The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1915-11-25

seller behind his licensed bar, or the I'M
principled grocer dealing out deadly
Jamaica ginger in prohibition State.
should, as the editor of Golfers Maya
zine has set forth in series of power
full articles, be held morally response.
BILE for all the sins and crimes of his
unhappy victims
have today received from Mr.. H. G.
Chase of Crawfords, N. H., who is him
self temperance worker, copy of /
St. Louis newspaper, in which he hat
marked the following items: "a number
of convicts serving time in the Ohio
State penitentiary have written to R. A.
Mack of Cincinnati attributing their owr
downfall to the saloon and appealing te
the people to vote Ohio dry at the next
election in order to save others from
being caught in the licensed traps. II
Could there be more eloquent plea fol-
prohibition than this? Another: 'Durine
my service on the BENCH" said Judge
Gemmil of the municipal court at meet.
ing of the Chicago Dry Federation. 81
have tried $4,000 persons for committing
various crimes-crimes committed because
liquor had robbed their perpetrators OF
their moral backbone. The saloon is an
outlaw because it robs men and women of
every good timing in life." And again:
"In proportion as man spends his earn
ings for clothing, household necessities,
homes and land, he is profitable GUS
toner to the. merchant and the farmer,
and good tenant to the landlord. In
proportion as man spends his earnings
for drink he is an Improbable customer
to the grocer, the tailor, the shoemaker,
the farmer, and poor tenant to the land
lord. The liquor traffic is a destructive
industry and all capital put into it is cap
ital at war with the capital employed in
constructive industries.
A scientific article in a late Literary
Digest has this to say: 'The impulse to
drunkenness is disease. Men drink &C.
cording to their desires-some to satisfy
thirst, some because they like the taste
of intoxicants, some because they crave
the stimulation due to alcohol in the
blood. These men are the men who
drink to get drunk and their impulses
are essentially abnormal; they are dis
eased. The habitual drunkard may know
we'll that alcohol is a poison and that his
life depends upon letting it alone, but he
is driven to drink by forces against
which he is powerless TO contend"
think, when you read these words what
they mean. In almost every family in
the land there is, or has been, or is to be,
some member thus diseased. Not the
meanest, or the most selfish or the worst
or the least beloved member of that
family, for the bideous demon of alcohol,
like the angel of death, loves a shining
mark. You know, as l know, that the
victim of alcoholism is most often the
brightest, the most genial, the warmest
hearted and the best beloved of a flock.
Your boy goes out from your side tonight,
clear laughing and light-hearted.
He may be tempted to take his first
drink. Before him stretches the road of
life. All that God meant for him of hap
piness lies there; all the good things that
you have hoped for him since he lay in
his cradle lie there; but in that first fatal
glass lies ruin. 1t may be the slow moral
ruin of the moderate drinker; it may be
the sodden repulsive ruin of the blear-
eyed sot; or it may be the tragic heart
breaking ruin OF the Dipsomaniac victim
of an insane craving for drink, who,
when the craving is upon him will sacri-
flee any friend to crafty it, and who in
long periods of sobriety realizes his con-
dition, suffers unspeakable tortures of
regret, regains his hope and courage
and falls again before the temptation of
drink often proffered by those who for
the few dollars which he is sure to invest
in their Jamaica ginger or "good whis-
key" will thus play upon his weakness.
Can you contemplate a life like this
for your boy and still argue against pro-
hibition? Is there no danger for your
boy? Last winter heard of country
dance where there was drunkenness and
disorder. heard that there were young
boys there the worse for liquor; and
l heard that the man who ran that dance
said gloatingly, the next day ''They
were highbloods from down town; their
fathers and mothers are most all church
members. Can you hope that your boy
is going to escape, when he is brought
under i fluences like this, and such in
duences are everywhere, and in every
place, where there is liquor. If deadly
disease were lurking at your door; if
typhoid, or diphtheria or small pox await
ed your boy when he left your side, you
would leave no stone unturned to protect
him and to stamp out the germs of he
dread disease. How then can you men
who make the laws be so blinded, you
womer who make the homes, 80 lndif-
ferent, to this more terrible and more
deadly disease, for which the only pre-
vention and the only cure is national pro-