Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1896-02-05
WHAT OF THE F%UTURE?-ITs LIGHTS N
SHADOWS.

WHAT OF II FUTURE?-ITs LIGHTS AND
SHADOWS.
Whether the future brings what we
most wish for depends largely on our
own efforts. 1t is an old saying that
we judge the future by the past.
Whether true or not let us look for a
moment into that past. There is an
evil abroad in our land, compared to
which all other evils and calamities
diminish into mere nothingness. Why
is this giant evil permitted to stalk I'm.
challenged through the length and
breadth Of our otherwise fair land. 1t
is'for the one hundred and fifty million
dollars annual gain that this Christian
nation sells its birthright. Sells it to
the blacklist crimes that ever stained
the annals of civilization. Oh the
misery of it ALL What tongue can
tellr What pen portray it? Even
though it were dipped in the blood of
hearts crushed by this awful traffic,
and the black night of agony and de-
spair that it causes, lcould be used as a
scroll on which to write. 1t beggars
mothers and children; takes the bread
out of their famished mouths, and the
clothes from their poor shrunken bodies.
1t demoralizes individuals and nations.
Whatever demoralizes the individual
demoralizes the nation, and vice versa.
Does anyone doubt for a moment the
demoralizing effect on the nation of
this legalized crimep Let him read
what the Hon. M. W.. Harwood, Con-
gresham from our own southland,
says in an article entitled, "If Christ
came to Congress, "of the bacchanalian
revels that marked the closing hours
of the Fifty Third Congress and that
on the holy Sabbath day. He says ''in
the capitol champagne flowed like
water, and women of ill repute swarm
ed the corridors and sang songs in the
public restaurants with inebriated Con-
gressmen." All this and much more
beneath the jeweled dome, between
the marble walls of the temple of
liberty" And among the solons of
this nation met to consider the best in
terests of over $4,000, 900 people with
all the responsibility thereof upon
them. In the light of such q past;
what is the promise of the future?
Especially as such things leave their
impress. We know that a great per
cent of all our criminals, of all our
lunatics, of all the worst forms of dis
ease, of all the useless aimless lives are
a direct legacy handed down through
heredity, from drunken ancestors; and
yet Christian America in the civilized
cultured closing days of the nineteenth
century legalizes this red handed crime
that is annually sending it's thousands
to q drnnkard's doom, all for revenue.
We might learn a lesson from a heather
nation. The Emperor of China says:
mot a dollar will l take for that which
causes my people w~retchedness. VIM.
I. Stead says: Everything that
touches the woman touches the home.n
We say everything that touches the
home touches the mother. Mother love
is the same everywhere. The elder
duck plucking the down from her own
breast to make q sof: warm bed for her
offspring is prompted by the same in.
herent love as the poor woman who
goes hungry and cold and tolls all day
for o mere pittance that her children
may be fed and clothed, and often that
p~ittance is taken by the husband and
father and goes into the till of the sa-
loon keeper; while his children 90
gaunt with hunger and blue with cold.
The mother knowing that every device
known to the prince of darkness will
be used to inveigle her boys into the
awful drink habit. The blood of the
10000 yearly slain by this awful traffic,
cries to heaven for ~retribution. From
where think you come the recruits that
more than keep up this armyp There
is only one way to do it. We mothers
must furnish boys. Boys is the cry of
this inveterate monster. Mother, are
you willing to give your fair haired
darling to this causep Remember your
daughter may marry one who has Joined
this ever increasing army. If you are
not willing to have your sons and
daughters thus sacrificed, join the Wo-
mans' Christian Temperance Union,
which is an organized motherhood,
and work for the cause of Christ, the
publication of the home, and the up
lifting of humanity.
The saloon with its two kindred evils
touches the home on every side, and
the fight is on between the home and
the saloon. What is more natural than
that woman should enter the lists
against her most deadly enemyp The
enemy of all she holds most dear in
life, yea dearer than life itself. We
need hone for no great reform until wa