Newspaper Page Text
IHM im ÜklUr TMP OMI v DADcp im minnic nni iiut v tu at vajii uat i im .. . . - www., . . . . .u. .w . uic. i nt iKumwii huu I HEAR OR FAVOR IS THE -itagpef atifiFf Vol. 56 Jasper, Indiana, Friday, AUGUST 7, 1914, No. 42. Intemperate Temperance. Food for the Temperate and Intem perate to Ponder Over. Thm there is that other exceedingly popular prohib ition argument that the total abstainer sets a worthier example to society than the temperate drinker sets: that if the temperate drinker can take these drinks, and yet preserve his sobriety, it is his duty to abstain, and deny himself for the sake of his weaker brother, who cannot. This argument is strong, and it is as fas cinating as it is strong; and why? Because it appeals to the great active principles in all true religion e principle that is as undying in the Uuman heart as tha God who put it there the principle ot the nobility and the grandeur of self-sacrifice! But then every man's duty is as he thinks it. Because the moderate drinker conceives of duty in a different manner to that in which the Prohibitionist conceives of it, does not follow that he is the less conscientious or self-sacrificing. He may adorn his life with the sweet virtue of self-sacrifice in a hundred different ways, to all of which the Prohibitionist may be a stranger, and yet be utterly unable to see that it is his duty to evince the virtue in the Prohibitionist's direction. Besides it does not of necessity follow that total abstinence is any self-sacrifce at all. It is only the man to whom drink ing is so pleasant an indulgence as to be a dangerous one, who can be said to practice self-sacrifice in ab staining from it. Besides, is it true that th? man who totally abstains sets a noble example to his weaker brother than the temperate drinker? It is certainly true that if everybody followed the example of, the Prohibitionist, nobody would get drunk: but it is equally true that if everybody followed the example of the temperate drinker, neither would anybody get drunk. The one example would stem to be just as good as the other, for if either example were followed we should have what we do so sorely need a sober people. The temperate man the man who wisely uses a thing practices self-control in regard to that thing. There is small virtue in keeping sober if you drink nothing but cold water. The virtue is, to drink something stronger than water and keep sober on that. Water, as Shakespere tells us, is "too weak to be a Burner." If we have an unwise longing for anything, totally to abstain from it although a good thing to do-is not necessarily the way to eradicate that unwise longing from one s nature. There is danger that the repressed appetite may at any time break forth and leave us stricken with shame. So long as men keep from it they are safe; but even the distant smell of it often fatally allure them to a fatal indulgence. There are some Prohibitionists who cannot bear the smell of whisky a mile off; when the smell comes to them they feel impelled, by an irresistable force, to rush up to their temptation and drink themselves to madness. There are many men of this sort men who, from her editary tendency, or from their own wild, reckless, and thoughtless personal indulgence, have become so thor oughly the slave of this vice that only the hard tyran ny of an external law is the thing that can save them. They are infinitely to be pitied -far more to be pitied perhaps, than blamed. Their frailty is not so much a vice as it a disease. You can only do one of two things for these menlock them up so that they can't get at the thing by which they sin, or lock the thing up so that it can't get at them. If you lock the thing up through which they sin, then you punish the many who can use tha thing innocently for the fault of the few who can't. To these men the total abstinence pledge is useful but even the pledge is not enough. It prevents, so long as it is observed, the gratification of their fatal appetite, but it does not eradicate it. The resources of medical science are simple enough to achieve that end, and the only possible cure for such men is an observance ot the discipline which, in their case, medical science would impose. It is because such men are induced to think the pledge all-sufficient to save them, that they lapse, over and over again, into sottishness. They sign the pledge, apparently, only with the intention of break ing it again, when the first temptation presses itself. A course, it seems to me more destructive to their manhood than if they had never signed the pledge at all. A man can better afford I think, to take a glass too much- -or a good many glasses too much than he can afford to be an habitual violator of his sacredly pledged word. The temperance reformation I fear is responsible iora good deal of the looseness whieh ob tains in society with regard to the sacredness of a man's pledged word. Temperance reformers confound Prohibition with self-control. The two things are to tally and radically distint. I have not conquered any vice to which I may be prone, when I have only run avviy from it and succeeded in erecting a barrier be tween myself and it, 01 locked mj ? Ii up somewhere so that it can't et at me. If I cannot face the vice, grapple with it and coi quer it. i had bater run away: but it is not much f a virtue to brag about. John Milton saith trut ; "I cannot praise a fugitive and cloister'd virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never rallies into and sees her adversary, but slinks out of the race where that immortal garland