But what are the clouds that dim the brightness of our coming glory,
and already overshadow us? The greatest of all is the curse of
intemperance. Secretary Windom said, in his address at the Cooper
Union meeting in New York, (May 25):
"I do not think I overstate the case when I say that the 200,000
saloons in this country have been instrumental in destroying
more human life in the last five years than the 2,000,000 of
armed men during the four years of the Rebellion. There is an
irrepressible conflict upon us. This nation cannot endure half
drunk and half sober any more than it could endure half slave
and half free."
Gov. St. John, late candidate for the presidency, said, in his New,
York address:
"There are about 215,000 retail liquor houses in this nation.
Allowing 20 feet to each, it gives us an unbroken liquor front
of about 781 miles. Just think of it! Seven hundred and
eighty-one miles of profanity and vulgarity. Seven hundred and
eighty-one miles of Sabbath-breaking. Seven hundred and
eighty-one miles of drunkard-making. Seven hundred and
eighty-one miles of filth, debauchery, anarchy, dynamite and
bombs. [Applause]. Seven hundred and eighty-one miles of
political corruption; seven hundred and eighty-one miles of
hot-beds for the propagation of counterfeiters, wife-beaters,
gamblers, thieves, and murderers.
"In the High License City of Chicago, in the great Republican
State of Illinois, there are, within five blocks of Halstead
Street Mission, 325 saloons, 129 bawdy houses, 100 other houses
of doubtful repute, theatres, museums and bad hotels, and only
two places for the worship of Almighty God. (Cries of 'Shame!')"
St. John should have added that intemperance was the most powerful
agency for the propagation of intellectual and moral idiocy in
offspring.
The increase of insanity in spite of our defective systems of
education is universally recognized. The New York _Sun_ says:
"The very rapid increase of insanity in the United States during
the last two or three decades continues to be the subject of
much discussion among alienists, and all those who are concerned
in public charities. That a prime cause of this alarming state
of things is the shipment to our shores of the enfeebled and
defective of other countries, is now beginning to be understood,
and both our own State Board of Charities and the National
Conference of Charities and Correction have called on Congress
to protect our society against the introduction of these
depraved specimens of humanity, who speedily become a charge on
the public, or transmit their weakness to their posterity.
"The statistics of insanity show that, in general, the
proportion of the insane is greatest in the older States, where
the foreign population is most numerous, and it is least where
the communities are new, as, for instance, in the pioneer
counties of Wisconsin. The South, which has drawn comparatively
little from immigration, suffers from insanity to a much less
extent than New England and New York; and it is an established
fact that the Negro race is much less liable to insanity than
the white. The average of insanity in New England is 1 to every
359 of the population; in New York, New Jersey, and
Pennsylvania, 1 to every 424; while in the extreme Southern
States the average is only 1 to 935.
"The West, like the South, is more free from insanity than the
Northern seaboard States, the average being 1 to every 610 in
the interior States, and 1 to 750 for the Northwestern States.
In the far Western States and Territories it is only 1 out of
1,263, they being settled by a picked population, whose energy
and soundness make them pioneers. It is note-worthy, however,
that insanity is as frequent in the Pacific States as in New
England, the explanation being that vice and indulgence prevail
to an exceptional extent among the population drawn to the
Pacific by the mania for gold. The average in Massachusetts, for
instance, is 1 to 348; in California 1 to 345. It is also
remarkable that the ratio of insanity decreases as we go west
and south of New England, as these averages will show: New
England, 1 to 359; Middle States, 1 to 424; interior States, 1
to 610; Northwestern States, 1 to 750; Southern States 1 to 629.
"The State where the proportion is highest is Vermont, 1 to 327;
and New Hampshire comes next, with 1 to 329. We are at a loss to
understand why insanity is so frequent in the District of
Columbia, the average given being 1 to 189; but perhaps the
large average in Vermont and New Hampshire may, in part, be due
to the circumstance that those States receive the refuse of
Canadian poor-houses, they having a much better organized system
of charitable relief than the Dominion can boast of; and it is
undeniable that some of the very worst of our immigration comes
from over the Canadian border. That immigration, too, is now
great, and there are factory towns in New England where the
population is largely made up of French Canadians."
There is a disturbing element in the influx of a foreign population
reared under very unfavorable social conditions. In 1882 the
immigration was 800,000. On a single day, in May last, nearly ten
thousand arrived in Castle Garden. The steamships are overburdened,
and the Cunard and White Star lines employ extra ships to accommodate
the emigrants. Oppression in Ireland, and oppression all over Europe,
drives the people into emigration; but a large portion of the
emigration consists of a substantial population; yet we have enough of
the turbulent and debased element to make a serious danger in our
large cities, and a formidable competition with native American labor.
The more laborers, and the fewer employers, the worse it is for labor.
But perhaps American wealth and enterprise will find something
satisfactory for all to do.