The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1901-05-15
THE GREAT DESTROYER
SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT
THE VICE OF INTEMPERANcE.
Women and Temperance - The Reason
why Many of Them Can Understand
Mrs. Nations Motives - The Misery
Which the LIQUOR Habit Brings.

Which the Liquor Habit Brings.
Very few women can be found who will
admit that they sympathize with Mrs. Ma
tion's strenuous campaign in Kansas, but
there are probably many who can at least
understand her motives.
Every woman who has suffered through
alcohol" said one the other day, "feel1 a
responsive thrill whenever Kansas plate
glass window is shattered, because she
feels that the power of evil that liquor can
exert is diminished to some slight degree
in that far-of region.
Gall women are at heart abstainers,
whatever their pretence at other opinions
may. be, SO soon! as they have. seen hus;
by a taste for liquor. They know that
nothing in the world can bring them the
same amount Of suffering. 1t means to
them the loss of everything in the world,
and they dread liquor accordingly.
"Women of wealth who are assured OF
a certain prosperity whatever may come
to them, have less to suffer than those
who have to fear poverty with the attend.
ant distress and modification as result
of the abuse of liquor Not only the man
suffers then, but the woman and children
are also actively victims of the mistortunes
that overcome the husband with the taste
for liquor. -. ~,
not have suffered it in her own life, but
she has seen it in the lives of others, and
knows what may come to her, and that
knowledge makes her an opponent OF
LIQUOR, and determined advocate OF tenn
perance, if not of total abstinence.
's"The woman of wealth who sees her
husband a drunkard will not necessarily
suffer privations and the humillations that
follow. She will be merely embarrassed
and mortified so long as her love for her
husband continues" =,
at is not only the material troubles that
drunkenness causes woman, SAID an
other woman, "it is as much the thought
that she has more dangerous rival for her
husbands affection than any other in the
world. No woman is 80 likely to turn him
away from his home and his wife as liquor.
Drink absorbs the mind of the man with,
taste for liquor as nothing else In the
world does.
at is that knowledge that arouses the
jealous fear of every woman who sees
drink taking a hold on her husband or
lover. She knows that for no woman
would he neglect her, spending his time
elsewhere and his money until what ne
would under ordinary circumstances give
to her is wasted for his own pleasures.
She knows that no woman could cause this
change in the man she loves and who loves
her.
"But liquor can, and she knows also that
other things may follow in the course OF
drunkenness that are harder for her to
bear. That is one thing that makes every
woman an enemy of liquor and more or
less a champion of Mrs. Nation or any
propaganda that would diminish mems
temptations to drink"
There was still another view OF the
question come from a third person who
had said nothing in favor of the smash,
ing process during all the talk that had
preceded. She felt herself now equal to
saying what she thought since the ice had
been broken:
"Women have other reasons to sympa.
thize with any attempt to decrease the
drinking by their men outside their own
houses" she said Nothing ever made
me stronger advocate Of temperance than
the destruction I see men causing to their
health by careless habits of drinking a
cocktail before luncheon, two before dim
ner, wine with that meal and two or three
drinks during the course of the evening.
That is what its victim would call moder-
ate drinking. But it would not need a
doctor to tell him that he was running his
health.
"Of course he will see no signs of harm
during the days of his youth, although the
seeds of evil will be planted then. Wait
until he gets into the late thirties, and all
the results of those years of careless life
make themselves felt. He is damaged
then in health to degree that no amount
of prudence can ever correct. Hc may ny
self.denial and strict diet keep himself
more or less comfortably alive. But we see
the difference in nerves and bodily health.
"That has always seemed to me the best
reason in the world why women should be
the friends of temperance. Not all of us
suffer the worst effects that drink may
cause. but thousands of US are familiar
with the smaller evils of it."-New York
Sun,