is to be run for, not without dust and heat. That which puri fies us is trial, and trial is by what is contrary. I have not erercised self-control when I have left my passion unsubdued and simply placed myself in a posi tion where I can't exercise it. We achieve self-control only when we lash passions, tastes, appetites into obedience to something higher. Prohibition is, in the main, only exchanging one sort of intemperance for another. Prohibitionists, when they denounce all temperate drinkers as food for hell, and all saloon keepers as food for the gallows, get drunk on bad and narrow passion a worse thing than even getting drunk on wine! Prohibition says, at best: "I would do it, but my pledge prevents me, and I can't!" A true temperance says: "I would do it, there is no arti ficial barrier in the way of a pledge to prevent me; but my moral sense tells me I ought not to do it, and I won't!" The temperate man, because he can control himself, can control all things. He is monarch of this beautiful external world, and he makes all its riches, and all its delights, and all its thronging beauties his own! Man can produce nothing by any conceivable combination of the things God has created which has not its legitimate use. All things within his reach the temperate man will draw about him, and show how all things may be turned to good. From the eminence of thought, of feeling, of pure emotion, of self-reliant power he occupies, he wiil cry to all the restless sons of earth, to all the toilers after empty ambitions, to ail men who are rocked by bad impulse, or swayed by brutal passion or enslaved appetite, "Come hither, ye faint and weary ones; come and learn how things turned by you into dire curses are, in their very natu r richest blessings; come and learn how impulse may be made to prompt to nobleness, how passion may be dis ciplined into sweetest love, how appetite may be train ed to minister to enjoyment, how all the abundant and abounding beauties of the world may be used for good and made so many rounds in that beauteous ladder whereon men and women may toil after the absolutely lovely." I believe in enjoyment. There is nothing in this world that is not put there for man to enjoy. There are no accursed agencies in all the great realm of nature. What God has created and what God has given man will to make, man has every right wisely to use. I do not believe in asceticism. I abhor it and reject it utterly in every conceivable form. Surely, it can not be that He who covers earth with richness, and blesses earth with fatness; that He who decks each weed with dewy pearls that make the jewels resting on the bosom of a queen look dim; that He who has made the lovliest moss hidden away in nature--most secret solitudes faultlessly symmetrical, in form; who has throned beauty in the fire-fretted sky, and made its spirit dwell no less on the meanest insects' wing; who instructs the viewless winds to awake the deep orchestral musb of the forest trees, and who makes all nature ring to their one never-ending gladsome hymn of praise, it can not be that he meant that this life of ours should be made a thing of darkened gloom but costive sympathy for any pleasure, of sullen ab stinence from any one thing in which any honest man can find an innocent delight! "Did God set his fountains of light in the skies. That man should look up with tears in his eyes? Did God make this earth so abundant and fair, That man should look down with a frown of despair? Away with so heartless, so joyless a creed. The soul (hat believes it is darkened indeed!" The prohibition movement has now been agitated for fifty years. An immense amount of money has been expended; an enormous amount of enthusiasm has been called into exercise; and yet what has the result been? Thousands upon thousands of intemnerate tem perance speeches have been uttered; cartloads upon car loads of books, pamphlets and tracts have been written and circulated; millions upon millions of dol lars have been spent, and yet the vice against which all has been directed has not diminished one jot or one title. The prohibition movement, in so far as it had for its object the making total abstainers of men, has, it must be confessed, proved a wretched failure. Continued in the next issue. 1914 AUGUST 191 SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT Jasper Courier -All the News. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11-12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 DUMAS' AUDACITY. A Unique Literary 8cheme of th Great French Writer. American readers are aeeoston to Mirprise in their newgpapc. hut imagine their astonishing. ihouM some favorite journal jwl lish in ood faith, in daily instar mc:its and adapted according to th notions of gome staff writer, i classic such as, for exam pi Dante's "Inferno!" Yet the astoo ishnient so excited would not b without a parallel in the annals o newspaper management, inasmue! as Homer once figured as a feuille fconiste for a Parisian newspaper. When Dumas the elder was edit ing his journal, he Monsqnetair Urbain Fage3, one of his assistan who was an exceptionally fine pre Scholar, Was one day enthusasl ally expatiating upon the beaatu of the "Iliad" and the " I lysse; Dumas grew most interested. "If only you could read them fi the original, sighed Pages. "Why not ?" asked Dumas. "But," exclaimed Fages, "nr. dear fellow, you don't know alpht from omega! "Will you translate foi me?' asked Dumas eagerly. Accordingly Fages undertook th' task. Beginning with the firs: book of the "Iliad," he would read s line of the Greek