The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1898-09-23

was supposed to be a clergyman. "Why
do you take me to be clergyman
said the man. ooh" said the Russian,
"all other Americans swear" The
crime is multiplying in intensity. God
very often shows what he thinks or IT,
but for the most part the fatality Is
hushed up. Among the Adirondacks
met the funeral procession of man
who two days before had fallen under
fash of lightning, while boastlng
after a Sunday of work in the fields,
that he had cheated God out OF one
day, anyhow, and the man who worked
with him on the same Sabbath is still
living, but helpless invalid, under the
same fash.
I indict this evil as the regicide, the
fratricide, the patricide, the matricide,
the uxoricide of the century. Yet I'M
der what innocent and delusiye and
mirthful names alcoholism deceives the
pecple 1t is a cordial" 1t is bit
ters." 1t is an "eye-opener." 1t is
an appetizer" 1t is "digester." 1t
is an "invigorator." 1t is Settler.
It is might cap" Why don't they
put on the right labels" Essence OF
Perdition," Conscience Stupefier,"
Five Drachms of Heart-ache," Tears
of Orphanage," BLOOD Of Souls"
"Scabs of an Eternal Leprosy," "Ven-
ON of the Worm that Never Dies?"
Only once in while is there anything
in the title of liquors to even hint
their atrocity, as in the case of sour
mash" That 1 see advertised all
over. 1t is an honest name, and any
one can understand it. "Sour mash!"
That is, it makes mans disposition
sour, and his associations sour and his
prospect sour; and then it is good to
mash his body, and mash his soul, and
mash his business and mash his fam
lily. "Sour mash!" One honest name
at last for an intoXicant! But through
lying labels Of many of the apothe-
carries shops, good people, who are
only a little under tone in health, and
wanting some IMMIGRATION, have I'M
Willingly got on their tongue the fangs
of this cobra, that stings to death so
large ratio of the human race.
Others are ruined by the common
and all-destructiye habit of treating
customers. And it is a treat on their
coming to town, and treat while the
bargaining progresses, and a treat
when the purchase is made, and a
treat as he leaves town.. Others, to
drown their troubles, submerge them
selves with this worse trouble. Oh,
the world is battered and bruised and
blasted with this growing evil! 1t is
more and more entrenched and forth
fed They have millions of dollars
subscribed to marshal and advance the
alcoholic forces. They nominate and
elect and govern the vast majority Of
the officeholders of this country. On
their side they have enlisted the might
lest political power Of the centuries.
And behind them stand all the myr-
midons of the neither world, Satanic,
Apollyonic and Diabolic. 1t is beyond
all human effort to overthrow this
bastile of decanters or capture this
Gibraltar of rum jugs. And while
approve of all human agencies of re-
form, 1 would utterly despair if we
had nothing else. But what cheers me
is that our best troops are yet to come.
Our chief artillery is in reserve. Our
greatest commander has not yet fully
taken the field. If all hell is on their
side, all heaven is on our side. Now
LET God arise, and let his enemies
be scattered"
Then look at the impurities of these
great cities. Ever and anon there are
in the newspapers exposures of social
life that make the story Of Sodom
quite respectable; "for such things"
Christ says, were more tolerable for
Sodom and Gomorrah" than for the
Chorazins and Bethsaidas of greater
light. 1t is no unusual thing in our
cities to see men in high positions
with two or three families, or refined
ladies willing solemnly to marry the
very swine Of society, if they be veal
thy. The Bible all aflame with de-
nunciations against an impure life, but
many of the American ministry utter
ing not one point-blank word against
this iniquity lest some old libertine
throw up his church pew. Machinery
organized in all the cities of the Unit
ed States and Canada by which to put
yearly in the grinding-mill of this
iniquity thousands of the unsuspecting
of the country farm-houses, one pro-
curess confessing in the courts that
she had supplied the Internal market
with one hundred and fifty victims in
six months. Oh! for five hundred
newspapers in America to swing open
the door Of this lazar-house of social
corruption! Exposure must come be-
fore extirpation.
While the city van carries the scum
OF this sin from the prison to the po-
lice court morning by morning, it is
full time, if we do not want high Amer
lean life to become like that of the
court of Louis XIV, to put millionaire
Lotharios and the Pompadours of your
brown-stone palaces into van of pop
,,1o, drfuo then,