The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-31
OPTIMIsT AND PEssIMIsT.


cal and social pessimists. The optimist
thinks that everything is lovely and that
the national eagle was never 80 strong of
fight; the really serious political problems
that are pressing upon the nation for final
judicious solution your bland optimist
whistles down the wind as if a social
cancer was not more serious than a little
attack of sectional measles or chicken pox.
Your professed pessimist runs to the
other extreme and sees nothing but steady
decay In the morals of the people; he is
sure that alcoholism is increasing; that
gambling is more than ever the national
vice; that the ballot was never so corrupt;
instinct with the weakness that is conse-
quent upon wickedness. The increased
number of divorces is quoted as proof that
there is a dangerous decline in public
purity and respect for the marriage state.
The optimist is too fiippant, for there
are serious questions before the country
for solution; the selfish, stupid war be-
tween labor and capital; the craze Of free
silver; the rage for dishonent class legis-
lation and lunatic paternalism that is
manifested by the Peoples or Farmers
Alliance party; the immigration question;
the negro problem in the South; the i'm
creasing tendency to suffer mob law to
usurp the authorized machinery of JUS
tice; are some of the blacklist clouds in
our political sky.
No intelligent man who views these
signs and portents with thoughtful eye
is without anxiety for the future of this
nation; his mood is not one of despair,
and yet the situation does not wreath his
face with the smiles of the optimistic
orator who treats deep-seated, indolent
political ulcers as if the nation was suffer-
ing from nothing more serious than nettle
rash or toothache. The singular thing 10
that the political dangers of serious, far
reaching national consequence vex neither
the professional optimist or pessimist; the
optimist sees no occasion for the slightest
anxiety, while the pessimist is blind to
real troubles, while he threshes the dust
right and left out of men Of straw of his
own construction and erection in the
market place.
The truth Is, our most serious national
dangers are not alcoholism, nor gambling,
nor increased impurity manifested by in
difference to marriage, and increased di-
vorces. There is intemperance and gam
bling everywhere, but it is not increasing;
it never was SO disreputable: it is de-
Ginning danger; that is, there never was a
time when there was less social federation
among the respectable governing classes
Of society for gambling or the drinking
habit, or for impurity or indecency of life.
Vicious living was never so disreputable in
America as it is today. MANY
persons honestly think otherwise, but
they are not persons familiar with the
history Of our social life and habits, which
were far worse hundred years ago, fifty
years ago, or even twenty-five years ago
than they are today. There are more di-
vorces because there are more legal causes
for divorces, and the largest proportion of
the increase is due to the fact that women,
once denied divorce for desertion and
chronic drunkenness on the part of
husbands, are now granted humane
release. Women are not perhaps as
ready to negotiate q bad mar
rage as they once were, because they
are more Independent of the necessity of
making a doubtful marriage TO get q
home; women escape more quickly from
bad, mean, degrading marriage than
they once did because the law has come to
their relief. All the social statistics that
We have show that the average of feminine
virtue has not declined with the increase
of divorce, or the enlarged independence
of women.
There is saloon drinking and there al.
ways will be so long as there is any drink
ing at all. Ifit is proper to drink alco-
holic beverages at all, it is proper to drink
morality, order and decency to get drunk
at home or abroad, and the closing of all
saloons would only increase the private.
secret consumption of liquor. II LIQUOR
should be drunk at all, there can be no
moral distinction between drinking a
glass Of liquor in saloon, in a club, at a
dinner or in private house. The New
DIX Gun. iEoLi Tvs pOAut OI observation OF
the drink habit, is an authentic ana up-
right witness on this point. The Sun saws:
When the public drinking places are closed,
people DO their Sunday drinking at home, at
hotels. or in their clubs, and experience shows
stsueh private indulgence is more likely to
lead 20 intemperance than public drinking in
saloons. The man who takes bottle OF whisky
home with him, is in far more danger of getting
drunk than the man who takes his drink a. A
bar.
Purely as q Temperance Measure, therefore
the Sunday closing Of saloons Is not at ali eff.
feciual, As a rule. IL the people are going to
drink on Sunday, any other day, they had
better drink in public drinking places than in
privacy. They are under more restraint in com
pany than by themselves, and they are more
likely to consume the light sieoholic beverages
the stronger and more fiery being SO much more
easily carried home.
Nor is the relative amount OF intoxics.ion
greater now than it has been in the past. Il
less so far as our observation goes, lager beer
having replaced whisky as the popular beverage
For the great mass OF society the saloon is the
as est pisce in which TO drink, If they are 20
drink al all There they under the restraint
OF observation. Proportionately drunkenness
Is not so frequent among those who drink a.
saloons only IS among those who resort 70 the
bottle at homo
Closing saloons will not stop drin king:
ii simply drives drinking TO cover. The
| Catholic clergy testify that the open sd
loon is preferable 10 the tenement house
secret drinking which takes place when