The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1911-05-04
THE MARCH OF PROHIBITION.

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THE MARCH OF PROHIBITION.
Homer Guardian-Joumal.
We doubt if there is any question, relig-
ious or economic, now pending before the
American people that is receiving and de-
serving so much consideration as the ques-
ton of prohibition.
A few years ago the votaries Of King
Alcohol declared that the prohibition
movement was led almost exclusively by
ministers, women and few extreme lay
churchmen, but we find doctors, lawyers,
statesmen, teachers, scholars, publicists
and prominent citizens in every department
and calling in life engaged in a mighty
crusade against King Alcohol, enlisted on
the side of prohibition. Not only has public
sentiment changed, almost revolutionized
on the subject, from moral standpoint,
but physicians and chemists have reversed
their former opinion as to the medical or
therapeutic effects of alcohol as remedy
or antidote for disease.
The old idea that alcohol was good for
consumption, or for snake poisoning, has
been abandoned by the medical man, and
it has been demonstrated and accepted as
a fact, that it is positive injury to any one
suffering with such an ailment. 1t has also
been demonstrated that it has practically
no value as food.
The British Government has Investigated
the matter and has caused the country in
many places to be placarded with notices
appealing to the people to cease using al
cohol in any form for the reason that it
gradually poisons and weakens the body
producing degeneracy in the end.
Railroad men in all classes have observ-
ed the effects of alcohol on both the body
and mind, and many of them have estab-
lished strict orders forbidding an employee
to use it even in the moderate and temper
ate manner.
The subject of prohibition is now re-
ceiving consideration in the legislatures of
most all the States,> and members of the
Federal Congress are debating the ques-
ton and some of the most brilliant and the
ablest statesmen of that body regard alco-
hol as an enemy Of the human race, and
one of the greatest destroyers of mankind.
| A statesman of national reputation deliv-
cred an address before Congress not long
since and among other things said: "War
kills and wounds; alcohol kills and wounds
ten thousand times more than all war COM
bined. 1t wipes out self-control, self-re-
spect, the sense of honor, the moral sense
and produces the bulk of tramp paupers
and vagabonds. The loss occasioned by
its use in all forms, from the death list,
cost of crime, pauperism and insanity,
makes the total economic burden laid upon
the Nation equal to ST., zoo, 900, or more
| than half of all the wealth produced by
the nation.''
Thus spoke an able Congressman dealing
with the question purely from an economic
view.
Those who have Joined the prohibition
movement are growing more numerous and
Jealous, and if they continue to invade the
territory where whisky is sold with the
same ratio of success in favor of prohibit
| ton, it would not be unreasonable to expect
the sale of alcohol to be prohibited in every
State in the Union in a few more years,
except under bona fide prescription. And
the time is coming when there will be but
few physicians who viii prescribe it as a
medical remedy.