The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1907-03-21

enness was not unknown to men of the
Mosaic age and God said much against
its use thru his inspired Solomon, David,
the greater prophets and the lesser.
Nothing new under the sun" you've
heard it often and some have doubted.
An old castle in Wolfegg, Germany,
possesses map clearly locating the
head water of the Nile. The date of
this authentic map is 400 years ago:
but this event is antidated, for the ex-
istence of Nyanza was known to Aris-
totle. So | state that the evils of drink
Is no new thing, and has been the bane
OF civilization in all ages. This car of
Juggernaut of our day-alcohol in it's
many seductive. .forms-goes crushing
over the country, counting its votaries
by the million. This God to so many
takes yearly toll of hundred thou
sand of our men TO untimely graves.
ltmatters not, civilized or uncivil:zed,
all nations, since the first tick of the
clock. of time, have produced intoxicat-
ing liquors; and today the popular tip
pie IN Spain, Persia, Switzerland and
Italy, is wine; in Austria, Belgium,
Portugal, Greece, Germany, it is beer
and wine; in Denmark, Norway, Swe-
den, both whisky and brandy are in
greater demand; in Japan, sake aud
American beer; in China, American
beer; in France, wine and absinth: in
Turkey, arrack; in Mexico, palaque; in
Holland, rum and gin; in England, ale,
porter and whisky; in Russia, vodka;
and here we mix them all, with beer
gallons in the lead Of many other ma
tions. Thus you see how this univer-
sal scourge holds the "whip" over it's
dupes, making Bunyan's picture in Pill
grlm's Progress, "The By Way to He'll"
a very tame looking caricature.
Most human ills are really self-cura-
BILE. From the simple cold to dreaded
pneumonia nature works valiantly to
restore to normal condition, and in
most cases succeeds. In the market
today are innumerable sure cures for
all human maladies. Mark Twain, |
think it is, who says that every man
has a private cure for cold, and urges
its use to the friend whose hoarseness
discloses the condition, which his dead
sure panacea will certainly relieve.
So it is with the drink malady and
its attending evils. Every advocate of
temperance believes that his prescrip-
tion is the only certain eradicator of
the curse of drink, and the air rings
his and the twenty million other reme-
dies into composite that bewilders.
1t is indeed most perplexing. The
question is grave and its solution of
greatest interest to every man.
Two children returning from Sunday
school, astonished their mother-one
declaring that John the Baptist was a
Russian or japanese, the other as
firmly asserting that he was quadru-
ped. The teacher had said he Was a
fOrerunner. One child had heard that
Russian or Japanese was foreign
er, while the other believed that fore
runner must be an animal with four
feet and legs-a quadruped. You will
agree with me that these opinions are
wide apart, and neither right. We
seem yet far away from the solution OF
earth's greatest curse, but it is coming;
and in the faces of my hearers l read
determination to assist It's early advent.
Every listener today knows that there
is no specious reason why the worlds
great nations should not unite to crush
this monster as they do to eradicate
that other plague, bequeathed to us by
our ancestry-War.
Yes, it is coming. Three-fourths of
our population are teetotalers today,
but the other fourth are doing valiantly
for the brewer and distiller, by consum-
ing of intoxicants at the rate of $40 per
capita. We spend every year more for
drink than we do for both meat and
breadstuffs. In the same year we pay
more for drink than for clothing,
household goods, boots, shoes, steel and
iron; and seven times as much as we
contribute to the sugar trust for sugar
and molasses.
Fractions quite unlike may be re-
duced to a common denominator, and
united. 1t is your duty and mil,e to so
achieve common denominator for
truth and Justice tina. our cause for hui