The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1904-10-19
THE GREAT DESTROYER
SOME STARTLING FACTS ABOUT
THE VICE OF INTeMPERANcE.
Let These Women Be Content-They Arc
in Distinguished Company When They
Are Called Fanatics - The Epithet
cho,1a Ia Wcrn aa a Radoe of Honor.

Are Called Fanatics - The Epithet
Should BE Worn as a Badge of Honor.
The members of the Kings County Wom-
ans Christian Temperance Union object
to being called extremists" and 'fanat-
les" The corresponding secretary gave
out a letter defending the association and
urging for a look into the evils they fight
from their point of view. -.
These good women are too sensitive. IT
they are denounced as extremists and ia
natics it means that they are doing effect
i've work.
The Union had under consideration the
Subway Tavern, where whisky and gin and
beer are sold by. polite barkeepers, and
where the forms of responsibility are
thrown around a new rathskeller, where
men and women are invited to congregate
and fill themselves up to their eyelashes
with the same brands of wet goods that
are sold from the Bowery to the Bronx.
The drunk comes from too much drinking
in this rathskeller as surely as from a gin
mill in Cherry street. The after effect IS
just as bad. The chief merit claimed by
the Subway rathskeller promoters Is that
thew do not sell wood alcohol or counter
feits for straight, unadu!terated drunk
compelling LIQUOR.
The temperance women opposed the new
idea, and then they objected to beng
called fanatics. -,
They should take courage. They should
eeize the eDithet as a badge OF honor.
There never was a great reform that won
its way whose first movers were not de-
bounced as fanatics. -,
tt is the tribute that fear and a stupid
opposition to change pay to those VINO
would make the world better when the re-
formers find themselves called fanatics.
Peter the Hermit ran up and o Eu-
rope preaching the first crusade. I've nun
brought about a mental activity that kept
Europe from sinking into barbarism, with
er it had been drifting since the transfer
of the seat Of the Roman Empire from the
banks of the Tiber to C~onstantinople. y,
Peter the Hermit was a fanatic. The
men who wrung the Magma Charta from
the unwilling hands. of John were de-
nounced by his funkeys as fanatics.
|. The men who threw the boxes of tea
overheard in Boston harbor were called ia
natics by the kings officers and by the
dough-hearted Tories, who feared to trust
themselves in self-government. ,
Washington and his freezing, hungry and
half-naked army of men that hung around
Valley Forge were called fanatics by the
big-stomached officers and royalty lovers
WHO SDGuI JIG all IL uhoSk
ish flags in New York and Philadelphia.
When Thomas Jefferson, returning from
France, found New York under the spell
of Hamilton drifting toward monarchy--or
rather toward an idea that the ruling
classes should be made up from the rich
and the ex-Revolutionary oficers-he made
a declaration for the plain people," and
was denounced as a "howling fanatic"
Andrew jackson swore he would destroy
the United States Bank. The men ehlnd
the bank and their friends, Just like the
trust magnates to-day, called him a fanatic.
Robert Emmet is even to-day called a
fanatic, but he showed the world that I'D
erty is worth dying for.
Lady Mary Montagu was denounced as
q fanatic for advocating i%noculaticn Tor
smallpox.
Antiseptic surgeons were called fanatics
bv the old-line doctors, who still thought
bleeding was a good thing under al! condl'
tions, but time has shown that the sur.
gcon's knife cuts a way TO life, instead OF
being, as itswas once. an instrument OF
death.
Major Gorgas was called a fanatic when
he began to clean up Havana as / means OF
destroying yellow fever. There Is no fever
there this year, and Gorgas has moved OIL
Panama. $3.50.
Edison s felloW teIeBTapnerS caiieu iithi q
fanatic when he kept on trying to make
funny things in the operating room. His
light makes New York when darkness falls
as plain as day.
So let the good women who want people
to quit getting drunk be cheerful. Let
them be content to be called fanatics and
continue to try to make the world a better
place in which to live. They are in dis
tinguished company.-New York Journal.