The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1897-04-09
w. CT. U. COLUMN.
CONDUCTED BY MRS. NJ. l.. HOBBS.
DEMOREST FLASHES.

DEMOREST FLASHES.
The liquor traffic is a pes!ilenc
that walketh in darkness, a destruc
ton that walketh at MONDAY" 1t
horrors throw gloom over tn
whole community. What fills ou
prisons, our poor houses, our luna
tic asylums, our hospitals? Wha
supplies the gallows with victims
What blights the happiness of hom
and brings a direful curse upon it
What sends many poor wife t
her pillow of tears, praying that sh'
may never see the morning light
What brutalizes men and degrade
women? This deadly crime o
liquor selling. Who but voters arr
responsible for this appalling recorc
Of misery?
This awful scourge of humanity
the traffic in alcoholic poison-ha'
done more to brutalize and degrad,
the world and to fill it with poverty
disease and crime than all othel
evils combined. Let each individ
ual voter ask himself how far he i,
responsible for this terrible curse o
society.
Are the youths who crowd liquor
saloons likely to become honest
upright, useful, patriotic citizens
Are they in fair way to become
honored heads of households OF
good Christians. Surely not.
Said father, 81 would see my
girls under the ground rather thar
married to drunkards. " What
father with any parental affection
does not echo that sentiment?
One of the most lamentable fea-
lures in the war against the liquor
traffic is that the mass of the peo-
pie are so apathetic, and seem ig-
norant as to the vigilance of their
enemies, who are actively alive to
every effort and influence that will
favor their selfish designs. This
makes it next to impossible to
arouse voters to see their true in
terests and to realize that the most
potent power they possess is the
ballot.
The political claims and general
interests of our city, state and ma
ton are, and ought to be, considered
a part of the moral and religious OBJ
legations we owe to ourselves as well
as to our homes and families, es.
pecially when the whole political
interests of the country are degraded
and under the control of its worst
enemies as consequence Of the
political delinquency of its best
citizens in tolerating and sanction
ing the greatest curse OF modern
times, the saloon.
-.
1t is most surprising that pro
Christian people, including|
representatives Of the press, should
be so short sighted as to take the
ground that any regulation, .astric-
ion, sanction, tax or license of the
liquor traffic is remedy for the
evils that flow from it, especially
lfter nearly 200 years of failure and
illustrations of the utter
utility ofsuch methods.
AT recent church temperanceI
Meeting clergyman in high stand
ng declared that wine was one of
he good gifts of God, a considerate|
lse of which was justified by the
Bible, and that license law was
he best means Of regulating its use
n this community. What a libel
IN mother tears and agony overl
he loss of her dear and perhaps on
y son, brought about by the open
licensed saloonl Are justice and
'irtue in their demands for protec-
ion to be silenced by liveried SER
ant of God, who breaches to a rich
congregation? Is his exalted po-
ition to be screen for his perver-
ion of the teachings Of the Bible
nd his insensibility to the demands
( poor, suffering humanity, de-
raded and impoverished by the
4uor traffic?
Our intelligence is not so much at
iult. We know more than we are
'illing to do. We should learn the
lost useful lesson-that it is never
xpedient 10 do wrong. Good in
ention alone will not save. What
re want most is an enlightened,
italized, active conscience. Con-
cience incarnated into law will
lone extirpate the saloon curse.