The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1888-01-28
BEING RUINED BY RUM.

BEING RUINED BY RUM. ,
The Fearful Destruction or the Traffic in
the Congo Free State What the
Churches should DO.
The greed of ayarice is remorseless,
and when unrestrained, amazing. Ii
blunts moral perception, robs the soul
OF humane feelings, STILES conscience,
defes God, and hazards the retribution
of eternity with an air of supreme in
difference and thoughtless levity.
What a record the grasping traders,
who sent in the year 1885 over ten
million gallons of the vilest liquors to
the wretched Africans along the
Congo, have made for themselves only
the books of judgment to be opened at
the last day can reveal. These traders
indulge in no uneasy reflections of
personal possibility, nor experience
any concern for the Wholesale physical
misery and moral havoc with which
their infamous business is cursing
millions of a helpless and heathenish
rice. 1t is simply useless to argue and
demonstrate with the distributing
agents of Intoxicating liquors. The
public sentiment of Christendom must
be aroused to hold such enemies of
mankind in check. And to this end
the facts must get a hearing; and what
are some of the facts?
Unfortunately, the negro, like. the
Indian, takes naturally to tire-watcr.
He welcomes it above every thing else
that civilization can offer. He loves
the frenzied excitement and brutal
orgies into which it throws him. When
rum is at hand he deliberately aban-
dons work and surrenders himself to
debauchery and drunken savagery I'M
til the supply is exhausted. 1t is dear
er to him than cloth, beads. gilt wire
and all other things. Indeed, some
OF the caravans going from the stations
along the Congo to the interior, found
that without rum they could not make
exchanges ut all with the natives; and
when the rum gave out they had to
give up business and return for more.
In many places bottles Of spirits are
used, as currency is among ourselves.
Alcohol takes the place Of specie
with this difference, that it doesn't
last as specie does. One missionary
complains that he finds great difficulty
in assembling sober congregation.
Drink demoralizes faster than the Bible
can reform the wretched victims of bar
barism OH the one hand, and of the
white man constituencies temptations
on the other. ITO procure it they will
join" we are told, "in slave hunts,
and massacre their nearest neighbors.
Savage by nature, drink makes devils
OF them, and renders all prospect of
raising them vain" The Congo Free
State that was founded few years
ago with so much of eager helpfuIness
and JOY, is simply paralyzed by the de-
mon clutch of alcohol. While Chris
tan people are giving freely of their
money and prayers and missionary
efforts to disenthrall swarming millions
from the dense ignorance and SUPER
stition and fetichism of heathenism,
the liquor manufacturers and dealers
from Christian lands are doing the
devils work in awakening a pande-
monium of drunkenness around the
missionary stations.
How came this appalling state of
iniquity to pass P Wei, at the Berlin
Congress in 1S84-5, which assembly,
it will be remembered, decided what
kind of government and institutions
the six great Powers would guarantee
to the Free State of the Congo, it was
ordained that free trade in every thing
should be a cardinal principle. Tn 3,
United States and Great Britain fore
saw that this meant a distribution of
rum which would curse and destroy
the blat k man, with his inherent and
uAgovernable appetite for it. faster
than all the benefits of civilization
could improve him; and so they pro-
tested against it. But the German and
Dutch distillers anticipating the inn
mense revenues which such a field
prom ,sed, put in their plea, and, alas!
won che day.
And they are reaping the enormous
profits. Of the 100000 gallons of
drugged liquors exported from Chris
tian nations in 1885 to the Congo,
5000, 900 went from Germany and the
Netherlands! New England seat 49,