The Press., 1893-11-02

drlnklng to the point or 1ntOx1cat1on due to an irresistible craving which he cannot
 resist, although his reason and conscience alike rebel? Does he not recognize in the interval between his paroxysms that
 his periodical drinking results in altered conduct and loss of ability? Does he not
 promise himself and friends that he will
 reform? Does he not know that the al- cohol lowers his intelligence and morals? Does he not feel that it's use brings his
 brain capacity to lower levelp Does he not believe that it has special effect up- on the nerve centers? Acknowledging all this, as he will, is he not assured that it necessarily affects all thought and con- scious action, as the brain is the organ of thought? If a brain worker, does he not
 feel so bitterly that he cannot do his best
 work when under it's influence? Is he
 free when he deplores in an agony of re- morse the fierce appetite for alcohol which
 periodically masters him, which his will cannot resist, as the daily and perhaps
 moderate use of stimulants has insidious-
 ly drawn him in the vortex of the disease
 of dipsomania, and then is driven in a
 week or a month to repeat his indulgence
 in alcohol to the point of intoxication Is he free, when he obscures his higher faculties against his reason and judgment
 and in spite of his will power? Is he
 free, when he buys ticket to attend an intellectual entertainment that he wants
 to see and hear, and then stops on his
 way and takes one, two, three glasses of
 whisky and finally finishes the bottle and
 spends the night in the arms of courtesan
 when 8 loving wife and children await his
 coming at home, and when in his heart
 he loves them more than all on earth?
 Free! No, he is not free. He is a
 slave, more to be sympathized with and
 pitied than the most abused slave depict
 ed in "Uncle Tom's Cabin" He is a
 slave whose mind, in it's lucid intervals
 fully appreciates and loathes the cursed
 fetters- but has not strength to break
 them. How is he ever to break them if
 his friends and neighbors complacently
 mind their own business and allow liquor
 saloons to confront him on every corner,
 putting temptation in his way?
 1 l appeal to the strong good sense of
 the American people, which, when reused,
 can sweep the country and put through
 any reform; I appeal to the guardians of
 public hygiene in the United States of
 America; appeal to every mother in the
 country to diminish the number of liquor
 saloons, and to cooperate with the medi-
 cal profession in combating vicious
 propensity, so insidious in it's advances
 and so disastrous in its results. Person
 al liberty is clear right, but it is not a
 clearer right than the right of the people to insist that poison shall not be sold to
 be drunk as beverage, to ruin the phys
 ical, moral and intellectual life of so many people. When 1t is remembered how
 great portion of the people of this coun.
 try have children that they wish to grow
 up temperate and virtuous, I cannot un-
 derstand how the abolition of the liquor traffic is hostile to their rights and privi.
 leges. I consider that patriotism will
 never have shone more conspicuously, ex
 isted more truly or burned more fervently
 than when, sending up an ardent prayer to God for succor, the people of the United States of America put forth tht } energy of their whole soul and spirit 1T the cause of temperance, and class alec hol in all it's forms, by legislation, witt the poisonous drugs to be obtained only 7 upon the prescription of a reputable phy sician, to be used in time of sickness.
 , The scheme of American liberty was [ never intended by our forefathers to in clude the liberty of any man to sell citi zens as beverage poison, the habitua indulgence in which will make them in , sane and their offspring imbeciles ane idiots. As it was the want of uniol
 among her several states which finall, r gave the mastery of all Greece to Phili] < of Macedon, so it is the want of the uniol F of opinion on the temperance question O 3 a terrible lethargy, or both combined 7 that bids fair to give the mastery of al America to the liquor traffic. Woul, r that my pen might become 8 clarion t. = rouse Americans to stern sense of thei ) responsibility in this matter. Would tha 3 l had the spirit, eloquence and fire of De 3 mosthenes to proclaim from Maine t California the physiological action of al oohol upon man and his offspring. Woul ) that could impress upon the mind 0 t every young man in the country that h 8 cannot be even moderate drinker with ; out the tremendous danger of the alec 8 holic appetite supervening, and that t lead a life of honor, of usefulness and c n success in all the professions and pursuit : of life he must be temperate man; tha Q he cannot drink and have that intense CT - ergy, that broad humanity and that lov @ and obedience to God which go to mak |. up the most useful citizen of the Unite : States.
 l. Who would undermine our republic 8 Every young man does so by just so muc n when he undermines himself by alcoho n for not alone he but his children will be l. burden instead of 8 bulwark to her. Gu F. system of free government depends upo r the support of the national honor an f character among the nations of the cart :, and the maintenance of the Constitutio and the union. It was made for a ten
 perate people and mot to be dominate @ over by the liquor traffic. The power Q with the people. They can exercise it : their representatives, and may they 500 II do so ill every state.
 @ Mrs. William Merriam, of Palmer, wh a is daughter of the original "Josh Whit n comb" of Swanzey, while at a recent Tt o ception of the president in Washington l. rushed up to the president and exclaimed V "The fatherhood of God and the brother h hood of man, MT. Cleveland was SUI