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About The west shore. (Portland, Or.) 1875-1891 | View Entire Issue (July 1, 1879)
21 8 THE WEST SHORE. July, 1879 horror ! Can nothing U June 10 btop it?" Yes lry up the fountain the ulootll ! Hut society never thinks of that ! It is so much easier to hang a murderer than to shut up a grog-shop ! It in so much easier to lose souls than a revenue! It in mi much easier to bury a drunken suicide than a live K)litician ! So society keeps one hand full of blood-money ami the other on the suicide's pistol ! . The rumsellci's hands were on that fatal pistol. CoImmd Brown'i blood flecks scores t saloon liars; glistens in diamond shirt-studs on many a saloon-keeper's hrcat; mingles with the wine on the side hoards in their homes; gives a deepci i (dor to the crimson upholstery, and the Brussels eat pets! Whiskey killed him ! Ami you, rumsellora, told him the whiskey for money ! Hut that money was red with blood ! black with crime ! pale with tears ! covered With the CUrM of Oodl Listen: "Woe, woe unto him that giveth his neighbor drink !" Coleman Brown's money will yet hlistei the hands that hold it. The rotten neei of the grave is alreadi upon it. It cries to Heaven fol justice ! What are you going to do iboul it ? Drunkenness is the gtcat curse ol'xur so, ial and national life. Cholera, small pox, yellow ItVei nil epidemics com bintd Mag smaller fatality, and al RKMl infinitely smaller SOITOW, In our own city a great tide of life flow s resist lessly into these saloons. I. ike moths itound a caudle, they will flutter around the fatal Cue of the hai for a little time, and then thcit koi scon bed bodies will make work for the COTOfttl ! There are scores ,, men, and some Women, in Portland, who arc conscious that they me going to destitution, who have already teased to tight that up. petite which has trausfoi mcd thent into Itcast.aud theii homes into hells ! Oh! 1 1.., MtlLI r i. i . . . ... if in mvis ioi neip inn j,,, tip ln.iii liripaiung slaves of -titing think in Portland ! Oh 1 the shame, the din- appointment, the feat, the rlsSTUSt, the awful pity, the anguish, the mad pro. I I . I k - . . f. J I I , ii-,- iioin tiiuiikini s hoines in Portland ! llundicds mote are just hog Inning They tlon't feel the chains vet, bat the chains arc already on their hands. At the lat,"-tht fatal "at last," which will aurcly ctmC ! thus chain will hum like red-hot iron links into their very souls ! Hie leprous hand of drunkenness is clutching at the young manhood of our city ! Scores of them arc already in the toils. This very Sahhath evening a hoy, not fourteen years old, went reeling up one of our streets to his miserable home, from a Sunday pic-nic ! Is there no help ? Can this monster he throttled ? Yes ! nut it cannot lie done m a day, or n year. It may not he done in your life time or mine. The work is a hard and a slow one. Hut it is as sure as the fact that right is stronger than wrong ! "The mills of the gods may grind slow," hut they do grind, and "they grind exceeding fine." Whatever crime, or criminal, is caught between the upper millstone of God's truth and the nether millstone of his justice, will he crushed to powder ! The great criminal, Alcohol, cannot escape ! What can he done to meet this great evil ? i. The people, and especially the rising generation, must he persistently and faithfully taught right views upon this subject The parlor, the pulpit, the press, the pedagogue ami the platform, the live great educators of tuft- day, must all he enlisted in this cause. They must strip this great Crime hate anil reveal its tic formity, putridity ami monstrosity; they must strip the whole question of iquot -selling, ami liquor-drinking, of all sophistry, ami all scntimcntalism. rhe oltl ami the young must he taught the truth taught it till it liecomes a pan of their life that it is a crime to sell liquor; that it is a crime, not a mis take or a misfortune, to buy liquor and think it, as well as to sell it: that the mail who sells liquors never could sell i glass, ami never would huy one to sell, hut for the bribe outheltl in th MUM "t the man who thinks it. In OUI Sunder schools, ami in ur day svhools, and in our homes, there must he formed ami trained, a public icnti ineiii, lestmg not on excitement, or crusading titlal waves, hut on solid con it lions of truth; a puhlic sentiment that will demand the suppression of this horrible bssthtees, am) which will enforce its demand ! This is youi work and mine. Here, 1 believe, is the secret f tn,. whole matter. There sre no short nits. The day of miracle are past. CioJ doe not set audi- hi laws to please us. He will not miraculously close saloons, in answer to prayer. Neither can you stop liquor-selling and liquor-drinking by laws. What is law ? I mean now efficient law ? Simply the expression of public opinion. Only that and nothing more. Laws arc only mile-stones to mark how far public sentiment has traveled. If law he in advance of public opinion in any community, it will be a dead letter. Laws are not enough. They will not execute themselves. Public senti ment is the motive power which sets the dead machinery of law in motion, ami makes law a power. Your law against larceny is a power, simply be cause the puhlic sentiment in this com munity demands protection of property lights. Now, whenever we can edu cate puhlic sentiment on this crime of iquor-selling and drinking to the same point, then we can put it down, as we now put down larceny. This is the only effectual remedy. I believe that we should work in every honorable way to secure the en actment of better laws for the regula tion of this great crime. I am Prohibitionist on principle. Hut I try to take my common sense into this quest ion. A prohibitory law in Oregon to-day would lie practically a dead letter, simply because public opinion would not enforce it. What we neetl in Oregon to-dny is astringent license-law with Local Option clause i. e., n clause giving cities, towns, and counties the privilege of choosing Pro hibition by the popular vote. Add to that the Civil Dnmage clause a clause holding the seller liable for all damages caused by his traffic, and where the seller is not pecuniarily responsible making the judgment a lien upon the building in which it is sold. Such a law would take the money out of the business. Landlords would be careful about renting houses for saloons. A minister would not rent that building on Front and Washington streets for s saloon or a den of infamy ! Such a law could be enforced. It would le in finitely better than Prohibition with the present state of puhlic opinion. 3. One thought more: "To con quer," said Napoleon, "we must re place." To conquer unholy passioe we must replace it by holy pas'0,, rndcfiled religion in the heart is the only attenuate remedv for the destroy