The Jasper weekly courier. [volume] (Jasper, Ind.) 1858-1922, 1914-08-28

selves confronted by habit which had necessarily
called into existence vast trade trade stretching
out its ramfcations all over the world; trade in
which millions upon millions of capital was invested
they would have called to their aid the persons engag
ed in that trade and appealed to their intelligence
honesty and patriotism qualities in which saloon
keepers are not entirely deicient-to aid in making
the trade as clean and decent and honest as possible
1t is much to the interest of traders in Intoxicating
drinks as 1t is to the interest OF traders in any other
commodity that the public should think well of them
and of their business Take them as a whole, taking
into consideration ought to take into consdera
ton the peculiar temptations with which their bus-
ness surrounds them the dealers in intoxicating drinks
are as honest as citizens and as upright as men, as any
other class of the community They are not the mur-
derers" which ardent temperance apostles delight in
declaring them to be. They do not delight in seeing
young man blasted in his promise, and soddened
through and through with drink they do not gloat
over the mseries and the shames which the families
OF hapless drunkards are made to feel. They have
hearts in their bosoms; they have wives and children
whom they love- they capable Of being touched and
influenced by tender and solemn emotions. And l
have no hesitation in saying that if they had been ap-
preached in proper spirit they would have proved
the bulk of them, that is-a valuable auxiliary to
temperance a prohlbitOn-but temperance
movement
nasmuch as we cannot, for long series of centur-
les to come eradicate the habit of drinking intoxcants
it is necessary that there should be class OF men
whose special business it to minister to the habit and
considering the peculiar nature of the trade, it is OF
great moment that intelligent, honest, moral men
IL.
ton party has pursued has had direct tendency to
drive such men away Men of intelligence and homes
ty shrunk naturally from investing their capital IN
business which the caprice of public opinion may by a.
popular vote, at any time destroy.
Prohibtonists make their movement too much
moral and religious movement. 1t is that but it is
not that primarily. Primarily it is physical move
ment. Drunkenness is physical disease, and can be
made to yield physical methods of treatment. How
absurdy the religious element has been imported into
the question. What valuable time, and what labori-
ingenuity have been wasted in the attempt to
prove it scrpturaln the attempt to prove that when
wine is spoken of favoraby in the Bible the un-
fermented juice of the grape is meant and that when
it spoken of unfavoraby in the Bible the fer
People before they settle great questions do not wait
until those who read the Bible differently and give
different Interpretation to the texts, have adjusted
their differences. Humanity abolished slavery With
out waiting until those who attacked slavery and those
who defended it, scrptural grounds, had come to
an agreement as to what the Bible teaching really
was. So with this temperance question. Ii 1t be
good thing it will triumph because it is good-because
It commends itself to the enlightened reason and
science good and not because certain passages lii
book the last words of which were written eighteen
hundred years before ever the thing was heard Of can
be ngeniousy twisted in its favor A preacher says
that faith in Christ is the only thing that will cure the
drunkard and keep him safe. Unfortunately for this
theory so many of those who have an abundance of
this faith or who profess to have it, constantly
tumblng into all sorts of Shiny pits of wickedness and
shamel Faith in Christ will no more cure drunken
ness than it will cure broken leg; it will no more pre-
vent man from getting drunk, if he is fool enough
to drink sufficient quantity to produce that end than
it will prevent him from having the life crushed out OF
him if heavy wagon wheel passes over his head;
Temperance appeals are almost invariably addressed
to the moral and religious feelings. The laugh at the
antics of the dunkard the tear over the description OF
the drunkards ruined home and broken hearted wife,
are varied by terrific denunciaton of that arch villain
of all villains the moderate drnker. The consequence
is that the fury of revival is got up, and vast
amount of enthusiasm is created but fortunately Tor
the world, nobody can dwell long together amid the
fury of revival and so the revival always cools down
and is always followed by proportionate amount OF
back sliding. When the revival is over you have Just
as much drunkenness as ever you had before Dut IN
addition YOU have prodigous amount of conscious
fasehood and hypocrisy. -
Continued in the next issue.