The Monitor., 1890-04-25
sam Sma,, ,ne Traf,ic.

The following brilliant address on the
issues at stake between the people and the
liquor traffic was the first Of a series of
speeches by Sam W. Small the famous
Southern Prohibition orator, at Evans
vile, Ind, beginning Sunday evening,
March 0, and ending March 1G. Mr.. Small
spoke to crowded houses every evening
during the week
NO MIDDLE GROUND ON THIS QUESTION.
ga man might as we'll try to wipe the
Rocky Mountains off the face Of this con-
tinent with school boys sponge as to try
to eliminate the liquor problem from the
issues of American life with any sort of
measure short of its total, absolute Nation
al Prohibition. It is the gigantic evil of
the age and the issue of its future life or
death as ira l1ic is the irrepressible conflict
that is new upon the Nation. The line of
division upon this question is radical and
inhexible. There is no middle territory
where the man of conscience and patriotism
can stand, protesting love for God, coun-
try and fellow men on one side and prac-
tising friendship with the liquor traffic on
the other hand. He that is not against it
is for it, by the unavoidable logic Of the
situation, and no manner of argument or
vchemence of protestation to the contrary
can ever change the fact.
AN ENEMY TO PUBTIC MORALS.
1t is a question that deeply concerns
public morals also. If there were no God,
no Christ, no eternity. no heaven and no
hell, there are principles written in the very
constitution of human nature which de-
mand total prohibition of this liquor
evil How miserable an estimate of our
mortal powers, of our bodies and brains
that we should so freely consent to de-
bauch and destroy them. What wonder
is the mind of man! How it can travel
out hey ond earth ard air, can compass the
visible universe, drive with Phnbus the
circuit of the sun, sit in silent meditation
" it'll the moon, queen of the night, bath
ing the earth and sheathing her shafts of
silver in outer darkness! How it can
weigh and measure the stars, unwrap the
centuries of her growth can s,ft the
mountains and unscal the treasures of the
deeps! Yet is the end OF it all to be for
ever darkness, misery and the bloody
grave?
No! we are responsible to one another,
if yoG choose to say We are not so to God!
| have no right to despoil the moral atmos-
phere of our mutual existence with nv
sins and shame. have no right to build
brothel under the caves of the home in
which your daughters are growing in
grace and purity. No more have you the
moral right to raise a saloon in the path
way of my sons, who are growing up in
sobrety and industry! The one is as evil
us the other; they are both crimes against
life, morality and destiny.
Our cities and our nation deserve better
things than this wholesale corruption: this
perpetual saturnalia of drunkenness. poy- |
erty and crime. How then, shall we be
good men, good citizens and good patriots. |
if we consent to these things? No man
can be friendly to these until he has be-
come disloyal to his son and his country.
THE END is COMING.
But the day of deliverance from this na-
tional curse is to come. There can be no |
cessation of this controversy with it until |
it shall be prohibited by national law
from ocean to ocean, from lakes to tie gulf. |
The discussion of ii has penetrated every |
arena OF our life 1t is theme in every |
loyal pulpit of our Lord it sits like Ban
quo's unbiddable ghost at the board of |
every political convention; it is thundered |
from Thousand platforms every week. il |
has interviewer itself with the machinery |
Of the press.