Connecticut western news., 1909-09-02

RENNETTS [, MILLER
 ON CANAAN LICENSE
SENDS A LETTER TO THE NEWS"

Likes Village, Except For The Saloons
 Thrilling No-License Story of
 Special Interest to Canaan and Business Men.
 We are requested to print the follow ing communication which is of local interest. EDITOR.
 Hartford, Conn.,, Sept. 1, 1906. Editor THE NEWS:
 It was rare treat to spend last week in the quiet and beautiful village of Canaan "where every prospect pleases' and only the licensed saloon mars the scene. It was a great surprise and sorrow to the moral form of the state when the daily press announced last year that after twenty-seven "drV" years, Canaan, the land, or town, of promise, had gone "wet." But I heard on all sides last week that liquor drink ing had greatly increased in your town the past year and that the outlook is good for sweeping no-license victory this fall. Men will talk about the evil of "kitchen bar rooms' but your own experience has shown you what thous- and other towns have had to learn from bitter experience, viz. that there is far more drinking under a "wet" than a "dry' regime. For as long as men crave liquor and the open, legalized saloon is allowed to exist to tempt weak humanity to drink, you will have drunk ards. Your experience this past year has also shown you that you have no less "kitchen bar rooms" during "wet" than "dry'' years, heard some pathetic stories of wrecked homes and lives in your community from drink-and they did not get the liquor in the "low dives" or "kitchen bar rooms" but at the ''swell bar" of your town. My heart bled as it has so often done at the story of rum's work. It is curse which pen can never describe and brush can never portray. Only those who have felt its sting and suffered its disgrace can ever fully realize what it means.
 We'll might Judge Putnam call it "the universal ally of evil and the universal antagonist of good" The words of the late bishop Fowler are none too severe: "The liquor traffic is cunning as 8 fox, wise as serpent, strong as an OK, bold as lion, merciless as tiger. remorse- less as hyena, fierce as pestilence and deadly as plague"
 The strongest adjectivss of our mother tongue seem meaningless when we attempt to describe this diabolical traffic; and why there is not more en- thusiasm everywhere in the temperance reform is to me the profoundest enigma of the age. But the saddest fact is that so many good people complacentIy tolerate and apologize for the saloon and then wake up to the real peril of this traffic when it is too late. I have read somewhere of a town that was in the midst of a no-icense campaign. A tenn. perance committee called upon a lead ing business man to secure his help and cooperation. With scorn and contempt he turned from them saying "That is none of my business" If the temper ance folks wanted such 8 campaign they could have it, but he was not go- ing to train with that crowd. The cam paign was fierce one, and the hquorites won. Somatime after the election this prominent business man was riding to the railroad station to meet his wife and been away on a visit. Hark some one says, "An accident p This man is e0- cited in moment "What! an accident, did you say? Where, where?" he anxiously inquired. Near Blanktown, few miles south," some one replies My heavens" exclaims the man ,crazed with fear, That's the train my family are on.'' He rushes to the station master and says, 'Let me have train, engine, anything. I want to go down at once to the wreck. My wife and daughter are on that train. I will pay you $1oo." The station master shakes his head
 
 engine or something to take me down there. I'll pay $500" Cant help you this time" says the station master. "Oh man. tell you I must have some means to get down there at any price. I'll give you $19O0," piteously pleads the frantic man. But the station agent said "I am sorry for you, but I cannot help you. All trains and engines have gone to the wreck" Then the distracted man paces back and forth on the depet platform for an hour which seems to him like century.
 Finally the train comes in with the mangled. the dying and the dead. There is his wife dead. There is one of the
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