The Williamson enterprise. [volume] (Williamson, W. Va.) 1907-1911, 1911-02-09
! w. G. T. U. COLUMN.
The Saloon Evil.

AuC OdlvVu Avlls
Drink is easily the supreme de-
stroyer of the body and of the soul. /
do not intend here to tire you with
long tables of statistics. You are all
familiar with the records complied
concerning the effect of pauperism and
crime, upon youth, by intoxicating
liquors. If there are any Of you that
are not, all you have to do is to read
the newspapers or the government re-
ports, or come with me over the hill
to the poorhouse, or down the valley to
the orphans asylum, or over the road
to the New Bedford jail, and ask the
keepers what proportion of their in
mates have come there through drink.
After looking through the orphan
asylum Twill guarantee you will not
go further. will guarantee, if you
have a heart at all, when you know
that ninety per oent of the orphans at
st. Vincent's Orphans 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 lbs
greatest dangers.
THE COMMON PERIL.
Now do we as intelligent people, or
we who presume to think ourselves in
te1ligent, do we realize the common
peril? Do we share the common re-
sponsibility? Those who speak and
write, skilled in these things, say
that drunkenness, about the effects of
which have said word, is dis
ease. Then, if this be true, the raw
ages of tuberculosis, 1eprosy and fever
Of all kinds pale into insignifcance
beside it. For every victim laid low
by these diseases a hundred lie down
to die through drink. If alcoholism
and drunkenness be disease, where is
it contracted? What causes it? Where
is it best propagated7 Is it in our
homes? Not in any worthy the name
of hcme. Is it in our schools? No. Is
it in our streets? No. Is it in our
workshops, this wretched, wicked
thing? No. Where is it contracted
but in that vilest Of places, the public
saloon. Is it not there that this inn
moral destroyer takes its rise 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 fit sub
ject for discussion. We might argue
here all 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 un-
able to convince each other. But no
sane man, mark my words-no sane
him that the saloon is an unmitigated
curse
CHURCH DEcrEE.
1T is not to be doubted that among
the evils which we in this country Bit
terly deplore is to be considered the
abuse of intoxicating liquors. Excess
of this sort is the perpetual finder and
the prolific origin of misery. AFFECT
ruin falls upon innumerable men and
upon whole families and draws head
, long to eternal damnation myriads of
souls. Love of religion and the father
land imposes upon all Christians the
solemn duty Of striving with all their
might to wipe out and uproot this pes
tiferous evil.
FINALLY, we admonish our people
who are engaged in the sale of intox-
eating liquors that they should seri-
ous1y consider with how many and
how great dangers and with what oc-
casion of sin their business, although
a legal one, Is surrounded. Let them
select if they may a more respectable
, way of earning living
LOWER THAN THE DRUNKARD.
Fl cannot imagine any man, mindful
of these consequences of the sale of
liquor, who will vote for~it as a bene-
fit to the city. But if there are any
of them here that will do So, say to
them, you are worse than the worst
bum. You are lower than the lowest
, drunkard. Why? Because while the
) drunkard is weak you are strong.
! The drunkard is blind while You are
clear-sighted. The drunkard is drunk
!, while you are sober. What do you do!
You set trap at his feet and stand
E over him in his stupor and rob him Of
! his earnings.