The Press., 1892-06-30
w. C. T. U. DEPARTMENT.
The Saloon Our Enemy. Why We Should
 Suppress It.

l. | The Saloon Our Enemy. Why We Should
 Suppress It.
 BY HON. B. B. JOHNSON, wALTHAM, MASS.
 The substance of an address delivered at the anti-saloon convention, Bridgeport, Conn.,, Jan. 19, 1892
 We are met for plain talk on the above subject. Let us before we enter into the direct discussion state few truisms. Mark the qualifying word. In the mGin there are two classes of opinions, sonnd-bad.
 Two classes of citizens, moral-im- moral
 Two classes of voters, thoughtful cageless.
 Two ways of reaching conclusions, log ical-illogical.
 Two sets of people ready to say q know" one with reason, one from im- pulse.
 Two divisions on this question, license -anti-license
 Two ways of treating homes, destruc- tive-protective.
 Two methods of education, truth-fals- ity.
 On the topic here there are two opin- ions.; one only has right to be heard.
 What shall predominate-the rule of right or the rule of wrong?
 Apply these truisms and ask yourselves, is the liquor dealer entitled to an opinion or to be listened to?
 Everybody agrees that his business is "the crime of crimes."
 It's track is everywhere strewed with the husband stolen from the wife-the mother robbed of her son-the child, even, deserted by it's mother.
 The ambulance of law or mercy is ever bearing to the jail, the insane asylum, the almshouse, the orphans home and the open grave it's wrecks.
 Fever, cholera, malaria, in years claim thousand victims. Society is aroused and gives no quarter to but one opinion, as to to the application of an exterminat- ing remedy.
 The liquor traffic has it's 100000 vic- tims in one year, sent directly to the grave, and. claims right to be heard in it's de- fence, and society remains practically quiet.
 It says to us, "this is none of your business, ,"-"men need not be fools and drink to excess, ,"-it is all their own fault" All are gigantic falsehoods and they know it. For, once this blighting, blasting, damning curse of alcoholic liq- uors crosses any lips there remains less self-lespect and more weakness, and there is an almost certain path of endless sin to follow, for the man is an appetized slave.
 When the theory is admitted that "no man with manhood loves prison life,' the facts answer these fasehoods.
 Turn to the Massachusetts Prison Con- missioners' report for 1890 and study the table of 17,667 drunkards re-committed that year to prison, and you find food fo1 reflection. You see the commitments analysed as follows:
 The second time each, 3503; the third 2181; the fourth, 1868; the fifth, 11G6; from the sixth to fifteenth each, 4374 | thirty-one to fifty times, 297. Go to Deer Island and find man there committed for drunkenness the 147th time, and one woman only thirty-eight years of age now there the s7th time. | OUR DUTY. Our duty is to examine. The United States supreme court not long since de clared that it was the duty of all citizens to be interested in the suppression O. dram drinking, and immediately there after the National Liquor Dealers Asso citation declared that court to be :'bod, of fanatics"
 Thus the soulless avarice which de stroys home, affection, life and hope, ad vises us how to let it manage it's business Its proclamation is, "This is to go on Our prosperity means your son. You wife's heart must bleed, your child b. hungry, your body shall shiver."
 It means full jails, full taxes, false hood, perjury, national weakness and i'm morality. IS THIS TRUE!
 Our Massachusetts official report show that from 1885 to 1890 our population in creased 15 per cent, and the same pag shows that the increase of drunkennes was AS per cent. I am sure that abou the san condition exists here, for befor me is the official report of commitment to your county jail, which shows com mitted last year 1755, of which 1880 wer incorporate, and 1O66 had been in priso before. The liquor traffic means resist ance to law. Bridgeport recently had gallows exhibit of this.
 It means destruction of the Sabbath The New York Liquor Dealers lAssocia tion recently declared that the "Sabbat is day set apart for pleasure, and tn people who come here from the Ol World should be allowed to enjoy them selves according to their native land GUS toms." This means open beer garden instead of churches.
 It means delay of missions. Boston wonderfully generous toward the Cong field; yet in 1890 there were sent from ii port 775, ,0O0 barrels of alcoholic poison Africa, and in 1891, 1,225, ,OOO barrels Bishop Taylor says that the liquors sen l by Germany, England and America ar doing thousand times more mischie than the African slave trade ever did. Do you wonder at Senator Hoar's de scription of the liquor traffic? He says 'sit is an evil which demands remedy a searching, thorough, drastic as any ev which has afflicted mankind since tn l foundation of the world" Yet it's bol request and assertion is-"let us keep or We intend to- It debauches politics church, school and everything it touches 1 license law saxs it is right hv a styeS