Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1901-04-12

Tramp, tramp, tramp. the boys are
marching; how many of them? Sixty
thousand Sixty full regiments, every
man of which will, before twelve months
shall have completed their course, lie
down In the grave of a drunkard. Every
year during the past decade has witness
ed the same sacrifice; and sixty regi-
ments stand behind this army ready to
take its place. 1t is to be recruited from
our children and our children's children.
Tramp, tramp, tramp-the sounds come
to us in the echoes of the army Just ex-
PRED; tramp, tramp, tramp-the earth
shakes with the tread of the host now
passing; tramp, tramp. tramp-comes to
us from the camp of the recruits. A
: great tide of life flows resistlessly to its
death. What in Gods name are they
fighting for? The privilege of pleasing an
appetite, of conforming to social usage,
of filling sixty thousand homes with
shame and sorrow, of loading the public
with the burden of pauperism, of crowd
ing our prison houses with felons, of de-
tracing from the productive industries
of the country, of running fortunes and
breaking hopes, of breeding disease and
WTtlcucuUtSS. VI utsllOylD DOln Douy
and soul in hell before their time.
The prosperity of the liquor interest,
covering every department of it, depends
entirely on the maintenance of this
army. 1t cannot live without it. 1t
never did live without it. So long as the
liquor interest maintains its present pros
porous condition, it will cost America the
sacrifice of sixty thousand men every
year. The effect is inseperable from the
cause. The cost to the country of the
LIQUOR traffic is sum so stupendous that
any figures which we should dare to give
would convict US of tritling. The amount
of life absolutely destroyed, the amount
of industry sacrificed, the amount of
bread transformed into poison, the shame,
the unavailing sorrow, the crime, the
poverty, the pauperism, the brutality,
the wild waste of vital and financial re-
sources, make an aggregate so vast-so
intellectually vast,-that the only won
der is that the American people do not
rise as one man and declare that this
great curse shall exist no longer.
A hue and cry is raised about woman
suffrage, as if any wrong which
may be involved in womau's lack of the
suffrage could be compared to the wrongs
attached to the liquor interest.
Does any sane woman doubt that wO
men are suffering thousand times more
from rum than from any political dsabil
ity?
The truth is that there is no question
before the American people today that
begins to match in importance the temper
ance question. The question of Ameri-
can slavery was never anything but a
baby by the side of this; and we proph-
esy that within ten years, if not within
five, the whole country will be awake to
it, and divide upon it. The organza-
| tions of the liquor interest, the vast funds
at its command, the universal feeling
among those whose business is ptted
against the national prosperity and pub
lie mOrals-these are enough to show
that, upon one side of this matter, at
least, the present condition of things and
the social and political questions that lie
in the immediate future are apprehended
The liquor interest knows there is to be "A
great struggle aud is preparing to NEE
it. People both in this country and in
Great Britain are beginning TO see the
enOrmity of this business-are beginning
to realize that Christian civilization is
\ actually poisoned at its fountain, and
that there can be no publication of IT W.
til the source of the poison is dried up.
Temperance laws are being passed by
the various legislatures, which they
must sustain, or go over, soul and body
to the liquor interest and influence. Steps
ora baino takpn on behalf .of tho nnhIi,.
health, morals, and prosperity, which
they must approve by voice and act, or
they must consent to be left behind and
left out. There can be no concession and
no compromise on the part of the temper
ance men, and no quarter to the foe.
The great curse of our country and our
race must be destroyed.
Meantime, the tramp, tramp, tramp
sounds on,-the tramp of sixty thousand