River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1902-05-08
Bridget Kilroy.
Reprinted from an editorial, by VIM. P. L
Ferguson, in The New Voice of
February 6, 1902

We respectfully call the attention
of the Ri. Rev. Henry C. Potter,
bishop of the diocese of New York
in the Protestant Episcopal church;
of the Rev. William Stephen Rains
ford, rector of St. Georges; of Presi-
dent Henry S. Pritchett, Ii. D., of
the Massachusetts Institute of Tech
no1ogy; of Professor William O. At
water, Phi. D., of Wesleyan Univer-
sity; of Professor Albert P. Matthews
of the University of Chicago, and of
all others like-minded-we respect
fully call the attention of these
gentlemen to the tragic death of
Bridget Ki1roy, floor scrubber and
woman of general work, drunkard's
wife and the mother of drunkard' S
children, lying dead upon the floor
of a basement tenement of the city
of Boston on the morning of the
Sabbath day, January 26, in the
year of Christ, 1902.
Gentlemen, upon various occa-
sions in public addresses and in the
public prints, on dates more or less
recent, you have given utterance to
views concerning the saloon and
concerning the use of alcoholic
drinks, to which we have felt ob1ig-
ed to take exceptions and the falla-
cies of which it has seemed neces-
sary to point out. Concerning those
views we raise no discussion at the
present time. We will allow, form
ally, of course, and merely for the
sake of argument, your contention.
Let it be taken for granted that the
Prohibitionist is fraud and hypo-
critic, as Bishop Potter has insisted;
let it be accepted without disputa-
ton that the saloon is benefcent
institution and has come to stay"
as DR.. Rainsford has told the pub
lie; let it be conceded that the en-
enlargement of beer drinking, TAX
ing place in certain of our institu-
tons of learning, notably in the
Massachusetts, Institute of Technol-
ogy, arises from the best of motives;
let it be accepted as scientific truth
that alcohol is food, valuable both
in sickness and in health, as DR..
Atwater and his disciples contend;
let all these things be granted upon
your side of the contention, and in
the face of them all, and in recogni-
ton of them all, we do you to wit
the lot of Bridget Kilroy.
1t was the saloon that killed Bird
get Kilroy; it was the drink that
choked out her life, pounded and
kicked her body into a mass of
wounds and bruises. The saloon,
gentlemen, that you praise, cond1-
tiona1ly, it is true, but praise none
the less; the drink you defend, un-
der limitations, of course, but de-
fend none the less! The home of the
Kilroys, bare, cherries, poverty
stricken, a place of suffering and
sorrow, place where hungry chill
dren cried for food and little ones
shivered for lack of clothing, a place
where a father and husband forgot
his duty to his wife and children,
where a despairing mother, IN the
last extremities of anguish, fought,
day by day, to merely continue the
torture of life for herself and little
ones-that home, a fit place for the
commission of such crime, a place
ready prepared, as it were, for such
a scene of blood and violence-that
home, gentlemen, was the product
of the American saloon system, as
clearly marked as such, as well rec
ognized as such, as if the saloons i
hallmark" had been stamped up