New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1889-07-29
MTSDIRECTED EFFORT.

"What is the matter ~ asks the social re-
former Thousands of devoted men and wom-
en- are doing their utmost to make lie better !;
why is there SO little progress? Schools abound
and also ignorance Churches are multiplied,
but there is at least as much open lnldehty
and as much practical ineligion as there ever
was Societies and even parties devote them
selves TO needed reforms, and yet pitiess and
disheartening statistics show that the sum oil
intempelance and Of vice and suffering is not
diminishing. Why 30 little harvest when there
is so much ploughing and sowing of seed?
The crowning difficulty of difficulties is that
so much work is wasted Misdirected effort
cheats us Of our millennium. If all the good
men and women who are striving earnestly Iol
better things could be brought to pull together
and in the right direction, there would soon be
a different world to live in. But the scattered
forces becomes wasted forces the million who
want most earnestly better life pull in half a
million different ways, while the practical people
who serve selfish appetiteS or ambitions pull all
together one way. They sincerely want tenn
perance, these devoted women Of the Christian
Temperance Union, beyond doubt. Precise
" as sincere are the clergymen and practical
business men who labor for High-License
law that shall at least restrain the liquor tfaffc
while making it bear part of the expense 1t
causes society. But the good women solemnly
resolve that everybody is all wrong who tres
to get anything done until party based on
Prohibition exclusively can sweep all othel
parties out Of the way, and SO nothing gets
done. Public opinion rolls back in mighty
tide. burying Prohibition in some States and
license laws in Others Progress backward is
earned and to be expected. when all the forces
of progress are wasted in fighting against each
other. 1t is supposed that not far from thou
sand millions every year goes for drink Nine
tenths Of the people who drink themselves
realize that this is frghtfully wasteful excess
and would go far to help any reasonable meas
ue TO restrain or lessen it. though most OF them
would vote against Prohibition. 1t is not SO
hard 20 make men realize that fewer liquor
shops mean larger savings, better workingmen,
happier homes healthier lives and fewer Grim
inals. If measure can cut off half this waste,
and half the other and intellectually more i'm
portant consequences, would it not be well
worth the earnest effort of every decent cit
izen? "No; Prohibition or nothing" cries the
very sincere reformer, and so the car of human
progress rolls backward
What is there strange in all this, when the
churches which profess the same essential faith
multiply their forms and organizations and
buildings and separate services, each with it'
separate cost, its half-flled pewS, and too often
it's staggering debts, and, as if to excuse the
waste of endeavOr, spend much OF their re-
manning f0lcc in sectar1an disp;teS with each
other? Or is it strange when friends OF prison
reform. Of marriage reform, Of public educa-
lion. Of social purity. spend their strength rather
in disputes with each other about methods than
in definite effort about anything? Is it strange
when labor refOrmers who think secret organ
ization, and others who think a single tax the
key TO the millennium. set themselves against
the only National policy which has in fact
emancipated and elevated labor? Progress
comes but slowly because the people who have
the intelligence and the worth to want il are
too often so constituted that they care more
about methods than results and fritter away
the substance for the shadow in strife about
details. When all the people who honestly de-
sire better things are lifted out of their SCI
and narrow paths, their private aims anC
preiudices, their WhimS and crotchetS, by some
sudden emergency or great calamity, suddenly
The world takes a long leap forward. SO be
cause great emergency or great suffering lift
people ont of themselves, Hosea Biglow was
right. and "civilization sometimes does ge
folrard on a powder cart" But is it neces
sary for good people TO wait for war or {
CONFUSION of nature before they can act lik'
practical people?