Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1897-08-16
Our temperance Bayard.


and in the cities that are the centers OF
our great philanthropies. there were
slaughtered last year l1,172 persons. OF
whom 1862 were murdered and the
rest committed suicide. This is prob
ably the bioodiest record ever made in
any country except Turkey and anon,
eannihals.
Side by side With this sickenins
statement put another: The proper
tion of murders 10 population steadily
increases. and has done so for many
wears. Dr. w. +. Crafts assures Us
that in the last 80 years (slnce 1861.
murders, divorces and liquor sales have
increased ten times as fast as the popu-
lation. L4ynchngs. labor riots ami
municipal corruption have devel-
cned 10 a greater extent than in an,
other country. Social impurity, by the
testimony of a recent convention Of
physicians, has increased apace and the
Sabbath is more attacked and less de-
Tended than ever before.
Now add the declaration of judges
grand juries, statisticians, chaplains
and wardens of prisons that 90 per cent
of the crimes committed in this country
have their origin in strong drink, and
is it conceivable that With such a situa-
ton confronting, surrounding, pressing
in upon us at every inch of space,
vast majority of our people can go On
with their regular routine and make no
effort TO try to meet the cause of the
calamity with we'll considered, sys-
tematic and unrelenting opposition? To
be 50 constructed mentally that one
can go on his way rejoicing when he
lives in a land where nobody's life is
safe because of beer and brandy. is -
confess a lapse of mental power, to say
nothing of paralysis of conscience and
Justification of heart. The very fact
that this is done proves that as ma
ton We are drugged.
But history bears witness thar
mans extremity sGod's opportunity.
The pressure of terrible events forces
out into the arena of reform those
whom God has ordained to wrestle for
the right of humanity TO live and grow.
1t is only under pressure that the
choicest results are had, in character
or conduct In the natural world it is
the same. Low pressure forms the
clod, but only the highest pressure
known can yield the diamond.
There are plenty of men and women
of the Bradley Martin order, who are
capable of dancing on the grave of the
republic; they care nothing about IT
except as a gold mine, out of which
wage workers can dig fortune for
them. which. they hasten to Europe TO
spend in disgraceful or degrading
pleasures. But there is always a refn-
nant left that has not bowed its knee
to Baal." There are men and women
of finer fiber, better compacted in body
and more brightly illumined in brain.
They We're bred by parents who locke
out upon life with a serious eye and up
into the heavens With an undying
faith.
Though oft depressed and lonely,
All my fears are laid aside,
If | but remember only,
Such as these have lived and died.
There was never true poet who dld
not tackle the times in which he lived
10 make them better. There was never
an orator for whom the people cared,
deliverance What these great ones
are ON their high plane of inspiration
ana OF argument, that the reformer is
IN the tumult of the battle where crime
and cruelty marshal their legions and
virtue lifts her flag, while the old guard
that dies but never surrenders rallies
IN solid phalanX for her vindication and
me triumph of her cause. For merely
To talk is nothing; to do is everything,
and he is crowned with all achieving
who percelves and then performs.
Among the worlds reformers there
have been few better adapted to their
work than Gen. Neal Dow, the author
OF the Maine Law and the father OF
Prohibition. He was built to last and
De has lasted. He was endowed with
perfect fearlessness of mems opinions.
His strength was as the strength OF
ten, because his life was pure" What
90 we not owe to Quaker birth and
breeding in the work of great reforms
III has been claimed, and perhaps just
", that the Quakers were really the
hrst temperance workers in the United
States They certainly took up the
of Christians made it part and parcel
ci their propaganda. 1t was a Quaker
VINO persuaded Father Mathew to es-
pouse the temperance cause; 1t was a
quaker, no other than Neal Dow him
Selt who went to England in 1857, and
twice thereafter. where he gave five
hundred temperance addresses without
charge, in which he told the story Of
prohibition in Maine. and was reward
ed ny the formation of the famous
bnited Temperance Alliance" of which
mat stalwart champion, Sir WilfriG
lawson, has long been the leader.
Large figures require long perspec-
tlVes, if we would see them in their
true proportions. Gen. Neal Dow viii
loom in the annals of his country q
srowingly grandiose personality as the
years multiply. He is a man who has
Jared to look the devil of his own gen
eration in the face land tell him that
ne Is the devil" He has stood during
u long and spotless life for this one
principle; that the crown of creation,
so far as we know, is the domelike
mead carried on human shoulders; that
'his Is the universe in miniature. and
the nearest to God of anything of which
we are aware: that forth from it has
come all that makes the earth differ
eht from den of beasts, and that any
material sold or used which produces