The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1907-08-20
VICE IS VICE AND SHOULD Be so REGARDED.

Sums. Gambling Is gambling, WheLh-
Ell in the gilded salon by men Of edu-
cation and wealth or by negroes play
ing craps" on Sunday. ana
drunkenness steal away the brains ana
tend TO ~debauchery. whether at the
elegant slde-board Of the old-tlme
Southern planter or politician or In
the saloon or doeeery.
II IS because We have been "respec-
tiers OF person. and regarded drinking
ever 70 excess and gambling By men OF
education and standing as the vices
of gentlemen" and treated their SINS
as IL they were reallv TO be put above
the virtues Of the toiling man, that
so many young men of the South nave
early gone TO fill the drunkards grave
and to be lured TO ruin by the music
Of the dice. Just 60 long as we Talk
about drinking and gambling engaged
in b. men of position as 'Ren~tle!nahiy
vices just that long will young men
of ambition be lured into thinking 1t
is no sin to drink if they are in the
company Of those who belong to lead
ing families and that gambling Is not
damaging 10 their character If the men
who sit at the gaming table with them
are favOrites in polite society.
There has been a wave of temper-
ance legislation and preaching
throughout the South. 1t has come be-
cause we Of the South see that whiskey
has destroyed nan of its most bril-
/ liant men, demoralized its labor, and
/ cost more since the war in men and
! ~oonax, than tho CnIfh 1nct during the
war. 1t has come. and come to stay,
because Southern men and women
have come to see hat the drinking or
LIQUOR is the greatest peril Of the age.
Andrew Carnegie spoke words of truth
and soberness when he said, speaking
to oun men:
THE first and most seductive peril,
and the destroyer of most young men,
is the drinking of liquor. ! am no
temperance ecture in disguise, but a
man who knows and tells you what OBJ
seryation has proved to him.; and L
say to you that you are more likely 10
fail in your career from acquiring the
habit of drinking liquor than from n
or all other temptations likely to as
sail you. You may yield to almost any
other temptation and reform-may
brace IN. and, if 0 recover lost
ground, at least remain In the race,
| and secure and MAINTAIN a TespecldDIt
position. But from the impossible, l
have known but few exceptions to the
rule"
1t is a pity that these words of a
wise man, the most successful man of
his generation, could not be burned
into the brain and conscience of every
boy in the country. Tha principle is
being recognized by thousands who
formerly called total abstinence mar
rowness and referred to restrictive
temperance legislation as blue laws"
and as a result it is 10 unusual occur
renee to see the chief men at a ban
uuet in the South decline to drink even
wine, and for important cities, like Raj
and Greensboro to serve elegant ban
DUETS without intoxicants. Georgia
has recently voted prohibition, Ten
nessee, has banned the saloon from
every city except two. Texas and
| South Carolina are nearly dry. There
are saloons only in a dozen North
Carolina counties. This wave has not
come as suddenly as is s~unnosed. In
North Carolina it was a stream long
damned up because negro suffrage
gave the saloons the balance of pow
err and good men wisely chose to bear
/ the evils of the saloon rather than to
invite bad government with saloons
and all their train of evils.
Two influences stand against the
temperance legislation and enforce
ment
/. Those who talk of drinking and
gambling as 1.-THE vices of gentlemen
II,o Jo,--,s 49,
'isms" the temperance revival and
temperance laws that are now bless
ing the South. They declare that these
"sumptuary'' laws invade personal lib
erty and are the creation of New Eng
land fanatics who are not as good as
the old-time Southerners who drank
and gambled but scorned to lie or play
the hypocrite, and when they have
said this they seem to think they have
completely destroyed the foundation
upon which the temperance crusade
rests. The fact that, in the old times,
men who would scorn to lie or play
the hypocrite, INDUCED in gambling
and drinking, does not prove that
gambling and drinking by such men
were virtues, but simply proves that
the strongest men of that type were
not destroyed by the vices that sent
their weaker associates to fill drunk
ards graves and to become confirmed
gamblers. The strong men were
great in spite of these demoralizing
sins-not the vices of gentlemen" as
they have been incorrectly termed in
excuse or eXtenuation. Take the his
tory of any community in the South
where leading men gamblad and loved
the cup, and you will find that the few
were not injured in their honesty and
in their integrity in their dealing with
their fellow men because they were
cast in q physical and menta mould
that made them rise above the destroy
ing tendencies that carried most of
their associates down to uin But
With the many. the cup and the
gambling table brought loss of char
acter, loss of property, loss of position,
and though holding their place in
society, their sins brought them TO "a
plane lower than the abstemiOus
plodder thew deSpiSed. The OppOSitiOn