“Go Home and Make the Best of Your Sorrow.”
By Helen M. Gougar
LAST evening after tea, a gray-haired mother, accompanied by her beautiful daughter, called at my house to ask me if there was any way to save herself and her family of children from the curse of the rum traffic. For two weeks her eldest son and her husband have been on a drunken debauch. Night after night these men have returned from the saloon near by, drunk and abusive; night after night these women have been obliged to endure all this, with no redress whatever at their command. They have begged, they have pleaded, they have threatened these diseased men, but to no avail. Heart-broken, they came to see if there was no protection for them under the law. The following interview took place:— “Do you know where they get their drink?” “Yes,” replied the mother, “at John R.’s saloon.” “Have you warned him not to sell to your husband and son?” was asked. “Yes,” the mother replied. “I have gone to him and pleaded with him, telling him how he was ruining my family, and that seemed to do no good; then I took witnesses and warned him according to law, and he told me insultingly, that I ‘had better get a pair of pantaloons to wear,’ and blew a policeman’s whistle to frighten me. He gives them drink at all times; his place is open on Sunday, and poor, ragged, destitute children can be seen going in and out of his place on that day, carrying beer to their homes, and we have no rest from this curse even on the Sabbath.” What could I say to this woman? I could reply, “Madam, Mr. John R. does business under the seal of State. Back of his bar he has an official document, duly signed and paid for, that licenses him to destroy your son, your husband, and your home. He has a right, under the protection of the State, to break your heart, to silver your hair with sorrow, to make paupers of your children. You must grin and bear it as best you can.” “But my son is in jail to-day—beaten up by a drunken man, poor boy—and it seems as if my heart would break,” said the poor mother. “O, yes,” we replied, “Mr. John R. is protected by law in making men drunk, and, of course, this brings their brutal passions to the surface, and our jails and prisons must take these dangerous men out of the streets. The State makes all this strictly legal, and there is no redress for you. Mr. R. is all right—you are all wrong. You are a woman; go home and make the best of your sorrow; there are hundreds and thousands of wives and sisters who have the same trouble to bear, all over this land, whose laws are built upon the foundation principle that all law derives its just power from the consent of the governed.”—Helen M. Gougar; in Home Protection Monthly.