The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1895-06-19
THE HOME DESTROYER.
Revolving Picture Of the Drunkard
as Husband and Father.
Sam Jones Tells How He Should Be Dealt
Wtth-Love of Home, Wlfe and
Children Buried In the
WtnA CuD.
lcopYRIaHT, 1905.

VT: Cup.
IcoPYR1aHT. 1861
The two preceding articles have de-
voted to the nursery of drunlkards and
debauchery of youngmanhood. In this
article take up the saddest and most
deplorable'phase'of drunkenness, that OF
drunken husband and father. The day
it Is whispered to wife that her hus-
band has gone to drink, that sentence
has the weight and woe of time and
eternity wrapped up in it. care not
how many joys and blessings and COM
forts like friendly angels have come to
camp and stay with. the home, this SEN
tence with It's meaning puts them all to
flight, and brings into the home the
croaking raven, the bowling wolf and
the screaming jaclkal.
The relations and conditions of home
have now changed. The wife's bless
ings have been turned into curses, her
joys into sadness, her hopes into de-
spair. The only thing to add to the
wreck is that she take to morphine or
cocaine or some similar drug, and that
both together, arm in arm, stagger on
to destruction before the eyes of the
helpless children, the one devil, the
other an idiot. The man demon from
drink, the woman an idiot from NOR
phine, cocaine or chloral habit. The
worse than orphan children are left in
despair, aud yet publicly l have taken
the position time aud time again that
the wife and mother has as much right
in the saloon, and as much right to the
wine cup and the liquor bottle as the
husband.
The debauchery is never seen in all
its loathsomeness so fully as it is seen
in the staggering steps, bleared eyes
and ruined life of wife or mother. I
have known but few drunken wives
and mothers. They have been gener-
ally divorced. Thousands of women
must live and suffer as the wives OF
drunken husbands, butvery fewmen IN
the history of the world have ever toll
Grated drunken wife. l wonder 1t
there would not be fewer drunken hus-
bands If women would cease to tolerate
item.
1declare that q husband who spends
the day and until ten o'clock at night
in the saloon and winds up the days de-
bauch by eating limberger cheese and
garlic and then lights his dirty old pipe
and comes home and pillows his head
by the side Of pure wife constitutes an
intolerable animal. II were wom-
an would rather sleep with wet dog.
After all it is a matter of liberation.
No woman can love and respect q
drunken husband in the best sense and
the highest plane Of married life.
So often 1t is said Of drunken hus-
band or father: "He is q clever fellow,
it is pity he drinks" Now If to de-
bauch my body and degrade my family
and spend for liquor the money which
I ought to invest in comforts for my
wife and children, and become vaga-
bond, and then go home and stagger on
the heart of my good wife and crush
the last drop of blood out of it, makes
me clever fellow, then don't want
to be clever fellow. It is all lie. A
man that drinks whisky Is not clever
fellow. He is vagabond, dog, he is
dirty puppy, and does not deserve the
respect of his wife or of the community
in which he lives. Clever fellows don't
make whisky, they don't sell it and
they don't drink it. To be a clever
husband and a clever citizen a man
must separate himself as far from that
traffic as the east is from the west.
A member of the church who makes
it or furnishes house for it to be sold
in, or sells it or drinks it is not fit to
have his name put down among. high
bred registered dogs of this country,
and I doubt if there is q kennel in
America that would give him decent
register for blood or qualities it they
knew he had practiced such conduct;
and when man lives below the plane
where decent dogs are registered 1t is
time to call him q bench-legged fee
md keep him in the back yard or under
the house. would not hurt the feel
ings of bench-legged fee by this COM
parison because have known some
bench-legged fee 1T noble character.
The best squirrel deg ever saw was a
bench-legged fee. But there is not a
mean thing in the world that is not open
to o man who has good wife and
children and yet fingers about the
saloon and drinks of the cup it gives.
Boys, / have been there.
Experience and observation, two of
the finest schools a mortal man ever
attended, have taught me all have
said is true If whisky debauches a
man, makes him neglect his family, and
deprives them of this comforts of life, if
1t makes him murder his wife and
butcher his children, then a chain gang
nigger is gentleman by the side of q
fellow that drinks whisky.
There is but one sadder home in
which the wife and mother sits waiting
for the long overdue drunken husband,
that is the home pictured in song,
where the little girl stood on the streets
of city and looked out upon the pitt
less world and sang: Papa is drunk,
and mamma is dead" This finishes
the picture. The buried mother and.
the drunken father.
The drunkard has no more business
with wife and children than leper.
There ought to be law against drunk
enness, and the first time a husband
gets drunk he ought to be summoned
before jury empaneled, and if con-
yicted of drunkenness he ought to be
consigned for at least five years to some
insane asylum and drenchcd with
stump water filed with leaves, until
a glass or bottle or dcmijohn would
have the same effect upon him as swal-
lowing fly has upon woman.
To be serious, for this is an intensely
serious subject, as long as this country
is in copartncrship with whisky, both
nationally and locally, it is but mete
and right that every legislature should
pass a law providing home or place,
and any husband who is known to
have been intoxicated and the fact
proved upon him, he should be con-
signed to place OF refuge and guarded
and protected for at least five years.
Then, under promise never to drink