Clarke courier. [volume] (Berryville, Va.) 1869-1997, 1905-01-11
HISTORY OF TEMPERANCE REFORM.

the Union signal the following eN-
cerptS from an address delivered
before the National W. G. T. L.
Convention in Philadelphia, Pa,
December ,, 1904, by Rev. Silas
c. Swallow, late Prohibition candi-
date for the Presidency:
The first historic record of the
use Of alcohol as beverage was
when Noah the husbandman, the
second actual head of the human
race, became intoxicated proba-
bly, by accident. He made a sorry
exhibition of himself, as have all
grades of drunkards through all
the intervening four thousand
years. From that remote period
forty-two centuries ago, one hun
dred and twenty generations Of the
human race have come and gone,
and probably through every one of
them the use of alcohol as bever-
age has run like a burning. seeth-
ing, death-dealing sewer. 1t is
not to be wondered at, that the
philosophic pesSimist of our day
should close his ears to our plea
for abstinence and prohibition, and
answer back, AS it was in the
beginning, and ever hath been.a and
Is now, so shall it ever be-" His
tory shows that nearly every cen
fury has witnessed efforts to re-
form the drunkard, to prevent the
innocent from contracting the APP
petite, and to prohibit the liquor
traffic. Law, and literature. and
philosophy are filled with its stag
gering footprints.
The Nedas and Moses; Heroditus
and XenOphon: Homer. Aristotle
and Plato; Ezekiel, David, Daniel.
Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nahum, Hosea
and Habakuk; John the forerun-
ner and Jesus who followed. and
Paul who preached Him. and q
thousand others, tell of the curse.
the long sought cure, and out of
Christ the dismal failure to find it.
1t has been reserved for the Amer
leans of the nineteenth and twen-
heth centuries, the descendants of
the heroes of Bunker Hill. and
Concord, of Lexington and Valley
Forge; the descendants of the moral
giants who penned and signed the
immortal document declaring ''all
men born equal, with inalienable
rights to life, liberty and the pur-
suit of happiness, 1t has been
reserved for us to inaugurate and
prosecute, the longest, strongest.
most determined fight of the CEN
turtles for freedom from bondage
to the cup, and for liberty from its
law-enthroned despotism.
All history shows that abstainers
like Daniel, Isaiah and John; like
the Rechabites, Essences, Nazarites.
Templars and Washingtonians
were, and are blessed, and that all
drinkers were and are accursed.
Most of the nations of antiquity
went down largely through the
drunkenness first of voluptuous
rulers, and then of the initiative
people. The future of our own
country, as of France, England
and Germany, is likely to turn up.
or turn down with the tide of
abstinence or drunkenness. We
are slow to see it, slower to accent
it as truth, and slower still to-
profit by the truth; but no man
can place the signs of the times
side by side with the chart of his
Tory, and looking at them together.
with eyes purged of lust, and of
coyetousness, and of party spirit. |
remalnunconvinceda and unalarmed |
The colonists brought with them |
The drinking habits of the old |
world, and license and revenue
have ever since gone hand in hand
If the governments, state and
had left the liquor traffic
10 take It's chance with other kinds
Dt business, it would long since
have been convicted and condemn
I'd as nuisance, and driven back
TO hell whence it first came. But
human cupidity. which is but an
)ther name for that "covetousness
which is idOlatry," has always
been able to blind the rulers and
he ruled, to three indisputable
acts; first, that taxation implies
protection, both to the business
nd to the lnan conducting the
second, that however
Ugh the tax put upon the business.
costs the people to take care of
S results many times more than ;
ne revqnue derived froDo eooL