Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1897-07-02
FOR UrI1rr1Na HUMANITY.

Address Given by DR.. A. A. Whitfield by
Request Of w. =. T. u. at s0ltliers' Home.
(Published by Request.)
Continued from June 1877
Thirty five years ago there was no
Woman's Christian Temperance Union.
Today its members are counted by the
thousands, and the list of those inter-
ested in the work number over 10000.
It has erected a building for it's head
quarters in Chicago at cost of $780,
600, controlled, and soon to be entirely
owned by women.
A few years ago there were no papers
entirely devoted to temperance. To-
day the Union publishes weekly pa
per having thousands of subscribers in
all parts of the globe. 1t also edits a
paper for young people in which the
Temperance idea is eminent; and
in addition to this publishes innumer-
able tracts and leaflets, which it scat
ters broadcast over the land-seed
sown in all soils. 1t has sent it's speak
ers into all parts of the world and gir-
died the world with it's white ribbon.
1t has organized thousands of child
ren into temperance societies; has So
cured the introduction into schools of
instruction in hygiene and the effects
of alcohol, opium and tobacco, and
with it's several departments, each
working on a special line, presents one
of the best organized societies ever
known. You thus catch a glimpse of
one of the factors that is making pub
lie opinion in this matter.
And while it might be pleasant and
not altogether profltless to spend the
remaining time summing up what has
been done. yet when one city, Boston,
reports $4,000 arrests in one year for
drunkenness, when one hospital, Belle
vue, reports between 5000 and 1000
annually treated for the effects of
debauch, when one clipping bureau in
Now York secures enough items relat-
ing only to the criminal and financial
phases of the question, in three
months, to make when pasted together
Il strip of newspaper, column width,
10 yards long-including in its list I'D
murders, thirteen wives murdered by
drunken husbands, 100 families desti-
tute and forty-two suicide. and all this
to by a bureau reading less than one
third of the papers published in this
country.
When we remember that the saloons
of this country, if placed side by side
and allowing only twenty-five feet
frontage to each one, would reach
from New York City to Chicago; and
our annual liquor bill reaches the mil
lion mark. Indeed, we need not look
beyond the limits of our own town to
realize that while much has been done.
much remains to be done.
fou ask me why, apparently, has
there been so much waste of energy,
so much misdirected force There are
many reasons why we have not been
able to move faster, but I will only
mention three that seem to me to be
pre-eminent and also amendable:
l. Our measures have been more
conformatory than transformatory.
.. Mistaken ideas of what consti-
tutes personal liberty.
3. Mistaken ideas concerning the
patrons of the saloon.
The command was, "Be ye not con-
formed, but be ye transformed" Two
entirely different processes. l may
take caterpillar and, securing beau
tiful pair of butterfly wings, carefully
fasten them on his sides. He is some
what conformed into the shape of a
butterfly, but he can't fly; he still
crawls. He's caterpillar still, and if
left to himself would soon lose his
wings. But let him live his allotted
time and roll himself up in his cocoon.
In the silence and the darkness of that
nest the process goes on until at last
he wakens; he leaves his cradle and
emerges butterfly transformers
caterpillar never more.
In medicine we say the first step in
treating disease is to learn the cause
Drunkenness is disease, the liquor
traffic malignant ulcer on the pub
lies surface. What feeds ? Whence
comes the never ending stream of vic
tins? What do they make drunkard.
out of? OF old men? Almost never
OF middle aged men? Seldom. O
young men? 1t is from the ranks ol
the young men they make them. Thel
it is plain we must begin still earlier i
we would stem the current. We mus
begin with the child, which must b,
trained to habits of moral rectitud
and Temperament in all things. Remem
ber intemperance in the use of liquo
is not the only intemperance in tn
world. Nor is excessive use of alcoho
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