Evening capital journal. (Salem, Or.) 1888-1893, 1891-03-02

at the foot of the Green mountains
into the pallor of despairl What has
s'iiitteh every street of every village,
town and city of this continent with a
moral pestilencel Strong drink!
TO prove that this is national evil |
call up two states in opposite directions
Maine and Georgia. Let them testify
i'll regard to this. State of Maine saws
1T is so great an evil up here we have
mathematical it as a state" State of
Georgia says; 1T is 50 great an evil
down here that ninety counties of this
state have made the sale of intoxicat-
ing drink criminality" So the word
comes up from all parts of the land.
Either drunkenness will be DESTROYED
in this country or the American gov
eminent will be destroyed Drunken
ness and free institutions are coming
into a death grapple.
POVERTY COMES AS AN ARMED MAN.
Gather up the money that the work
ing classes have spent for rum during
the last thirty years, and l will build
for every workingman q house, and
lay out for him a garden, and clothe
his SONS in broadcloth and his daughters
in silk, and stand at his front door a
prancing span of sorrels or bays, and
secure him a policy of life insurance so
that the present home may be well
maintained after he is dead. The most
persistent, most overpowering enemy of
the working classes is intoxicating
liquor 1t is the anarchist of the
centuries, and has boycotted and is
now boycotting the body and mind and
soul of American labor. 1t annually
swindles industry out Of a large per-
centage of it's earnings. 1t holds out
its blasting solicitations to the me
chanic or operative on his way to work,
and at the noon spell and on his way
home at eventide. On Saturday, when
the wages are paid, it snatches large
part of the money that might come to
the family and sacrifices it among the
saloon keepers. Stand the saloons of
this country side by side, and it is
carefully estimated that they would
reach from New York to Chicago.
This evil is pouring its vitriolic and
damnable liquors down the throats
of hundreds of thousands of laborers,
and while the ordinary strikes are ruin
GUS to both employers and employees
proclaim universal strike against
strong drink, which strike, if kept up,
will be the relief of the working classes
and the salvation of the nation. | will
undertake to say that there is not a
healthy laborer in the United States
who, within the next twenty years, if
lie will refuse all intoxicating beverages
and be saving, may not become CAPT
,alist on small scale.
Oh how many are waiting to see If
cannot be done for the stop
,ing of intemperancel Thousands of
lrunkards waiting who cannot go ten
minutes in any direction without hav-
ng the temptation glaring before their
yes or appealing to their noStrils, they
ghting against it with enfeebled will
nd diseased appetite, conquering, then
conquering again and sur
endering again, and crying, How
)ng, o Lordf how low before these In
amous solicitations shall be gonep
md how many mothers are waiting to
ee if this national curse cannot lift? ,
,h, is that the boy who had the honest
reath who comes home with breath
if;nTn1 1spo,t,sonlq NUhaf ahanraI
low quickly those habits of early CON-
lg home have been exchanged for the
lttling of the night key in the door ,
,ng after the last watchman has gone ,
y and tried to see that everything was
osed up for the night! =
Oh what a change for that young
ian who we had hoped would do some
ling in merchandise, or in craftsmanship, /
r in profession that would do honor
, the family name long after mothers .
rinkled hands are folded from the .
st TOLL All that exchanged for q
artled look when the door bell rings, .
st something has happened; and the Z
ish that the scarlet fever twenty years s
20 had been fatal, for then he would /,
ave gone directly to the bosom Of his j
aviour But alasl poor old soul, she a
rs lived to experience what Solomon E
id, "A foolish son is a heaviness to a
s mother"
THE STRICKEN MOTHERS WOE. il
Oh! what funeral it will be when g
at boy is brought home dead And Il
wv mother will sit there and say: 'Is Il
is my boy that used TO fondle and d
at | walked the floor with in the o.
ght when he was ackl Is this the a
" that held TO the baptismal font G.
r baptisml Is this the boy for whom u
oiled, until the blood bunst from the
IS of my fingers, that he might have b
good start and a good homei Lord, &c
~ hast thou let me live to see thisf "
N it be that these swollen hands are W
E ones that used to wander over my st
,e when rocking him TO sleepi Can |
be that this swollen brow Is that | vi
ee so rapturously kissedl Poor boy pl
w tired he does lookl wonder who eli
uck him that blow across the tenn vi
81 wonder II he uttered dying y
avert Wake up, my son; don't you da
ar met wake up! Oh! he can't hear ar
J. Dead! dead dead % Absa- III
n, my son. my son, would God that tW
had died for thee, o AbsAloln, my in
d, my sonp tr'
am not uneh of 4 mathematician, 70