Idaho news. (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1887-1891, 1889-02-09


there any reason? Yes, the conscience
of the people is struggling all the
while against the wrong and injustic,
heaped upon it, Here and there il
speaks out through the law, and speaks
out against the wickedness of bust
ness that is subversive to good gov,
eminent and social happiness. The
christian force of our country is large
" against it, the christian women are
against it, the sacred influences OF
home are against it; our hopes of i'm.
mortality and heaven are against it,
The liquor traffic. the drink evil stands
arraigned before all of these elements
and can give no reason for its exist
ence, except such reasons as are found
ed on selfish appetite, brutal greed or
ignorance.
Now having established the fact,
and it is an lncontroyertible fact that
the liquor traffic and drink habit are
evils let us see whom they bear upon.
First it may be truthfully said that
they bear heaviest upon the weak, the
helpless, the innocent and the unof-
Tending.
"a man must be weakminded if he
can't drink wine or let it alone" IS Of
ten said with bitter sneer. Now to
call man weakminded is as bad as
calling a woman strong minded, a
dreadful accusation and to be resent
ed with spirit. Yet l have heard
women say that-Go pity them-say
it before their sons, because they
wanted them to be strong and manly,
say it lightly to their husbands and
years afterward / have seen those
women broken hearted, over the
shame of drunken sons, beaten and
bruised by drunken husbands, taking
their own lives in insane despair and
frenzy at the doings OF the demon
drink that had ruined their lives.
They could not see until it was too
late that those they loved were weak
as all humanity is weak in its own
strength. What is our duty to these
weak ones God set in our midst, is it
to set temptations before their falter-
ing feet, to blind their dim eyes and |
distort their already faulty judgment
with strong drink Is that Christ like?
Yet we pray "lead US not into temp
tation, and we take our miserable |
after he has bought his I
licensed poison and drank himself |
stupid and arrest him by the majesty
of law, club him If he crafty resists,
fling him into the lock-up-fine him. l
tell you we try to make this liquor
traffic pay. A man has to pay if he
sells and pay if he drinks and where
does the money come from to keep
this vast machinery of crime going.
How does the 100000 dollars
spent for whiskey every year, CORES,
pond with our 100000 criminals, in
sane and idiotic for which whiskey is
largely responsible? With the fifty
thousand drunkards steadily going
down every year into drunkards graves
and their places being steadily filed
BY our boys? A hundred thousand
wives and sisters shamed 4
and broken hearted because of liquor?
,he great army of tramps, 10000
strong that infest our country, drones
and worse than drones among us. i
Can money pay for these thing?
what will it avail us if we pave our
streets with broken hearts and lost
'ouls, the price of the liquor traffic? {
hall we not rather set these weak
eet firmly on the only safe ground s
or weak and stong alike, total absti-
renee? lift up rather than push down? |
The liquor traffic and the drink evil
'ear down with cruel, merciless force '
Ipon the children. I
There are tonight in New York i
lily alone thirty-five thousand home
ess children besides those gathered
nto orphan homes and street boys Q
odging houses. If to night as you a
it here, there could come to you the t
ries of these helpless children, who v
re suffering from cold and hunger, J
rhn Iia t,unaroH for IL, .bo,..Io.o, -. h