Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1895-07-01
w. C. T. u. COLUMN.
GO TO THE PEOPLE.
Motto: "God and Home and Nativ


carefully read and digested by all
thinking voters.
"No one who has given personal at
tention to the problems of poverty
and crime can fail to be impressed
with the power of the saloon as fac
tor in the degradation and misery of
humanity. Rum is criminalizing the
poverty stricken world. This great
deadly shadow which rests SO heavily
over the teeming, seething, struggling
millions is the despair of the philan-
thropist.
SIN vain do men lecture, in vain
cite statistics, in vain prove that rum
is building our jails, peopling our
prisons, and the prime consumer of
millions upon millions of dollars for
maintenance of criminal courts to in
flict punishment on those who, thro'
it's deadly influence, have committed
crime. We all know the facts. The
very hopelessness of the case seems
to lie in the Indifference of society
the conscience of civilization is SO
paralyzed that the appalling truth
makes but little impression. Until
this condition can be changed until the
moral death-spell can be broken, and
the higher impulses quickened, we
may continue to pass laws, continue
to experiment with traffic which
has proved itself to be the most un-
mitigated curse that has ever visited
the earth, but little good will result.
Gin the olden times, when Chris
tianity meant something, the great
Apostle to the Gentiles Numbered
forth these words: IF the eating of
meat make my brother to offend, I
will eat no flesh while the world
standeth.' At the present time, in
the presence of Christian civilization
that is disgraced and dishonored by
curse which all admit is the most
frightful source of crime snd misery,
the clergy of the Christian church is
not initiating the apostle; on the
contrary, many ministers are indulg-
ing moderately in wine, in brutal dis
regard of the weak brothers who are
stumbling; while, with a few honora-
BILE exceptions, the clergy is not thun-
vast influence which 1t Yields it was
filed with the convictions of common
justice, lit by divine love for humani-
ty and fired by the spirit of truth, it
could, in few waeks, enthuse the
civilized world; it could create pnblic
sentiment that would sweep this curse
from the face of civilization.
$50 deeply, however, has the rum
power imbedded itself in many of the
churches, SO powerfully do it's feelers
BILE Christianity, and SO loudly does
the cry, 'Prophesy to us smooth
things come from the richly cush-
toned pews on the one hand, while so
meaningless have grown the grand
ethical impulses of Christendom on
the other, that we can not expect
such action from the church as a unit.
Yet this direct appeal to the con-
science of the people must be made.
This positive and energetic agitation
must be inaugurated. I is idle to
make laws and leave the public i'm
pulse dormant. Arouse the people
and the evil will disappear. Make
men see and feel that the rumseller is
greater curse to the community than
professional thief; that a saloon is
a more positive evil to neighbor-
hood than shanty filed with small
pox PATIENTS; and a fire will be kin
| died which will purge the country Of
it's greatest crime and misery breeder
whose colossal shadow envelops
Christendom, and carries a thrill O.
misery, pulsation of vice, a throb O
degradation, wherever it falls.
| Two hunHro6 london ,,1y,itc ~, .