Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-07-17
TOWN BOOMERS DON'T BRAG
ON SALOONS!

| Olt N4AAOVAN
THOUGH, ACCORDING TO COL. HICK-
MAN, THEY DO ON EVERYTHING
ELSE THEIR TOWN CONTAINS.
''Y on talk about saloons bringing bust
ness! Did you ever know town boomer
to advertise that his town had saloons
They spend thousands on circulars and adj
vertisements telling Of their factories,
stores, churches, mills, public buildings,
| but you can't find in one of them a single
line Dragging On their saloons Oh saying
they have one in the town." This palpa-
be hit made by Col. J. j. Hickman, the
Good Templar National Lecturer, at the
| Opera House Wednesday night, was
received with great applause by the large
audience present, who seemed on the alert
to applaud any shot at the saloons. Col.
| Hickman, the lecturer, is a man OF lmpos-
ing personal appearance, over six feet high,
strongly built. with white mustache and
hair and handsome face. He is apparent
ly about sixty years of age. On the stage
of the Opera House were the Mayor OF the
city, Rev. J. T. Williams, Rev. j. d. Don
ovan, a number of members Of the Good
Templar' lodge, and many citizens who
are not members Of any Temperance Or
ganization. In the audience were some sly
hundred ladies and gentlemen. The open
ing services consisted of singing by the
choir, and prayer by Rev. MI. Williams, in
which he fervently invoked the Almighty
that 'sthe right may have the victory in
the coming fight" The orator was intro
duced by Mr.. w. W. Gibos, who in his in
PRODUCTION said Col. Hickman was suffer-
ing from sickness.
Col. Hickman opened by saying that he
was not feeling very strong tonight, and
that he had not completely recovered from
his California experience in which he had
undergone the strain Of speaking from the
platform for five hundred consecutive
nights. 1ntemperance he said was the
Destroying Angel of this land 1t took
our first born despite our struggles to save
them, and no blood on the door post, no
mothers tears and wife's agony could in
duce it to pass by and leave its victim.
We are not honest even with ourselves in
speaking of it's work. When poor drunk
ard dies. we say whiskey killed him, and
sometimes we say that it was best for him
| to die. When rich drunkard dies, we say
| it is heart failure OF fever. OF anything but
whiskey. We are afraid to tell ourselves
the truth. though our own son OF brother
| may the destroyer S next victim.
What say may rot be popular in Staun-
ton. l wouldn't think it could be in town
that has one saloon TO about every seventy
five grown men. If the liquor traffic is
right; if it brings one man to a moral life;
if it brings any man to God; if it makes
any man better father, a better son, a
better citizen, then it should be encouraged.
| Will any man stand up and say he believes
the liquor traffic does any Of this? Will
any man say it is intended to do this?
| What does it do for town, Give reve-
nue.? Staunton gets revenue" of $3 .00O
from it, Every cent of the $4,000 comes
out Of your pockets first and goes into the
saloon keepers pocket, and from there to the
city treasury. That S revenue ain t it ?
And yet a saloon keeper will tell you he
pays it. There are just $4,000 men EN-
gagged in this business in the United States,
and they pay every cent Of the 100000 COO
taxes to the government out of the people IS
pockets who patrOnize their stills and
bars.
No man in the saloon business is proud
of his work. A mechanic will take pride
in his work and send it to the county fair
for exhibition. A doctor is proud of his
work when he cures a patient. on
know what the work of the saloon man is.
You have seen it lying in the gutter, poor
and ragged and dirty. Did you ever know
ty fair as something he was proud of
There is one sort of work they will call at
tention to with pride. The Good Temp
lars will get hold of a drunkard and
straighten him up, and get him into the
lodge and make sober man of him. After
while the poor fellow gets into bar room
again and from there to the gutter, and the
saloon men will point to him contemptuous-
ly and say: That s the work you Temperance
people do.'' That s what the saloon keeper
and many others who favor license call the
work of the Temperance organization.
You will always hear a great cry about
hurting the business Of town if you vote
against license and make it dry. They told
us that at Stone Mountain. We carried it
dry and now it is more prosperous than it
ever was before. And what is more, the
man that Was the leading saloon keeper has
been elected to the legislature and intro
duced q bill to make the whole county dry.
How can saloon keeper pray to the
same God with those whose lost ones drank
ruin at his bar How can he say "Our
Father to the same God to whom the
drunkard S mother and widow pray?
The politicians will listen to you quick
enough when you show that you are strong
enough. In my State they wouldn't hear
me at lirst-they "hadn' It time''-but when
we got strong enough to carry 2O7 places
dry out of 239 in which we held elections,
they had plenty of time to listen tome. At
the election which followed, we carried 125
out of $50 places and then the politicians
| were rather anxious to hear what we
thought about things. And we are going
to keep up these fights until every bar room
IS closed.
They ask what have we done in this
country? Well we have a pretty good
showing for what we have done We have
six States and two territories under Pro-
hibition law and more than half the States
of the Union have laws for prohibiting the
sale of liquor.
A moderate drinzer leads more boys
astray than all the poor drunkards in the
world can.
What are the Good Templars doing? At
q Il