Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-02-22
RETRBuTIoN.


One Of the most lucid explanations
we have seen. OF the sudden avalanche
of the temperance movement is that Of
fered by the Philadelphia North Am
erfcan and which may be summed up
in the word "rctribution." That paper
contends that Resentment for all the
wrongs that have been done to mil
lions by INSCRIPTIONS men in the past
and the present is coming to a focus
and is being crystalized into Indiscrim-
mating opposition to the entire class to
which the wrongdoers belonged"
To realize the force OF this statement
It is only necessary TO remember that
women made martyrs by a husbands
habit, have put an adherence OF the
saloon into the minds of children who
now are men. Men who draw small
wages now look back 10 childhood
whose opportunities were restricted,
and have no tolerant feeling toward
the thing that made their father him
drance and not a help in their life
progress. Too many men have seen
old estates disappear in dissipation; too
many women. gently born and reared.
have been reduced to hard and weary
ing and sometimes npenial toll:
too many children have been buried in
unhowered pine collins for those whose
hearts were stung by personal share
in such happenings TO be free from
prejudice against the thing that caused
1t all. Men with no such mental legacy
have seen the brightest and best OF
their schoolmates sloughed of all that
was good in them by one form of self
indulgence. And each time they look
upon a wreck of manhood they grow
bitterer against the vice that killed
what might have been. People who
were MANNED in accidents dozen
years ago. or who still mourn friends
killed because the engineer, or pilot, or
captain. or conductor, was Intoxicated.
are not content with the enforcement
OF sobriety upon all employees by the
great corporations today. Their sorrow
still is fresh, and while its cause exists
they remain what the saloon keeper
call fanatics" 1t is thus that our Phil
adelphia contemporary explains the
present progress OF the temperance
cause.
To these and many other factors
that could be named as components of
the temperance sentiment before which
the saloon trembles. must be added the
conviction that has taken hold of the
general public that the rottenness In
politics and the NATURALIZATION OF
public affairs under which so many
communities are suffering. are due
principally to the tyrannous influences
of the saloon element. The saloon
keepers are not content with the lndi-
vidual ruin caused by their traffic:
they are not content with such privi-
leges as the law accords to them; in
order to be In a position to break the
abundant harvest, they lay their hands
on the political machinery and run the
ship as they and their hired tools think
best. The people are awakening to the
fact that public interests are not safe
in the hands of the keepers of rum
shops.
Our own City Is slow TO fall in line
with the general advancement. We can
boast, of a business center that is law
ishly adorned with saloons, many of a
law order. outside of which surges an !
element that no decent city would like |
10 have displayed as its chief feature. |
or course the manipulators Of the dom |
inant party are indebted to the saloon |
and its concomitants for their present |
power over the financial assets of the |
City, and they owe the saloon keepers |
some consideration. But the time will
come. we hope, when the citizens who
fear God, will unitedly Join the tenn
perance movement that Is now sweep
ing the country and clean up the bust
ness district. 80 that no one need to be
ashamed of 1t.
We are not fanatical dreamers on
this. or any question. We do not hope
for total abolition of the traffic by
means of prohibitory laws. We expect
more from laws OF regulation, at least
as beginning OF reform But we do
hold It TO be a shame for this city to
have It's very center given up To the
saloon and the brothel. Can any loyal
citizen pass the saloon blocks without
feeling Inundated. when contemplating
the large number of dens OF iniquity
they Contain
-