The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1890-06-07
The Coming Temperance Congress

The friends of temperance reform
in this country are looking forward
with hopeful and anxious hearts to
the National Temperance Congress
which convenes in this city the week
after next. If rightly and wisely
guided IN its deliberations the Con-
gress will mark a new era in the
progress of Temperance reform in this
country. The primary object of the
Congress. as we understand it, and
certainly the first and most impor-
tant question which it will have to
consider, will be the foundation and
basis of union on which all sections
of the temperance party can stand
and fight together against the COM
mon foe. A union of effort and of
influence is manifestly the great need
of the hour in the temperance move
ment. There can be no question
about the solidarity of the liquor in
terests. All who are concerned in
the manufacture and sale of strong
drink, from the brewer and distiller
to the keeper of the stale beer dive.
are bound together by the strong an6'
indi-soluble bands of selfinterest and
self protection, and they stand as a
unit against all encroachments upon
their s0-called liberties, whether it
be in the form of local option and
high license, or in the radical shape
of prohibition. The liquer interests
were never so well and thoroughly
organized as they are at the present
time, never so we'll prepared for war
both of the offensive and the defen-
sive kind. They have boundless re-
sources in the shape of money and
political influence, and nothing in
the shape of conscience or moral
principle to prevent their using these
resources in any way or for any pur-
pose that promises to further their
aims.
To meet and successfully contend
with such an opposition as this, with
an enemy so united. 80 powerful and
so interruptions, demands all the
power, all the influence, all the re-
sources of whatever sort which can
be brought together among all who
count themselves on the side of So.
briefly, law and order and public
morality. While the temperance
elements have no ties of selfish mer.
cenary interest to bind them together
in this struggle. while their resources
in the shape of money and political
influence are extremely limited. they
nave on their side what must prove
ultimately to be far more valuable
and more powerful, and that is the
fact of being in the right, of being in
the cause that has the moral and re.
ligious sentiment of the nation back
of it. the cause that commands the
earnest sympathy and enthusiastic
support of every right-minded and
right-hearted man and woman in the
land.
That the temperance cause has not
prevailed more largely, that it has
often been baff1ed and defeated when
1t should have triumphed, has been
due mainly to the fact that the moral
and religious sentiment, the SYM
pathy and support, of which we have
just been speaking. have not been d.
rected to common end, have not
been expended in united and har.
monious action. There has been too
much confusion of counsel, too much
diffusion of energy, too much divis-
ion of forces. There is. as we believe,
All amount of active and latent op-
position to the liquor evil existing in
this country which, if developed,
combined and wisely directed would
result, in the near future. in the COM
plete emancipation of the country
from the liquor curse. How to de-