and then give e literal translation. Dumas quickh caught the spirit of the epic. At Facs rend he wrote a translation ami-signed it. "In the name of all the anciente 51. Dumas," exclaimed Fages, "bui you are signing your name to th 'Iliad!'" "Certainly' responded Dumas "that is, to my version of it. I1 will appear as a feuilleton in L Mousquetuire." Fages was filled with dismay, I lie afterward related, but befv. such audacity and naivete he f helpless. How was he to convi a writer accustomed to every I umph that be was too bold ? And so the next day an in-f. ment of the "Iliad," as renderc1 half an hour or so by a man wi could not read the Greek alphabc appeared at the bottom of the pag of Le Mousquetaire, with the note Continued in our next. This enterprising bit of journal ism raised such a storm of criticism that Dnmas was persuaded to dis continue it after the third install ment, though it was doubted that he quite understood what was the trouble. St. Paul Pioneer Press. A DETECTIVE'S RUSE CUver Method by Which H Secured So me Evidence. "I had to resort to a queer niM once to get an admission from a man I w,i after," said a privat de- acre had been some ( ! !) Ihm u com t m tec live trouble t men. Otn into the did not should hi ther heard disinherit the man v in his fa i ou v D 0 the r i L:.A i! The fat I ber of the same club, and a waer o. v. me supper son could and would whip I i fellow. Soon after t Iiis the the man who bad insulted him whip? i d on I r of the j with him of nn a father fo was ret a neoL d. "it wa necessa: T a al aa t. frieuds vc: there was talif them and his Our igenc the eyiden Forks And the Coin. Plaoe two forks with their prong one set over the other and blip a coin between the middle prong3 of the forks. Then place the coin flat on the rim of a wmeclaas or tumbler, pushing it outward until the two circumferences are touch ing externally. In this position, ai ihown in the ill u trat ion, the fork will remain in equilibrium, and the water may be poured steadily from the glas into another without dia huur the coin or two fork. Bright the Fir. When Crewe Hall was burning the late Lord Crewe, father of the pres ent earl, displayed a humorom equanimity which St. James' Bud get deer:i- vorthy of preservation in print. When the historic mansion, with Its worki of art. rare manuscripts, trmor and other traures, wai blazing away Lord Crewe ordered a footman t g pit e a tab! on the lawn an 1 bring him an inkstand and icme telegraph forms. lie then sat down and composedly wrote this telegram to Street, the Royal aead ern; Ian: "Dear Street Crewe is burning. Come and build it up a:rain." To hn si-rer he sent another mes sae by w i re : "You alwayi :;ed to say this was 4 cold house. You wouldn't aay so 4 jou could see it now. V ;3 that it would uct an admission from the fafl icr oi the vouncr man who hnd made H e Sisanrt 1 was told to get it. I tr many wi snd failed. He did not kn- w wai i detertivo He had known m i number o:" years, but -1 . I ras engaged in other wort 1 had another plan to get from him what I wanted. I tohl hirn a New York publication was having the affair written up and illustrate-1. "I said I had .oon the picture of the fiprht which haihbeon nrenared for it. He was plcaÄ tit the pub licity that the fight was to pet, for the Btory of the afTair at the clwb had been printed, and he wanted it known that his son had avenged the insult 1 intimated that if he cared to see it I thought I could get him the picture that had been prepared for publication He was eager to eee it. "I had a friend, a newspaper art ist, who made me a picture. He made a faithful copy of the strwet iene where the fight occurred, and he made a fair likeness ai the ng ( ureg in it. The picture showed on man ptealinjj up behind another and striking him from the rear. Behind him were two other men, who were 'suppose to have accompanied him to fair play. The father was thought to have beon in the neigh horhood, but es he wasn't seen ho . was left off the picture. He exam ined it cT ifully. "'Who ire these tdo men? he asked, pointing to the two onlook ers. " They are the two Blacks, who went a!on with your ion to see that he got fair pV.' I told him. I "That's ail right,' he said, but who is this?' pointing at the man who was striking at the other from behind. MWhv, ttwfs your son I told him. "'Thai's a lie be exclaim I My son Ftood r'";f In fron and hit him sq told him t front of h t: right arro tfie street, m men who close enoup i to see a!l ii.af . ed. They will tell yon tbat not hit hm from behil I him fairly ,?al whipped him fa lhat wa- the way wo made it nj. do. If thaff :,rinted I'll whip the rati who ms le it !' "It wasn't pr nted, nor were there ny court proo dingB taken on ac count of the alleged confpiracy. The men concerned n it on both sides pot together and settled it out oi oourt" Exchange. Ywmlng For Light. When it conies to consuming gas in large quantities blind peDple can oeat r ir seeing brethren all j hollow," said an inspector of the gas EnpanT. "I know two fami lies where both hnahand and wifm are blind. Fvery jet is turned on full tilt in their homes at night and is keM ro!n tr at that rate clesr uo to 12 o'clock. Li-ht and darkness are all the same' to the iflictrfl ones, hot they insist upon illumina tion brilliant enough for a recep tion. And that partiality for light k not a whim peculiar to thoe two couples. Mögt blind people feel that way. They demand the light, and in all private homos and insti tutions where the blind are cared for the gas bills Touch for the ftr&nge fancy." Exchan