The Kinsley graphic. [volume] (Kinsley, Kan.) 1890-1940, 1890-05-23
TEMPERANCE COLUMN.
KIxsLEr W. &C. t. U.

Prof. Greer, of the North Side High
School, Minneapolis, states that from
$50 to 200 out of 800 boys in his school
smoke cigarettes.
The Cherokee maidens of Tahlequah,
Indian Territory, are reported as TAX
| ing an active and successful interest
in the temperance DemoresG medal
| contests.
While doing nothing to civilize the
| people in her colonial territory, Portu-
gal has encouraged and prOiited by
both the slave trade and the liquor
traffic. -
The keeper of the ilorgne in New
York City states that four-ffths of the
| live thousand bodies that reach that
| place of the dead every year are sent
there by drunkenness.
1t is announced that Bismarck re-
tires from public life with fortune
| which yields him an income of about
100000 a year, and that among the
| sources of this annual pevenus are
several distilleries and one large Ger
man brewery. lie could add now most
| creditably to his worldwide renown
by also resigning from the liquor busi-
ness as we'll as the Chancellorship of
Germany.
Mr.. Moody, in one of his recent adj
dresses In this city, delivered in Asso-
citation Hall to very large audience
of men only, emphasized to the Young
| men that lit is an Interchangeable law
| of Heaven that man shall reap what
ever he sows," adding that: ''If a man
sells whiskey there will be drunkard
in his family. l challenge any man
here to produce liquor-seller who has
not drunkard in his family" And
the iiquor-seller's sowing is very bad,
both for his own and other peoples
families. The harvest is inevitably
degradation and sorrow.
Hon. Samuel j. Randall, for many
years member of Congress from
Pennsylvania, and an ex-Speaker of
the House of Representatives, who
died in Washington the 18th inst,
though an influential and leading DEM
ocrat, quietly sympathiZed with the
temperance reform, and while Speaker
of the House and a member of the
Committee on Rules, served it a good
turn by voting in the committee to
create a select committee on the Alco-
holic Liquor Traffic, the first in the
history of our National Congress, and
by subsequently appointing COM
mittee, the majority of whom were
friendly to the proposed National Com
mission of Inquiry. This House select
committee on the Alcoholic Traffic,
though opposed by the liquor men, has
been perpetuated in each succeeding
Congress, including to Fifty-hrst.
Writing in the Arena, of Boston,
Henry George says, truly enOpgh, that
s'the rum-power is a colossal villainy,
and a fearfully dangerous factor in
the politics Of the country. 1t controls
the two great parties, runs their pri-
maries, largely constitutes their con-
ventions, and furnishes large sums of
money for its enormous business and
great profits as corruption fund"
He is also correct in saying that the
license system is what gives the traffic
its power in politics. But we cannot
agree with his statement that 'there
is only one way of eliminating it from
politics., and that is by doing away
with all restrictions from the Federal
tax to the municipal license and per-
mitting free trade in rum" There is
another way, and the only effectual
way, and that is to prohibit the traffic
altogether. We are opposed to license
because the traffic is a crime which it
is a crime to license; and because Ii
cense entrenches and porpetuates the
traffic, and is the chief barrier to pro-
hibition, Nor do we agree with Mr..
Georges opinion that the removal OF
all restrictions would result in tho
destruction of the business by making
liquor so cheap that there would he no
profit in it. Liquor dealers are friendly
to the license system, not merely be-
cause it increases their profits, but be-
cause they know that it is the only
thing that reccnciles the majority Of
voters to the existence of the traffic
Union Signal.