The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-04-08

| statistics of the government s official | reports. What makes this tremendous drain upon the nations life more omi-
 rous is that we live in the temperate zone, where nervous disorders reach their climax It is the nervous tempera- ment which turns toward alcohol most eagerly and it is that very tempera- ment which soonest falls victim.
 What havoc then Is being wrought
 amid the social and industrial condi-
 tions of American life. The working
 man suffers most, for he has not the influence to fight off the saloons from
 his own neighborhood; he is thickly
 surrounded by temptations; he squan-
 ders his money in drink while at the
 same time drink is making his labor
 less valuable. It is said that the work
 ingmen of Great Britain and Ireland
 earn f600 GOO 900 a year and spend 50
 per cent. of it in drink. But other
 classes of society are in no less dan
 ger. The man of wealth and the bril-
 liant professional man who avoids the
 saloon, but finds the club house is serv- ing the same grim master and is likely
 to meet the same dishonored end.
 I need hardly say more of the saloon
 as a breeding place for crime since 1
 have given you many statistics at an
 earlier time. Yet I would like to call
 the attention of the people of Connec-
 ticut to one fact: According to the printed returns of the county commits sioners from all counties of this state, the number imprisoned in the jails of Connecticut during the past year has been 5,9S3, of whom 1S9 were strictly temperate and 5,794 were drinking men and women. It costs in Hartford coun- ty, for example $15.6S for every arrest made. The selectmen tell us that of 6,379 state paupers, 4,532 were rendered paupers by drink. Here is a great field for the mathematical taxpayer in some hour of solitude.
 Nor need spend much time tonight on the baneful political power of the saloon, as I have already spoken of that in these addresses. But there is no quarters of the sky fuller of DOT tent than this. Possibly the red hand of the saloon has not been thrust into your home and torn out your heart; and you may not have been conscious of the steady drain which it made upon you through the tax collector. But every citizen of the state must admit if he will be thoughtful for moment that his life as citizen is 9 different thing, because of the omnipotence of the saloon in politics. Our political in tegrity has long since been corrupted and great parties whose best elements would scorn coalition with evil, bow sub servient to the voice of the liquor power, because political leaders say it is necessary. There is no eye upon American politics so keen as that of the liquor power and no lifted finger so imperious. No machine known to American politics works with such pre- cision and with such assurance as this. Here is the most malign force in society which gets the largest concessions by law and then breaks down the few barriers which law has left, without a tremor of apprehension.
 It would be a daring thing to say that in this regard we are worse off than any other people in the world. But do you remember Dr. Paton's mis- sion to America two years ago? He Is that grand old man, seventy years of age, who gave his life for the sake of carrying the gospel to the cannibals of the South seas. Human life was not worth the snap of your finger when he went there, but he has seen 14,000 of those pagans lowing the knee to Christ. He came back two years ago-what for? Partly to get missionaries, but mainly to persuade the enlightened government of this proud Christian nation to prohibit it's traders from selling rum to those poor savages on the other side of the world Think of It, a godly Scotchman who had given his whole life and had almost died a | score of deaths for the sake of saving l those cannibals coming across all the | seas that he as suppliant might beg | he government of the United States 1ot to drive them back to barbarian, 1iabolism and hell,
 But the case Is worse than that We | Ire the only great power to-day which 'efuses such a request. Great Britain | ong since issued the prohibition Trance and Germany Roman Catholic Trance, producing France, and | Germany afloat in beer, said: "We will oin America in such prohibition If America will act we will" And Amer ca wouldn't act!
 Bacchus and Gambrinus put us to hame. They are better temperance re- ormers than we. Benjamin Harrison, he first citizen of the United States tt that time, rose from the presidential hair long enough to express sym ,athy; and the venerable missionary vent away sorrowful, with sigh upon lis lips; What we want is something nore than sympathy; and the politi- al wheels went on grinding; and the raffic in human life and hope goes n In the South seas at, the hands of American citizens.
 An iron hand is on the physical, the the industrial, the social, the olitical life amid which our lot is cast. 'oward whichever quarter we turn our ye, the heavens are full of portents,
 Is there any hope? 5
 That shall be our final question.
 NaV npVo,