OO, ,0O0-a larger sum than any
barbaric conqueror ever wrested from
ravished and desolate Rome. AS well
say, because swindling lottery gamblers
grow rich the money of their Victims IL
not wasted, what goes for naught il
wasted, no matter where it goes. There Is
no Offset against this tremendous bill o.
costs there IS nothing to show for it; fol
intoxicants neither create energy nor ado
to it; they do not increase skill they are
not productive; they are but destruct-
This bankrupt tax is levied on the
whole people-not the drinking people
alone. For what goes to this hurtful and
wasting traffic is so much taken from
useful business; the dollar spent fol
drink is a dollar less for food, for clothes,
for homes, for education. This tax Il
paid to death-not to life.
Weak men. who. do not know shrewee
men who care only for their own gains
talk of "hurting business" If we close
saloons. The statement is false; liquor
traffic is not business.
What is "business 1t is the sum TO-
tai of whole peoples useful industries
and legitimate exchanges: The quall
fying words are introduced because rea
business does not include products tina
are harmful or exchanges that are with
ont o. eauivalents-else dynamite bomb
making for Haymarket massacres ano
secret and associations would bemanufac
turing, and gambling would be trade. A:
we'll class vampires with useful animals
as to call the liquor-traffic business.
The liquor-traftic is storm center II
finance as we'll as in politics and. morals
We seem to live in a period Of contradic
tons. 1t is period of productive enter
prise in all directions the world was
never so busy, never worked 30 hard, OF
so efficiently, never earned as much
Labor never earned 80 good wages
wages never could buy 80 much of thu
really good things Of life as now. Ye