The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1891-10-15

Have gnashings of teeth, and waiiings here
after.
DIR. Abraham Coles, in National Temperance
Advocate.
AN UNNATURAL VICE.
Fatal Decisions Concerning intoxicating
Beverages.
How shall we explain the fact that
the power of public opinion has proved
SO much more effective in the struggle
against the spread of the gambling vice
and the social evil than in the crusade
against the curse of the alcohol habit?
The explanation can certainly not be
found in the lack of persistent effort.
Without the tenth part of the energy
and the moral enthusiasm devoted to
the promotion of temperance, gam
bling, lotteries and the traffic in OBJ
scene literature have been reduced to a
practical minimum. Gaming, in its
worst forms. enjoyed for generations
the protection of civilized governments
in Europe and America, the interests
OF the gambler were protected by the
lnveteracy of the vice and the lavish
expenditure of money brides, and yet
we see that in less than a quarter of a
century the public gambling bells of
Christendom have been reduced to a
den maintaining precarious exist
ence in small principally of the Ital-
ian peninsula The sovereign of that
principally derives by far the larger
part of his revenues from the direct
and indirect tax on the privilege of the
hazard tables. and is known as a man
entirely unincumbered with moral
prejudices, yet the ostracism of public
opinion has forced him to become an
exile, not only from his hereditary do
minions, but from the better social
circles of his adopted land. Fifty
years ago the roulette dens of
the Rhenish watering places en-
riched the public revenues with q yearly
contribution aggregating 5000, 600
marks, of nearly $50, 600, 900; yet the
constant increase of financial difficulties
has failed to encourage even the modi-
fed establishment of those profitable
institutions. In spite of enormous
brides the managers of the Louisiana
state lottery failed to hold their own
against the rising tide of public indig-
=
no chance of survival outside of tie
hope common to other forms of recog-
nized crime-the refuge of obscurity.
Imagine the result of an attempt to
override the veto of public opinion BY
an organized league of American pub
fishers OF indecent periodicals." or
mutual aid society of faro dealers aud
three card monte men," with or with
out subsidized press and a trained
staff of lobby steerers!
How shall we account for the fact
that the alcohol habit still contrives to
secure the advantage of legislative pro-
lection by means which would have no
chance of success in behalf of other
vices? g
The only logical explanation can be
found in the circumstance that those
vices have been generally recognized
as unqualified evils, while larger pro-
portion of our fellowmen still labor
under the fatal delusion of the belief
that, within certain limits, taste for
Intoxicating beverages can be INDUCED
with impunity. They persist in calm
ing their own misgivings with the be-
lief in the harmlessness of moderate
drinking, and of the ''milder stimu-
lants," and confess the evils of intem-
perance only in the sense of the admis-
sion that all excess Is injurious. THE
fact that stimulants can be swallowed
in health-endangering over-doses,''
they argue. "'does not justify the plan
to lessen that danger by anti-liquor
laws We might as we'll prohibit the
sale of meat and sugar. because sur.
felt of meat pies and pastry may result
in dyspepsia. Be temperate in all
things, and defend the palladium of
personal liberty
And too many of our brethren en-
courage those decisions by still ,crib-
ing intemperance to the Temptations
of unrestrained appetite" and the
passions of unregenerate nature
The dread of chronic alcoholism NAV
deter many young men from the per-
ilous first steps on the road to ruin, and
the grim logic of experience may in
duce a few half-confirmed drunkards
to renounce their vice in time; but we
can never hope to get stroke at the
root of the upas tree till we can en-
force the general recognition of the
truth, that the alcohol habit in all its
forms is wholly abnormal passion,
Is distinct from a natural appetite as
poison from wholesome food, that the
indulgence of that passion, even in the
slightest degree. is resisted by the veto
of sanitary instinct which can never
be outraged with impunity, and that
the apparent exhilaration, following
the qualification of long perverted
appetite. is invariably followed by that
depressing reaction which makes every
poison vice losing game, and mex
orably defeats the attempts to attain a
surplus of happiness by the influence
of unnatural stimulantA In other
words, we must deprive the rumseller
Of Fictitious moral support, by ooen-
ing the eyes of his victims to the fact
that the aleohol oice Is an unqualified epl
We must convince the dupes of the
stimulant habit that our protest is not
directed against an enjoyment, in.
furious only in case of excess. but
against an unnatural vice. incompst-
ible3 with the interests of health and
happiness and moreover Constantly
tending to assume the ruinous form Of
. progressive and 1t last irresistible
passion ,sS{si 535Ez s5sst. Il 8 =, ! !
We must try to make moderate"
hppling IS odious rs moderate theft,
and moderate" polygsmy. We can :.
not 1MOrd to waste our time in com.