Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1894-01-08
THERE is NO COLOR LINE,
So Says Representative Morse, Which Ap-
plies to the Evils of Drink.
Rum Drinking and Ignorant Suffrage
the Future of This Country.

The monthly meeting of the Temperance
society of the Fifteenth Street Presbyter-
ian Church was held at that church last
evening. Special interest was attached to
this meeting because of the address of
Representative Elijah Morse of Massachu-
sets. The bay state Congressman was in
his happiest mood and spoke for an hour
In an illustrative vein. The event was I'M
der the direct supervision of Mr.. Samuel
Williams. president Of the temperance So
ciety. After an appropriate Scripture read
ing by Mr.. Ewing the choir rendered
Christmas anthem. This was followed by
prayer by Rev. DIR. Moore, and 1.-The wife's
Prayer" a temperance anthem, sung by
the choir, closed the preliminary exercises
Mr.. Morse by way of introduction, stated
that he knew that this was the day of
prayer, the hour of devotion and the house
of the Lord. According to his view of the
situation, the same kind of temperance
talk which was applicable to white people
also applied to colored people. He would
therefore draw largely from a speech
which he had delivered last Sunday In Mas
sachusetts to an audience in which there
wasfnot a colored person. The evil of in
temperance was not an imaginary evil.
The statistics of crime and pauperism
proved this. The liquor curse, so far from
being an imaginary evil, was an active
enemy. He thought that strong drink was
responsible for ninety-nine one-hundredths
of the crime and the pauperism of the
world. He asked IL the temperance and
church people were on duty. They should
be.
Two Great Dangers.
The country had been INDUCING in all
sorts of celebrations in honor of the CEN
tennial of the American Constitution. He
feared that the country would not celebrate
another constitutional centennial, because
Of two great dangers which threatened to
wreck the ship of state; these were, first,
ignorant suffrage, and, second, the rum
power. Each was an awful menace. Life
and property were safer, justice was more
sure and swift and taxation was less in
| the city of St. Petersburg than i'm the city
or New York. In the days of reconstruc-
ton a great mistake had been made In the
bestowal of suffrage on the freedmen. II
an educational Qualifca ton had been re-
quired as requisite to suffrage much that
is unpleasant would have been avoided,
and the colored people would have had a
greater incentive toward accumulaing prop
erty and absorbing education. The sta
bility of government-of a republican form
of government-rested on the foundation
of intelligence and virtue. The colored peo-
pie wanted, must have and would have in
telligence, property and religion. They re-
CURED these things In order to be respected.
One of the signs of the times was the
jealous interest manifested by the moral
element in all quarters in the rum prob
lem. The moral world was turning it's at
tention to this question. He thought that
the virtue of fear was virtue. nevertheless.
If there was any young man in the audi
ence who was just on the outer circle OF
| this dreadful maelstrom and he could not
dissuade him from his ruinous course he
would scare him out of IL. Gods word appeal
ed to mems fear in questions of the soul Men
admitted the correctness of the theory In
their daily life. The cast-iron notice on
railway cars that IL Is unsafe to ride on
the platform was an appeal OF the corpora
in receptions. He then talked of the drink
habit from an economic standpoint rather
| than from moral one.
The Tobacco Habit.
Mr.. Morse was sarcastic in his denuncia-
| ton OF the tobacco habit. He was surpris.
ed at the amount of money which the COL
| ored people spent in this way. He opposed
tobacco on various grounds. The Almighty
had not intended his teeth for fire brick
and his nose as a smokestack He recitei
| some experiments which a distinguished
physician had conducted with frogs tending
to show the deadliness of the weed one
drop of tobacco juice knocked out the frog.
| He presaged the coming of the day when the
sale and manufacture of strong drink
would be interdicted Drinking men should
| not taper off in drinking. they should stop
| at once. No man ever jumped one-half OF
precipice and no man ever fired a cannon
| half off.
noteworthy feature of the evening was
| the decidedly creditable music rendered by
| the choir, under the direction of Prof, A
| Samuels. The choir was as follows: So
pranos, Miss Slade. Miss wormley. Miss
| Parke, Miss Hubbard, Mrs. Male; central.
| tos. Miss Haymen, Miss Male, Miss T.
| Bruce. Miss NJ. Bruce. Miss Smith; tenors
| Messrs. Goodrich, Rector. Walton, Tomp.
kins. Walker: bassos. Messrs Williams
/ Johnson. Nalle, Wormley, Bryant and
| Plumrler. The audience was a large one