The Blackfoot optimist. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1907-1918, 1912-04-18
AN IMPORTANT
TEMPERANCE CONVENTION

AN IMPORTANT
TEMPERANCE CONVENTION
The fourteenth national convention Of
the Anti-Saloon League of America
was held in Washington, Gec emter H.
IA. Excellent addr, sses were deliver
ed by Hon. John G. Woolley, Congress
man Richmond P. Hobson of Ala
bama, Senator Geo. F. Cottcrill, of
Washington, Judge A. 2. Blair, Of Port
mouth, Ohio and others. The spirit of
the convention seemed to hold as fund
amentally important the points that
in spite of unusual hardship the great
(a) it is first necessary to obtain a
vision, so to speak, of the conditions
resulting from the manufacture and
sale of alcohol, to be followed by (b)
a stirring program of education, and
(c) the commitment of the boys Of our
country in particular, by pledge, to alb
stinence from intoxicating liquor.
It was held that the universal aboli-
ton Of the liquor traffic rests upon
two principles: moral suasion and
legal suasion. Did space permit, it
would be interesting to refer to all
the speeches made upon this important
subject. We will, however, refer to
two of the speeches. Emphasizing
the fact that the nations life itself is
at stake in the liquor habit. Congress
man Hobson said:
"The menace of this destroyer ex-
tends yet farther, to the very life of
the nation itself. In the rural life of
the country, the people do not have
the poison continually in their path, so
law of evolution and progress causes
numbers to increase and each genera
ton to be higher than the previous.
Thus it is that the great empires and
enduring civilizations of history were
all built upon rural life. A time comes
however, in the life of each nation
when it's citizens, having accumulated
wealth, gather into cities to enjoy it.
There the great destroyer does his
deadly wark. 49,.
at is not day too soon to grapple
with this foe. We have reached the
beginning CT the second stage Of Amer
lean life. When degeneracy has gone
much farther, it will be too late. At
the present rate it will not be long be-
fore abnorma,s and degenrates will
swamp our cities and overrun our
States. Nature will not tolerate a race
of degenerates. A backward and US
ually despised race, but undegenera.e
is found ready to give the coup de
grace. When Persia degenerated,
Greece was on hand to strike. When
Greece degerated Rome was ready.
When Rome degenerated, Gaul was
ready.
IF America degenerates, the yellow
man will be on hand. Some may make
light of the yellow man; 50 did Ro-
mans make light of the sbarbarians.'
The yellow man Is not degenerat!ng.
He can shoot as straight as a white
man now; and. undegenerated, he can
live on one tenth of what is Necessary
for the white man while they are in
the field doing the shooting. A race
Of degenerates can not occupy the
American continent In this genera
ton our people must take their choice;
in the next generation it may be too
late. There is no alternative. We are
fairly in the death-grpple. All the
pages of history are crying to Amer
lea, Conquer the great destroyer, or
perish. The first law of nature, self
preservation, which holds for a nation
or for a man, demands Of the nation
the death-warrant of the saloon
Suppose America should go down
before this destroyer, whittier will a
rural and frugal fragment Of America
go to start a new empire? History
leaves no hope to go back eastward.
There is no longer any westward. We
have reached the shores of the last
ocean, In America the star of empire
moving westward finishes tie circle o.
the world.
III A1ueIlcd we are making Tue IdSI
stand of the great white race and sub
stantially of the human race. If this
destroyer can not he conquered in
young America, it can not in any Of
the old and more Degenerate nations.
If America fails, the world will be un-
done, and the human race will be
doomed to go down from degeneracy
into degeneracy till the Almighty in
wrath wips out the accursed thing
MIR. Woolley, in a mastery address
said among other things
"A prohibitory liquor law is direct