The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1909-04-03

Although the temperance laws have
been in progress for nearly seventy
seven years, it is apparent to all that
it is just now being crowned with
degree of success.
The list of it's friends is daily swell
ed by the addition of fifties, hundreds
and thousands. The cause itself
seems suddenly transformed from a
cold, abstract, theory to a living,
breathing, active and powerful fact.
The citadels of the great adversary
are being stormed and dismantled;
the temples and affairs where the rites
of his idolatrous worship have long
been performed and where human
sacrifices have long been wont to be
made, are daily desecrated. The
tramp OF the conquerer is sounding
from hill to hill, and from sea to sea.
For this new and splendid success we
heartily rejoice. The warfare hereto
fore waged against the demon intern
perance has somehow or other been
erroneous. Either the champions en-
gagged or the tactics they adopted have
not been the proper ones. These have
been champions for the most part;
have been preachers, lawyers, and
hired agents. Between these and the
mass of mankind there is a want of
approachability, if the term be admis
sable, fatal to their success. There is
no sympathy of feeling with those
persons whom they try to convince.
1t is so easy to ascribe motives to men
OF these classes other than those they
profess to act upon. The preacher, it
is said, advocates temperance because
he is fanatic, and desires a union
OF the church and state; the lawyer,
from his pride and vanity of hearing
himself speak; and the hired agent for
his salary. But when one who has
long been known as victim of intern
perance bursts the letters and ap-
pears before his neighbors and stands
up with tears of joy to tell of the mis-
cry once endured; of his once naked
and starving children, now fed and
clad comfortably; of a wife long
weighed down with woe, weeping and
broken-hearted, now restored to
health, happiness and renewed affec-
ton; and how easily it is all done,
there is a logic and an eloquence in
it that few with human feelings can
resist. They cannot say that he de-
sires a union with church and state,
for he is not church member; they
cannot say he is vain of hearing him
self speak, for his whole demeanor
shows he would gladly avoid speaking
at all; they cannot say he speaks for
pay, for he receives none; nor can his
sincerity in any way be doubted.
In my judgment it is to this class
Of champions that our last success is
due. 1t seems to me it was too much
denunication against dram-sellers and
dram-drinkers was INDUCED in. This
was both impolitic and unjust. 1t
was impolitic, because it is not the
nature of man to be driven to any
thing, still less to be driven to that
which is his own business; and last
Of all where such driving is at the ex-
pense OF pecuniary interest or burning
appetite.
When the dram-seller and drinker
were necessarily told that they were
the authors Of all the vice and misery
and crime In the land; that they were
the manufacturers and material of all
the thieves and robbers and murderers
that infest the earth; that their houses
were the workshops of the devil, and
that their persons should be Stunned
by all the good and virtuous as moral
pestilences; l say, when they were
told all this and In this way, 1t Is not
wonderful that they were slow to &C
knowledge the truth of such denun-
Citations. To have expected them to
do otherwise than they did was to ex-
pect reversal OF human nature, which
Is Gods decree and can never be re-
versed.
1t is an old and true maxim that
"a drop of honey catches more flies
than a gallon of gall" So with men
II you would win man to your cause
first convince him that you are his sin
sere friend. Therein is drop of hon
ey that catches his heart, which says
what he will, is the great high road
to his reason, and which when once
gained, you will have little trouble In
convincing his Judgment Of the justice
of your cause, If, indeed, that cause
really be just. On the contrary, as
sumo to dictate to his judgment, or tc
mark him as one to be Stunned ant
despised, and he will retreat within
himself, though your cause be the
l.