River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-09-18
The Saloon Power Doomed.
BY AMOS WELLS.

Does any one doubt the saloon S
power? We speak of the Great
Powers of Europe, but they are all
OF them Great Weaknesses compar-
ed with the saloon power We talk
OF electrical power and call this the
electrical age; but so we might bet
ter call this the saloon age. The
saloon has a power to control labor
and dictate to capital, a power to
absorb wages, close factories, tear
down homes, power greater than
the pestilence to ruin bodies, great
er than war to impoveriSh nations,
greater than mammon to destroy
souls.
There are those that will call
these statements fanatical and alb
surd, but they are not the men that
have studied this matter with the
heart as we'll as the head. 1t is ca
sy TO shut man up in a glass case,
feed him whiskey, weigh him from
time to time, and draw conclusions
as to the food value of whiskey. 1t
is easy to classify facts in glass
cases similarly. But it is not so
easy to analyze the spiritual change
wrought by alcohol, transforming
unselfish husbands into murderous
brutes, industrious workmen into
lazy sots, brilliant reasoners into
dwelling idiots, moral giants into
moral dwarfs. No chemist ever
caught this change in a test tube,
no statistician can deduce figure
representing it, and therefore chem
ist and statistician think they are
scientific in ignoring it.
Yet there is probably no man,
woman or child in "civi1ized' lands
whose life will not sometime be sad
dened, if it has not already been,
by this terrible curse of strong
drink. 1t may be lover, a hus-
band, friend, a brother, child. 1t
may be ones own self. But do you
know a family that does not hang
it's head for a drunkard? And at
any rate, we must pay our share
no, the saloon keepers and the
drunkard's share-of the money
cost. We must support the prisons
and the asylums and the courts and
the police and the poorhouses, and
in all the work of the church we
must give double because the devil
is thus fi1ching the resources that
should be hers.
But is this saloon power doom
ed" as our topic implies? Most
certainly. Never before has public
sentiment been SO strong against it.
Never before has temperance 1egis-
lation been so active and SO popu-
lar Maine with it's absolute prohi-
bition, South Carolina with it's state
dispensaries, Massachusetts, with
it's local option and compulsory an
nua1 vote on the question, are max
ing experiments that are watched
with keen interest. Never before
was drinking so condemned in So
ciety. Never before have SO many
employers placed it under the ban
in hiring labor. Never before have
children been SO wisely warned
against it in the schools.
The friends of temperance need
now only to join hands and move
forward, and victory is sure. If SO
much can be done while the temper
ance forces are divided into mutu
ally suspicious armies, what may
not be done when all that love God
and hate the saloon are working to-
gether as brothers in a holy cause?
We must acknowledge one another's
honesty of purpose, be willing to
try one another's plans and use 9th
er methods than those we prefer,
sacrifice our Individual judgment
for the good of the world. Shall
we not rejoice if the world is saved,
even if it is not saved our way?