The McCook tribune. (McCook, Neb.) 1886-1936, 1909-03-05
TEMPERANCE L U
conductedsby the Mccook W. c. T. q.
The Saloon an Unmiigated Curse.
ITS FRIENDS AND ITS ENEMIES.

Excerpts from two ante-election SER
mons by Rev. Father Cassidy, delivered
November % and 80, 1908, at st. Mary g
Cathedral, Fall River, Mass.
Drink is easily the supreme destroyer
of the body and of the soul. do not la
tend here to tire you with long tables of
statistics. You are all familiar with the
records compiled concerning the effect
upon %pauperism and crime, upon youth
by Intoxicating liquors Ii there are any
of you that are not, all you have TO do
Is to read the newspapers or the govern
msnt reports, or come with me over the
hill to the poor house, or down the valley
to the orphans asylum, or over the road
to the New Bedford Jail, and ask the
keepers what proportions of their inmates
have ONE there through drink. After
looking through the orphan asylum |
will guarantee you will not go further.
| will guarantee, if you have a heart at
all, when you know that ninety percent
of the orphans at the st. Vincent's Or
phan's Home are there through drink,
you will have had enough.
A late government report says that the
health of the individual, the safety of the
family and the future of the country has
in alcoholism one of its greatest dangers.
Now do we as intelligent people, or we
who presume to think ourselves intelli-
gent, do we realize the common peril?
Do we share the common responsibility?
Those who speak and write, skilled in
these things, say that drunkenness, about
the effects of which | nave said a word,
is a disease. Then, if this be true, the
ravages of tuberculosis. leprosy and fever
of all kinds pale into insignificance be-
SIDE it. For every victim laid low by
these diseases a hundred lie down to die
through drink. If alcoholism and drunk
enness be disease, where is it contracted?
What causes it? Where is it best prop
agated? Is it in our homes? Not in any
worthy the lame of a home. Is it in
our schools? No. Is it in our streets?
No. Is it in our workshops. this wretch
ed, wicked thing? No. Where is it con-
tracted but in that vilest of places, the
public saloon. Is it not their hat this
immoral destroyer takes it's raise to
spread its curse upon the children of
God?
What are we doing to destroy this
pestilential sink? What are we doing?
Are we awake to the common peril?
Methods of reform may be a fit subject
for discussion. We might argue here ali
night whether prohibition was effective
and whether no-license was a good thing.
We might be some right and some wrong
and we might be unable to convince each
other. But no sane man, mark my
words-no sane man needs any argu.
ment to convince him that the saloon, as
operated in this city today, is an unmit-
igated curse!
l repeat it, there is no good in it. 1t
is all evil. 1t is an unmitigated curse.
If the saloon be not an evil, why don't
men make it ar object of prayer?
How often, at the end of a sinful story,
have | heard a little girl say: Mamma
asked me to pray that papa may not
drink again and the saloon may not get
US ALL" Did ever mother prompt her
child to pray papa might get drunk
again and the saloons might take him
back?
And yet that which you dare not pray
for, you will go out and vote for!
Yet you know that wherever the sa-
loon gets a foothold it furthers, not the
work OF God, but the plans and schemes
of Satan. You know that wherever
the saloon is, there are mems vilest and
worst passions. You know that where
ever the saloon is, there is the very
scum of humanity. You know that the
saloon, in the furtherance of its vile
purpose, knows neither man, nor God,
nor gospel.
As [ have said before, L am not con-
demning men. | am c~ondemning the
institution. l am c~ondemning and at
lacking the evil which is destroying my
people, and it is my duty to attack it.
If others of my cloth and other cloth
see fit to stand idly by and allow this
evil to spread, then it is their response
bility and not mine. [ hear some of you
say: THAT is enough; we see the peril,
we accept the responsibility, the time
for words has gone by it is the time for
deeds. What would you have US Go?
What would l have you do? Give US
a chance to breathe, for we are sitting.
The atmosphere of the nation is crush
ing and choking us.
What would l have you do? Give US
a chance to live, for we are on the rocks
of perdition, chained by the brewers
bonds. The vulture of the saloon is
clutching at our vitals. What would |
I.uo 40 ProoIy those Hrou,o-c,