The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1913-03-28
TEMPERANCE COLUMN.

Dear Friends: We are glad to
greet you to this reception. Our
topic is Mothers Reception" For
years we have made it Fathers re-
ception also, and urged them to be
present. We have been told the way
to reach a mans heart is through
his stomach so each year have pre-
pared a dinner for them and if we
have not reached the object in view
then it is because we were misin-
formed as to the correct route.
Fathers, be merciful; we want
your good will; we need your help
and example. 1t is difficult to teach
a child Loyal Temperance Legion
principles with the smell of liquor
and tobacco on the fathers breath,
and yet the fathers are glad to know
their children are abstainers from
these evils even if they themselves
indulge. Agents of the organized
charities of New York City have re-
Gently interviewed twenty thousand
tramps or buns as they are called in
the city. Twelve thousand of them
frankly admitted that drink is the
principal cause of their destitution.
If accurate these figures carry one
of the most powerful temperance
sermons ever preached and there is
reason to believe that the facts are
even more appalling than the figures
show; for probably not only the
twelve thousand but many of the
remaining eight thousand owe it to
drink that they are vagrants and out
casts.
Can you permit this thing to con-
tinue?
Fathers and mothers the liquor
people are after your boy and mine.
The saloon must have them for the
money it pays the state or go out of
business. Are we longer going to
continue the policy of selling our
boys and girls for revenue. What
is boy or girl worth? What is the
liquor traffic? Neglected wives and
ragged children can tell you that the
liquor traffic is a mighty reservoir of
crime, misery, want and disgrace,
flooding the earth with tears and
blood. 1t is the breaking of the
cyclone, tearing up happy homes,
hurting children into the streets,
wrecking the beautiful, the noble and
the brave, leaving death and devas-
tation in it's track Look over the
field where this destroyer has done
it's work, the skeletons of noble man
hood and of bright intellect are
strewn everywhere while from every
quarter of the globe is heard the
pitiful cry, 20 Lord how long" The
moral tone of the community is low
cred by licensing the liquor traffic
There is no single channel through
which such depths of misery flow
over the human family as through
this. No ravages of disease, no de-
vastations of nature, no kinds of
vice or crime work such woe as this
There is but one thing to be done
Let all good men, all patriots, all
hilanthropists and all Christians of
every name and creed unite in one
changeless purpose, in one deter
mined effort, and condemn, eradi-
cate and eXterminate it, In a dozen
more years hope to see the liquor
traffic as dead as the slave traffic.
The mothers have no easy path be-
fore them. About twenty years ago
listened to this statement from the
pulpit Mothers you are placed where
you are directly responsible for your
children. How dare we do other
wise than fight the liquor triffic after
hearing such declaration.
A saloonless nation in 1920 is our
slogan,
Brother I guess you would enter the
fight
If it was your boy down there to-
night,
Ruined and wrecked by the drink
appetite,
Down in the licensed saloon.