The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1894-04-13

They tell us of lite that the liquor
habit is disease. If this be so, let us
eradicate it and not fold our hands and
wait for its attack on us and those dear
to us.
l do not think the saloon with all its
conconitant evils has come to stay, any
more than think lions and bears and
snakes, and all other unclean beasts have
come to stay They will stay until we
rise up and drive them out, just as yell
low fever and small pox and cholera will
stay, until men rise up and fumigate
their dwellings, and purge their sur
roundlngs and make it impossible for
the microbes producing these dieases
to find any substance in which to inhere.
Physicians tell us that we court epldem-
les by the unkempt drains and cess-pools
about our houses. Let us not court this
disease by our easy attitude toward it,
by our liberation of its urblushing face
in our midst. We are not to fight this
enemy with any single specified kind of
weapons. We need to utilize every kind
of force known to successful warfare.
We must smite him at short range, and
at long range, using anything that is
legitimate from apopgun to columbiad.
We must hit the serpentin the cup when
ever we can get chance at him. |
think it is time that the good people of
Bennington should begin on him at short
range.
l believe in law. But we must have
something more than law in the hands
of money-loving men, men who can
wink at evil, if allowed to put their
hands into the treasury, and share in the
profits. The battle of Gettysburgh was
not won by few batteries at long range.
The rank and file had most important
hand in it. They grappled with the en-
envy.
There is grandeur and majesty in law
that under right conditions is impressive
and persuasive. 1t is solemn scene
when the court arises to pronounce SEN
tence of death on a criminal who has
been proved guilty.
You do not fear your neighbor with
whom you are on terms of familiarity as
you mee- him from day to day, but should
you be brought before him, under arrest
and charged with grave crime, new
solemnity would possess your soul.
You meet him now, not as a neIghbOr,
but as an officer of the law. You are
under changed relations, and you feel
that he is clothed with an authority that
must be respected. What is this stern
and solemn majesty of law that is not
seen. and yet makes the bravest to trem-
BILE? 1t is the sentiment of the people,
the conviction deep laid i'll the hearts of
men that the right must preUGiL.
There is not much force in law that is
not backed up strongly by the people.
The law against thieving would be a
dead letter on our statute books, if the
sentiment of the community were &C
customed to wink at it, Stealing would
soon be as common as drinking in the
streets of Bennington, and as open faced
if the law against it had the same public
sentiment behind it that our temper
ance laws have.
Our work as Christian people and law
abiding citizens is to create better and
more healthful public sentiment with re-
gard to temperance laws and their en-
forcement We have good laws on ouI
statute books, and the moral sentiment
of this community could put stop to
the wholesale drunkenness seen on ouI
streets under our present law, If the SEN
timent were up to the standard it should
be, and can be, if all good people will
take hold il.
When a man has the small pOx, he is
sick man and needs remedies. We
have physicians to attend him. But be
also needs the restraints of law, and we
must have law to send him to the pest
house and not suffer him to run at large
to endanger himself and expose Others.
We need law, we need moral suasion, we
need kindness in dealing with this
troublesome drink question, and we
need great wisdom in dispensing these
laws of justice, grace and kindness. Sc
far as the habit is a disease and needs
remedies, we have an Ensor for special
treatment. So far as the patient needs
encouragement and kindness, we have
those whose sympathies are large, anc
who are ready to give help in these di
rectiors. Where we need law to place 9
limit to the traffic, and shut it up, as il
were, in a pest-house, we have law
but we lack the sentiment back of law
necessary to enforce it. Here is where
we can act in direct force on the ques
ton. The law should be clothed will
new majesty, and made powerful to clost
the SALOONS, and sink-holes of corruption
SO disreputable to our community. L
belongs to every GOOD citizen of ou
town to do this.
AS men in the kingdom of God, trans
acting business for both time and eter
nifty, we need the clearest brain and tn,
cleanest conscience. Alcohol is not con
duclive to such brain, nor helpful t
such conscience. Let us away with it