Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1909-08-21
THEY REACH the SAME END.


Why a man who has been prominent.
brilliant and of use in the world tails
away from usefulness and the service
men expect from men of parts and ca
pacity thru the insidious and appar-
entity unconquerable addiction to drug
habit the matter is invariably part of
the news service given the public VINO
are interested in the man from personal
acquaintance and repute. IT he mas py
intent or accident taken too much OF
the drug the public desires TO know
And it has that right. Ii is part of the
mirroring of passing events to tell the
whole story kindly as may be but II
must be told
And yet where one life is ruined and
the lives of Others made miserable and
unhappy by victim of the drug habit
a thousand men OF usefulness are lost
to service and ten thousand hearts
made unhappy by whiskey. Men die
day after day as the end Of daily pois-
oning with alcohol but the obituary
column says nothing of the actual cause
of death. we surround the narcotic
poisons with the safe guards of rigid
restrictive laws the victim of the CO.
caine habit must find a druggist false
to his ethical professions ard willing to
commit crime before he can purchase
the poison to satisfy his craving, but
we multiply the opportunities for alco-
hoism and rush councils together to
pass permission in advance of laws
made for the restriction of dramshops.
Men die day after day and their ac-
quaintances know and say that che
drank himself TO death" A man dies
now and then from morphine or its kin
dred drugs and the same men who
might rush to the rescue of the saloon
hold up hands in holy horror that this
should be.
The drug habit we are told is grow
ing upon the people of this country We
need it is asserted more stringent reg
ulation of the sale of narcotic drugs.
II is true. 1t is true that the alcohol
habit is growing and that it needs
more stringent regulation. 1t needs
looking at in the spirit in which all
men who DO not use drugs look upon
the morphine and cocaine habits. 1t
Is killing its tens of thousands where
morphine and cocaine is killing tens
It is the most prolific source of crime
poverty, degradation, and loss of ca
pable service 20 the world. Why hold
up Mortified hands when men die 81
drugs and refuse to see the long pro-
cessions that lead out from the places
where alcohol is vended!
Anything which takes away from the
service of humanity one whose capacity
is great for the betterment and the
good of the world is a thing to be
chained and buried in chains.
If each individual will count tbs
friends and the men whom he has
known, loved and respected who favs
been lost to themselves and those VIII
needed them most by reason of drugs
or of alcohol and balance the one
against the other what answer shall hi
make when he renders his personal &C
count Of responsibility as his brother.
keeper? Poison is poison whether ont
man in five hundred or one man of two
uses it and losis by IT, Stand the drug.
with their victims ON the one side owe
across from them stand whisky and it
victims. Then count them. They ar,
all to be pitied more than blamed. The,
yielded to power that few thank God
know Or understand. They are less t,
be blamed. But who is most to b.
blamed?