The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1890-05-01
MISS PHELPS AT NORTH ADAMS.
Pleasantly Received by Berkshire Coun-
ty Audience.-The transcripts Report
of Her Lecture.

VI hSE LoCtufe.
The speaker was gracefully introduced
by Mrs. McCutchen of Great Darlington
president of the county Union, and pro
ceeded to an elaborate discussion of the
temperance problem, past, present and
future. She said it is a question this re.
public must settle, or it will settle the
republic; and it is a question that must
be settled at the ballot box. There have
been presented to this nation three great
problems for solution. The first was the
question of taxation without representa-
ton; the second was the extension of
slavery and the third is the prohibition
of the liquor traffic. Two of these great
issues have been settled and have passed
into history. The third confronts the
nation to-day, and to allow it to go much
further unsettled means the destruction
of the nation. The liquor traffic faces all
civilization and is the all-important ques-
ton of the hour. The traffic owes ale
glance to no country, but is alike in all,
and whatever affects it, favorably or un-
favOrably, in one, affects it in all more
or less. Scientific men and physicians
say that alcohol is not food, and as an
aid to sociability it is the sheerest hum
bug. We all agree as to the evil of the
drink traffic, but what is the remedy?
For over 300 years the AnglO-Saxon race
has been studying and trying to over
come this great evil. The principle has
been established that the traffic is respOn-
sible to some one, and in this 10th cen
tury that is the people. In 1893 the con-
tlnental congress perpetuated slavery,
and i'll the middle of the 10th century it
took millions of money and an untold
g.E Il
ton because it was not settled right at
first. If the saloon was an institution
for good, like the church, it would not
need the protection of society. Once it
was thought that temperance reform
must be brought about by people signing
the pledge and abstaining from the use
of liquor. 1t was said that if this were
done the saloon would die out for want
of patronage, but somehow the saloon
never died out under any movement of
that kind. 1t seems to me that after So
clety has pulled man out of a hole the
thing to do is to fill up the hole, so that
he cannot fall into it again, nor any one
else. The people have a right to do that
which is best for society and to intefere
with any business that is injurious. The
true solution of the liquor question is
pi'ihpiuioH' IHC llcScHJ dSlbhllOH Ill
Vermont regarding the repeal of the pro-
hibitOry law did not spring from the tenn
perance people of that state, but origi-
mated in the National Brewers congress
and is designed for effect on legislation
in Western states where prohibition is
contemplated or being tried. They want
to hold up to those states the example of
Vermont going back to the system of
license after 20 years of prohibition.
That is the secret of the great cry for
license in Vermont.
Miss Phelps has no confidence in high
license as a remedy for the saloon evil
She says the difference between high
license and low license is the same as
that between drinking whisky from a
silver goblet and tin cup. 1t is whisky
i'll both cases and it is the saloon in both
cases, and the same results will be pro-
duced in both cases. The address, which
was attentively heard, and which occu-
pied about an hour in delivery, showed
the speaker to be thoroughly conversant
with the subject in hand and with the
teachings of history bearing up it.