The cause of temperance is one that has been close to my heart for
twenty years. Taken from the logical standpoint of protection to the
home, sound saneness, improvement in morals, an enhancement of
citizenship, it is the second paramount issue of the age. Take away
liquor, stop the traffic entirely, and you reduce seventy-five per cent
of crime. The empty whisky-bottle is the greatest curse that ever
existed. When it is standing filled in front of some bar-room mirror, it
is harmless, but when it is empty it signifies that it has been drank by
somebody and has been the direct cause for all that has followed.
Trace it up and you will find sorrow, misery, heartaches, remorse,
disgrace, shame, humiliation, want, poverty, destroyed homes, cruelty,
hatred, anger, revenge, and murder. Rags, vulgarity, dishonor, wasted
lives, and deceit. Ruined sweethearts, broken-hearted wives, disgraced
parents, and hungry, shoeless children. Disease, filth, white slavery,
prize fights, tangoes, rottenness, and shame. Keeley cures, jails,
penitentiaries, poorhouses, brothels, cabarets, and insane asylums.
Thieves, robbers, safe blowers, beggars, pick-pockets, delirium tremors,
and death. Leave it alone!
Some people say there is no harm in it; there isn't if you leave it
alone. You can take a loaded revolver and lay it alongside of a
well-filled whisky bottle and they will get along side by side
peacefully as long as time exists. Each one separate and apart are
harmless; but let a sane man come along and drink the whisky, pick up
the revolver, and what happens? Every nationality without distinction to
race or color, Irishmen included, will run for safety.
* * * * *
A well-educated young man with brilliant prospects, neatly attired,
attractive, and of fine, honorable parentage, was passing a saloon one
day when a friend standing in the doorway invited him in. He had never
been in a place of this kind in his life. His parents had taught him,
friends advised him, and a sweet faced girl had warned him. Conscience
told him to decline and go on, but, like millions of others, he heeded
the invitation and stepped in. "Come up and take something," the tempter
said. "No," he said, "I never drink." "Come on," urged the tempter. "It
won't hurt you." "NO," he said; "it's beneath the dignity of a true
gentleman and it would break my mother's heart." "Ah, come on, don't be
a kid," he urged, and still the boy said no. After continued and
repeated solicitation he finally yielded and drank his first glass.
Alas, the fatal mistake was made. Years of careful training were swept
aside. Hopeful aspirations of his mother when she looked on his innocent
face in the cradle were all for naught. Solemn advice from a kind father
was lost sight of, and the deed was done. That first drink fired his
brain. Others were taken and his eyes shone, the house treated, and the
once quiet, manly lad was loud and boisterous. Self-respect was cast
aside and foul utterances flew fast and thick from a once clean mouth.
The end came. He reeled in drunkenness and fell to the floor in a
gibbering drunken stupor. He was put to bed and when sober he felt the
shame and remorse so keenly that he was at the point of self
destruction. He thought of his mother, his father, the dear little
sweetheart, and his friends. He was so afraid they would all hear of his
ignominy that he kept secluded. He couldn't bear to face them, tell all
and start anew.
The humiliation was more than he could stand and he slipped farther and
farther down the steep and rapid descent to hell. Back in his cheerful
and once comfortable home a dear old mother sat waiting and watching
year after year the lamp was kept burning. A kind old father sat with
bowed head thinking and thinking. A dear little girl was weeping and
weeping, and still he didn't come. Where, O where was he and why didn't
he come? Alas! how sad as he sank lower and lower. Drunken brawls were
common, nights spent in revelry very often; the dissipation was telling,
his once clean countenance was haggard. His step was languid, lethargy
was settling upon him, and his whole being was repulsive. His character
was no longer clean and a thing of beauty. Brothels caught him and God's
penalties were discernible for the violation of his laws. Decent men
shunned him and pure women scorned him, but still the light was kept
burning. The mother watched, the father waited, the sweetheart prayed,
and the friends yearned; but down, down, down he went. Even dogs hurried
by him, the filth and disease was nauseating.
The years sped quickly and there he is clear down at the bottom, an
object of disgust and scorn. Behold him, beneath the mass of stale and
putrid slime, a castoff, friendless and penniless vagabond. Beneath the
most loathsome and foul degeneracy conceivable; even beneath the filthy
sewer. He lay on a bundle of rags in a drunkard's hut. As he moaned and
groaned, an old friend passing by heard him, stepped in and stood
looking at him. With tears streaming down his cheeks the boy looked up
and said, "my life is ebbing, I am at the border line, my career is
wasted; I am a drunken, despised and worthless sot, friendless and
alone. I can see nothing ahead but the blackest despair. Oh my poor old
mother, my poor old father, my dear little sweetheart, My Sav--oh--oh."
Another spell grasped him and as he tossed and shrieked and moaned,
grappling with the demon, writhing in mental anguish, terror clouded his
countenance, his eyes rolled, his limbs jerked, the mouth dropped open,
the tongue protruded, he clutched until the blood trickled from the torn
flesh, a loud, gurgling, terrifying scream, and he was dead. Died with
the delirium tremens caused by the rum demon. As the old friend wiped
away the tears and stood looking at his pitiful form he noticed in one
of his torn and ragged pockets a slip of paper. He pulled it out and
read:
Listen, friend, today,
To what I have to say,
Don't let temptation sway
And miss the narrow way.
When you are young and gay
And anxious for the fray
Be ready to say "Nay"
And tread the narrow way.
The debt I have to pay
As here near death I lay
Wouldn't hold so much dismay
Had I trod the narrow way.
Oh tread the narrow way
And never miss a day
Ask Jesus how to pray
And tread the narrow way.
How can America, the foremost nation of the world, that has long boasted
of liberty and advancement, allow the liquor traffic to continue when
the condition it causes are so critical. It is stealing away her brains,
increasing her crime, lowering her moral standing, demoralizing her
citizenship, and giving to posterity a weaker race and causing such
poverty, misery and unhumanitarian distress. Can this enlightened nation
afford its continuance and let it remain when it has a grasp so powerful
that it is endangering its very vitals? Can America, with her
unsurpassed institutions of learning, her brilliant and scholarly
statesmen, her great mineral and agricultural wealth yet unfound and
developed, allow a traffic so alarmingly demoralizing as to let her
constitutional principles decline? Can she sit still, under her broad
and world famed methods of progress, and allow such a traffic, that
devastates from every source, for a revenue wrung from women's tears,
that is so rapidly depreciating her citizenship. Is she prudent? Is she
applying the Christian principles of her constitution to obtain revenue
from a traffic so nefarious and debauching? If she realizes the danger
ahead why delay an amendment that enhances citizenship and principle.
America, 'tis thee I prize,
'Twas underneath thy azure skies,
Where heaven's light first met my eyes.
I love thy thrift and enterprise,
To me beloved and so wise
Thy name is one I idolize.
Thy blood did purchase liberty,
To make this land so great and free,
And quench forever tyranny.
Oh may thy name forever be
Embraced within a righteous plea,
That lessens pain and misery.
It is for thee that I will fight,
When'er thy cause is for the right,
For none but these e'er use thy might.
I'll heed your call with keen delight,
But should I fall before the night,
Let freedom's flag be my last sight.