Temperance by Editor

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · May 22, 1884

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 10, No. 20.

Temperance.

By Editor

"Protection" and "Respect" for Rum-selling.

A FEW days ago an organization of liquor-sellers in this State formulated resolutions asserting that the business in which they are engaged is "legitimate," and "entitled to the protection and respect" of the community. Long habit doubtless blunts perception. The soap-boiler cannot smell the stench which pervades in his works. The dealer in hides comes to think his wares sweet and inoffensive; and so it is possible that those whose business is to sell poison to the public, and who witness hourly the disastrous effects of their trade, may think it is deserving of respect. But the public can make no such mistake. A trade which flourishes upon the ruin of its supporters, which derives its revenues from the plunder of homes, from the defrauding of helpless childhood, and from the degradation of manhood; which requires for its prosperity the injury of the community; which ministers to every vile and vicious passion and propensity; which makes drunkards, and thieves, and embezzlers, and gamblers, and wife-beaters, and murderers; which brutalizes and degrades all who are brought in contact with it—cannot claim the respect, and assuredly ought not to be able to claim the encouragement, of the community.

It indeed indicates the extent of the prevalent demoralization, that a business so inherently infamous, so unquestionably against public policy, should have been permitted to establish itself so firmly that those who pursue it are convinced, not only that it is legitimate, but that it is "entitled to protection and respect." But upon what grounds do these bold claims rest? What constitutes a legitimate, respectable business? Is a business which debauches, impoverishes, injures the public, either the one or the other? When such questions have to be asked it is time that they were settled definitely. At present rum-selling is technically legitimate. That is to say, it is not unlawful. But since its consequences are what we see, it would be an abuse of language to term it respectable.

But it does not stop at these insolent pretensions. It tells the people that it has great political power; that it is organized; and that it will fight reform and temperance with the votes of the unfortunates it has embruted. This then is what the community has to face. It must either submit to the political supremacy of the rum-sellers; it must either accept their government; it must either bow to their standard of morals and declare them to be entitled to "protection and respect;" or it must make up its mind to a conflict the aim and end of which shall be the overthrow of this abominable abuse, and the protection of the masses against the worst foe of civilization.

They will oppose any reform whatever. They deny the right of the people to protect themselves at all. They claim the right themselves to poison and brutalize and degrade all whom they can reach. They think that they will be supported in this by the public they fleece and injure, and upon the persistence of whose animal appetites they coarsely calculate. Hitherto they have unhappily been justified in this dependence. The men who had most cause to loathe the business have been among the first to uphold and fortify it. But a change is even now passing over public opinion. It is becoming more and more generally recognized that intemperance is at the bottom of two-thirds of the social, political, and moral evils that retard progress and perplex and harass the legislator. It is being comprehended that an effective and safe franchise requires sobriety and intelligence in the voter. In fact it is being realized that the future of the nation depends largely upon mastering the elements which have their origin and derive all their strength from rum, and which militate at every turn against good government, pure social conditions, religion, and progress.

—N. Y. Tribune.