St. Paul daily globe., 1896-04-27
WHY NOT TRY LOGIC
A METHODIST MINISTER'S SUCCESS
TION FOR DEALING WITH THE
SALOON MAN
REV. ]. F. STOUT is ORIGINAL.
YNTEMPERANCE LABORsS WORST
FOE, ACCORDING TO FATHER
JOHN GMEINER.
rHEo. RoosEvELT's METHODS
Ara D;scussed by Rev. E. p. Inger-
soII-A Temperance Mass
Meeting.

The vitality Of a good cause, the perennial
courage of warriors on the right side, ap-
reared in the proceedings of the large union
temperance meeting held last night, at Day
ton Avenue Presbyterian church, under the
ausptces of the Christian Endeavor societies
of the Dayton Avenue, the First Methodist
and the Park Congregational churches. The
building was crowded. DR.. NJ. D. Edwards,
pastor Of the Dayton Avenue church, pre-
sided, while the music was that OF the regu-
lar choir. The first speaker was Rev. j. F.
Stout, pastor of the First Methodist church.
Mr. Stout forcibly recalled those horrors Of
intemperance with which the world is so ia
miliar. He gave statistics Of the insane
asylums, showing how frequently alcohol
dethroned reason. He asked. in conclusion,
was it not better to deal gently with the
liquor dealer and his adherents, although he
had undoubtedly done all the harm in this
world that he possibly could do7 although
he was so to speak, the scourge of his race?
Yet, perhaps, mild correction would set him
in the right path. Perhaps he did not de-
serve severe treatment and would willingly
admit the force of mere logic and of common
sense.
Rev. John Gmeiner was introduced by Mr..
Edwards as lone than whom temperance has
no greater friend in this city," Father Gmei-
ner said that he did not come prepared to
speak, but he would like to say something as
to the utter uselessness of the liquor traffic
Liquor not nourishing. God could no
mere be blamed with creating alcohol than
with creating carrion, for alcohol was the
product of corruption. Nor, again, was al
cohol a medicine. Within the last twenty
five years some of the worlds greatest ply
sicians had declared that there was no dis
ease, no surgical case that could not be
treated better without alcohol. DR.. Davis,
known to all his profession, had declared,
after long observation, that alcohol afforded
but a temporary relief at the most, and that
persons who recovered under its administra-
ton, would have recovered sooner under
other treatment. The saloon had been called
'the poor mans club" So it would al
ways be. It's constant patron would indeed
remain poor man. Intemperance was espe-
cially the curse of the laborer. Yet Ter
ence Powderly, of the United States; John
Burns, of England, had said to the working
men: "Unless you give up drink, there is
no hope for you. When you have given up
drink, the labor question is solved" Liquor
was not a food, not medicine, not a per-
manent source of pleasure.
Moreover, it kept the working man from be-
coming himself capitalist. The toiler would
often attack the capitalist. But the real en-
emy of the laborer was the brewer, the dis
tiller, the saloonkeeper, and not the capital
list Even the expenditure of Is cents for
three glasses OF beer day would amount, in
ten years, to $780, in twenty-five years to more
than $4,000. And the workman often thought
honestly that he was buying strength and food
in his beer. Why Liebig, the famous German
chemist, had calculated that man drinking
every day ten quarts of the best Bavarian beer,
at cost of 81 a day, would obtain after a
year, and for 1865, the equivalent nutrition
contained in five pounds of bread, worth Is or
20 cents The newspaper advertisements of
the good effects of beer, wine, or even whisky,
were outrageous falsehoods, deceiving the peo-
pie. AS to other phases of the question It
was known that every year sees 600 to 70, ,00C
drunkards die in this country, and to every
drunkard there were fifty men whose i'll health
was caused by moderate drinking-four or five
millions Of men needlessly sick. At least four
fifths of all crime could be traced directly OF
indirectly to intemperance. The Christian Cit
liens league was here to stay. 1t must not re-
semble a certain military company, "invinci
bic in peace, invisible in war; but 1t must be
constantly in action against the enemies Of
society.
DR.. E. P. Ingersoll said that he was proud
to speak upon the same platform with
pastor representing large a constituency
In this country and the world as did Father
Gmeiner. Mr.. Ingersoll believed that a.
slavery, after fourshing for generations, wa
suddenly swept away by an uprising of pub
lie sentiment, so could the liquor traffic b,
put down forcibly and forever. Honestl.
had the poet said
30 thou invisible spirit of wine
ha M tnnr nam 10 ho Ir,nr Nv
Let US call thee devil!''
Yet this veritable devil would ere long b.
overpowered. great agitation in favor o
municipal reform had resulted in the re
cent upheaval in New York city. Ten year
ago there could have been no Roosevelt
Twenty years from now the radical Roose
welt would be a conservative Roosevelt. T
destroy intemperance education was neces
sary, laws were necessary, but neither coul
succeed without the grace of God. Quotin
old Leatherstocking's struggle against an en-
circlng prairie fire, Mr.. Ingersoll closed
$50 let US fight fire with fre-the fire c
desolation with the fire of Gods word"