Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1898-11-16
Temperance Comment.

W. Q. Z. U. of WillmAr.1
Our nations drink bill now aegre-
gates the enormous sum of 81, 200, 000,-
600 every year.
Some good people, think that atten-
tiOn should not be called to the re-
sponsibility of the church for the con-
tinuance of the saloon. But they are
too late, for every body knows that she
has the power to overthrow it. The
only way to protect her reputation is
to arouse her to her duty.
- II
No department of honest industry
can escape the devastating influence
of the success of the liquor traffic, ex-
cept possibly that of the undertaken.
The carnage of war will be perpet-
uated in memory SO long as the ma
tional cemeteries tell their sad and i'm
pressive tale. Nobody who goes
through these silent cities of dead he
roes who fell at Getty sburg aid Chat
tanooga, can lightly esteem the sacri-
fec which was paid by those who
fought and fell in order to preserve to
US country one and indissoluble
and free. Three, five, ten thousand
little stone monuments marking the
graves OF slaughtered dead seems a
stupendous number, but it seems more
stupendous because these victims of
war were slain in one day and at one
place. If they were killed now and
then, here and there, some on picket
duty. some in a charge, some by acct
dent, some by disease, huge though
the years. total might be, it would not
be so shocking to public sense. It is
this intermittent though constant as
sassination wrought by the legalized
rum traffic, which renders us more or
less Indifferent to the frightful total of
casu alities of given period. For in
stance, we are callous to the fact we'll
atte sted, that the saloon claims 10O,-
600 human victims each year, because
it is a daily sacrifice of only a few
hundred, which makes up this appall-
ing total, and only small fraction of
these fatalities is reported. A daily
paper which is widely known for the
clean, wholesome character Of its
pages, in it's ordinary reports Of news,
on recent morning contained on one
page three separate columns of dis
patches which narrated the taking of
human life under the passion Of drink.
In one column we were told how a New
York policeman, himself a guardian
of the law, while crazed by liquor sold
by the laws permission, shot and kill
led his mother, his wife, his four'year-
old son, his six-year-old daughter and
himself. Another dispatch from South
Dakota tells how Edward Shannon,
an old and hitherto respected citizen,
while intlamed by liquor, murdered
his wife, also public official named
Giddings, and a private citizen who
had interfered to stay the mad fury of
the drunken demon. The third col
umn relates how Wisconsin Volun-
teer in our Porto Rican Army, be-
came embroi|ed with a brother soldier
III a wine shop, and killed him. The
drunken boy was courtmartialed and,
instead of returning to his mother
wearing the laurels of victorious
campaign. be will languish for life in
a murderer's cell at Fort Leavenworth.
Here in one mornings news, on a
single page of a single paper, we read
OF ten lives laid on the altar Of the
drink god, and the public takes it all
as a matter Of course. We fail to be
aroused, or even Interested. But,
suppose, instead Of reading the extra
ordinary and peculiarly shocking
fatalities Of this order, it we're possible
10 81 e in daily print the entire list of
human sacrifices which the saloon
claims each morning, does anybody
doubt that there would be a moral
rev olution under way in one month?
There is no revolution, and it is be-
cause as yet the saloon has not laid
it's hand upon some dear one of our
own dresi( e: and why should We bother
about something in which we are not
personally concerned? We know tn at
there are 100. 900 unneces sary graves
to be dug this year, but they are not
for Us. Are we sure? Are we ever
sure that one of those dishouored
mounds will not some day confine a
form that we love? But even were
we sure, is there no obligation to
rescue a neighbours sou? Is there no
obligation to preserve our nation
from the havoc Of this moral pestil-
ence?oRam' Horn.
II Il"
Miss Frances T. Willard CON-
mended every young pc, son to learn
aud speak these verses:
.'Wrte IL IN the ,york1,curo ,,,t,