The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-06-21
TEMPERANCE NOTES.
THE DEMON ALCOHOL.

OF the National temperance society.
What we want is a new platform, on
which we shall gather the very best
people, and start out for a new campaign
of moral suasion. In the first place
you can have nearly all the ministers.
They are for the most part a class of
grand and glorious men, and they are
nearly all on your side. Here and there
you may find minister who is afraid to
speak upon this subject, because every
Sabbath in his pewS before him in
church there sit eight or ten rum-jugs,
and he knows not at what moment the
corks may fly out and strike him be-
tween the eyeballs. Great laughter.
Such ministers may be silent. Then
there are some clergymem who have
misinterpreted passage of Scripture
which says: Every creature of God is
good ergo, rum is good. Why do they
not go on in their argument and say:
every creature of God is good;" ergo,
rattlesnakes are good; ergo, ratsbane
and nux vomica are good. Every thing
is good for something, but not always
good to drink. Whisky is good to pre-
serve corpses and is good to kill potato
bugs and good for mechanical purposes.
Then there are few clergymen
hindered from taking part in this
Temperance cause because Christ turned
water into wine. But let me say to
those gentlemen that last December I
was in Cana of Galilee, where that
miracle was performed, and / saw the
very firkins which tradition says
contained the wine that the Lord
made, and have to report that there is
not one drop of that liquor left, and
there is not drop of it in all the world.
Laughter and applause. The Lord
made that, the devil makes the rest.
Then there may be some who do not
speak aloud on the Temperance ques-
ton. They are really no more Tenn
perance men than man who made
much profession in that direction and
yet was found intoxicated. A gentle
man said to him: why l am sur
prised; | thought that you were great
Temperance man, and now you are
drunk" 'Well," said he, 81 am Tenn
perance man, but am not bigoted
one" But while there may be few
ministers of religion who are not SYM
pathetic with the Temperance cause, 1
here declare that if in the United States
there are sixty thousand ministers of
religion, then fifty-nine thousand five
hundred are on your side. Great APP
plause. Put them on your platforms!
Bring also into this new campaign the
best physicians. They can describe the
80 IL 10
other class of men. Let them bring
their maps and their diagrams and their
magic-lanterns, and flash upon great
audiences what rum has done for the
stomach, for the nerves, for the digest
i've organs, for the liver, for the brain.
Put on your platforms allopathy, home
opathy, hydropathy and eclecticism.
Let the doctors tell you how they have
been compelled to help their alcoholic
patients kill snakes as big as cobras and
bugs as big as hens. Doctors of America
to the front! Applause.
Then put on your platform the best
women of the land. They, better than
men, can tell the story of destroyed
homes. Fetch on some of those SPLEEN
did women who only few years ago
plighted their troth, and when the ring
was put upon their finger the oath of
fidelity was taken till death did
them part" And now the man who
took that conjugal oath is on the way
home in the midnight hour, and as the
door is opened l see on the face inside
the door the shadows of sorrows that are
passed and the shadows of sorrows that
are to come. Or in that midnight hour
/ see her going along the road to the
place where he was ruined, and opening
the door and swinging out a shriveled
arm from under the faded shawl and
crying out with almost supernatural
eloquence: "Give him back to me-him
of the noble brow and the great heart.
Give him back to mer' And wretch
rising from the table of the restaurant
comes forward and, with bloated hand
wiping the intoxicant from his lip,
cries: Put her outr And then she will
go out on the abutment of the bridge
and look off upon the river, CLASSY in the
moonlight, and wonder if somewhere
under that CLASSY surface there isn't a
place of rest for broken heart. Fetch
on the women and let them tell the
story. II they can do no more, let them
show their wounds. Let them come on
the platform with their pallid checks
and their gashed foreheads and their
broken hearts, their starving children
following, and let such women tell of
their home which was heaven once,
but is a hell now. Renewed applause.
Women can tell the story better than
men. If a mans home is ruined, he
can go to the clubhouse. If woman's
home is despoiled, where shall she go?
Horace Greeley, one of the grandest
and mightiest men this country ever
produced [applausel was seated at my
table few months before his death,
and l said to him: "Why is it, Mr.
Greeley, that you are so much more We
hement and eloquent on the Temper
ance question than any other?" He re-
piled: 1T is because so many of my best
friends have been slain by intoxicants,
and many of my own profession have
gone down, and have an everlasting
grudge against rum" So / have a
grudge against this evil because it has
despoiled so many beautiful homes of
these cities and all over the land. II n y
Oh, let US reconstruct our platform of