Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1903-02-28

euFFER MUCH. BUT WHERE YE'
HAPPY.
MEANS OF SUCCESS.
CHEERING WORDS az LADY sOMER
SET TO TEMPERANCE WORKERS.
Noted Englishv1oman Points Out
Means OF Success For the Crusade
of the Twentieth Century-Drinl<'s
Evils Graphically Portrayed.
Lady Henry Somerset has this to say
In the New York American regarding
the twentieth century temperance cru.
sade:
There has never been time in which
any battle for reform was fought when
those who waged the war were not ac-
cused Of hurting their own cause, when
they were not told that instead of wait
ing for the community to come to their
views and endeavoring to remove preju
dice and ignorance by patient explana.
ton and fair argument, by taking what
they could get and leaving what they
could not get, they were trying to re-
place common sense by zeal and that
enthusiasm was getting the better Of
sagacity.
Such charges have been uniformly
In st ~ oil
but I believe that in the end history
shows that all popular movements
must be led by those who fear nothing
and who have nothing to gain.
Centuries ago it was Confucius who
placed courage above wisdom and ex-
ecutive capacity and who said that
leader must be a man who is not only
capable Of forming plans, but fearless
in executing.
For years we have been told that the
temperance reformer is reforms worst
enemy. But 1 believe that the work
that has to be accomplished and that
is being accomplished is the true step
ping stone to success, and that work is
to rouse the slumbering conscience of
the nation.
In order to accomplish this we must
demonstrate untiringly how great is
the evil, unfalteringly reiterate how
vast the responsibility the country
bears that upholds so great curse as
the organized liquor traffic and un-
flinchingly demonstrate that the prin-
ciples upon which it is based are op-
posed to the principles of Christianity
that we profess.
Hitherto we have had splendid labor
ers who worked incessantly to create,
but only now have we those who can
in any way construct foundations upon
which the real reformation can be built.
We now stand at the beginning Of
new century, nearly hundred and fif-
ty years after the commencement OF
the battle for temperance in England,
and must ask ourselves: "Why is it
that today so little progress is made?
Why are there so few signs Of real re-
form?"
The reason is, think, that while the
nation has slept the enemy has sown
tares, and these have taken deep root
in our financial and political life. >.
We have today the humiliating spec.
tacle Of the facts that brewers practi.
cally hold the balance of power, and the
organized influence Of the liquor traffic
throughout the country is the greatest
menace to our political liberty, and We
have no hope whatever Of anycreal re-
form except as pressure shall be brought
to bear from the country at large. :
It is sometimes difficult to have pa
tience with the willful ignorance in
which people are contented to ltve-to.
know what the drink traffic means to
children and yet to be obliged to listen
to the miserable platitudes by which
we are continually reminded that to-
Interfere with the liberty of the indi-
vidual is to do greater harm than to
protect the children, whom we as ma
ton are pledged to care for. or that it
Is better to let little children be early
polluted by the contamination of the
saloon than to send older children there
to whom it might be a great peril.
e5 The futilily and the absurdity of
such arguments require no emphasis to
those who realize what the evil really
1 Is with which we have to contend. Wv
Idly there come to my mind pictures
that time can never efface, instances Of
what the drink traffic is doing for the
children Of our country. s-5-. s.s: =: -, =.
remen Der especially in this connec-
tion q man and woman who were
B both addicted to brutal Drunkenness
4 Snvho lived IN miserable den where one
stckly child dragged out its feeble ex-, ex-,
/ tstence until the pitiful angel Of death
took the little spirit unto. its arms an and
bore i away