St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1897-02-20

ebriacy is not an ordinary mount2iE
but j. is armed. 1t is line OF fortressea
continually blazing away its destruct'
i've forces upon all our neighb0rhoods
towns and cities, their volleys Of death
poured down upon the homes and
churches. Under this power more
than lO0, 900 men and women in this
country are every year imprisoned,
and an army of 600. COO drunkards al
most shake the earth with their stag
gering tread. 1t causes in this cOun'
try 500 murders aud 400 suicides q
year. This Mountain of Inebriacy hal
not only assaulted the land, but bonn
barded the shipping Of the sea, and
some Of the most appalling shipwrecks
on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts
have been the result. What sank
the steamer Rothsay Castle, on the
way from Liverpool to Dublin, de-
stroying 100 human lives? A drunken
cea captain. What blew up the Ben
Sherrod on the Mississippi and sent
$50 to horrible death? A drunken
crew. What drove ON the breakers a
steamer making her way from New
York to Charleston, and sent whole
families. on the way home from sum-
mer watering places, to the merciless
depths of the sea? A drunken sea
captain. Gather up from the depths
of the rivers. and lakes, and oceans
the bones of those shipwrecked by in
toxicated captains aud crews, and you
could build out of them q temple Of
horrors. all the pillars and altars and
ceilings fashioned Of human skulls.
1t is possible that such Mountain OF
Inebriacy can ever be made . plain?
Yorder. also. is the Mountain OF
Crime, with its strata of fraud, and
malpractice, and malteasance, and
blackmail, and burglary. and piracy.
and embezzlement, and libertinism,
aud theft, all its height manned with
the desperadoes, the cutthroats, the
pickpockets, the thimble-riggers, the
plundcrers. the marauders, the pill
layers, the corsairs. the wreckers, the
bandits, the tricksters. the forgers.
the thugs, the garotters, the fire fiends,
the dynamiters, the shoplifters, the
kleptomaniacs, the pyromaniacs, the
dipsomaniacs. the smugglers. the kid
napers, the Jack Sheppards, the Rob-
ert Macaires. and the Macbeths of
viIlainy. The crimes Of the
world! Am not right in
calling them. when piled mp togeth-
er. a mountain? But we can not
bring ourselves to appreciate great
heights except by comparison. You
think of Mount Washington as high,
especially those of you who ascended
as of old, on mule-back. or more re-
Gently by rail-train, to the Tip Top
House. Oh, mol That is not hight For
it is only about 9, 900 feet, whereas ris-
ing on this Western Hemisphere are
Chimborazo, 21.OO0 feet high. and
Mount Sahama. $4,000 feet high, and
Mount Sarota, 24,sOO feet high. But
that is not the highest mountain on
the Western Hemisphere. The high
est mountain is the mountain of crime,
and is it possible that this mountain.
before our Zerubbabel, can never be
made a plain?
There is also the Mountain of War,
the most volcanic of all mountains
the Vesuvius which, not content, like
the Vesuvius of Italy, with over
whelming two cities, Hcrculaneum
and Pompeii, has covered with its
fiery scoria thousands Of cities, and
would like to whelm all the cities of
both hemispheres. Give this noun
tain full utteraDcs, and it would cover
up Washington and New York and
London as easily a. . householder.
with his shovel, at ten o'clock at
night, ba nks a crate fire with ashes.
The mountain is pile of fortresses.
barricades, and armories, the
worlds artillery heaped wheels
above wheels, columbiads above
74-pounders above "a
Founders, wrecked nations above
wrecked nations. This Mountain Of
War is not only loaded to canuonade
the earth, but it Is also . cemetery,
holding the corpses of 30.OO0, 600 slain
in the wars of Alexander and Cyrus,
Go, ,OOO, 600 slain in Roman wars, 1s0. O00
slain in war with Turks and Saracens,
and holding about $4,000, COO, ,Od0
corpses, not million, but billion,
which was the estimate made by Ed
mund Burke more than . hundred
years ago OF those who had been de-
stroyed by wars, so that you would
have to add many more millions now.
The mightiest, grandest movement
for driving brutal war out of the earth
dates from January IL, 1897. The meu
who on either side of the sea did most
to effect that plan of arbitration have
made themselves immortal. The even
ing of the present administration Oi
the United States government has
been honored with the gladdest
event of the IL centuries AL
civilized nations will copy the
.sublime example. impore the
ilinstrious senate of the Unit
ed States to allow nothing to interiors
with q. vote of ratification, that the
bells of all Christeudom may ring out
"Peace on earth, good will toward
men," Senators. many of you my per
sonal friends. let me say that this Il
the opportunity Of your lives. BY en-
phatac and enthusiastic vote rise tG
the sple ndor of the occasion and wiz
the favor Of al tho good on earth and
all the mighty in Heaven. Let the
.Ayel ayer' of our American senate
resound through al the capitals o.
Europe, and make all the arsenals ani
armories of the round world hear thai
there shall be no more murder among
nations.
Twenty years ago . careful author
estimated that about fourteen timei
the then population Of the world hat
gone down in battle or in hospital st
ter battle. All! This Mountain o.
War is not like an ordinary mountain
1t is like Kilauea, one Of the Sandwich
Islands. which holds the greatest vol
cano in al the earth. and concerning
which I wrote from The .SandUic