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The great meeting held upon Wednesday evening, Aug. 6, 1884, in Central Music Hall, Chicago, Ill. (a full account of which is published in the "Official Proceedings of the Fourteenth Annual Convention of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America,") was called to order by Most Rev. Archbishop Feehan of Chicago.
Address of the Most Rev. P. A. Feehan, D. D., Archbishop of Chicago.
To us who are here, and to all of you, ladies and gentlemen, it must be a source of most absolute pleasure and satisfaction to find assembled so large a multitude of persons interested in one of the great questions not only of our time, but of all time. You are here to-night from every section of this great and broad land as the advocates of a course of life and moral action that requires in its practice a high degree of virtue, and which is eminent useful, if not necessary, for society. There have come also from many distant points earnest, eloquent men to plead tonight for the same cause that you are interested in, and which you represent. It is the cause of temperance — of teetotalism, if you wish. They come to plead for temperance, and to combat the opposite — the evil of intemperance.
I need not tell you that intemperance is one of the greatest of the evils that hath cursed this world. It is worse than war, worse than plague and famine; for after war peace comes again, and the plague and the famine cease when they have expended their thirst for victims. But intemperance goes on from generation to generation and in every class of society. Many and many is the home that it has made desolate, and many a man has it sent prematurely to the dishonored grave of the drunkard, leaving to those after him an inheritance only of shame, and, it may be, guilt. It is for this that mothers have wept tears of blood, while fathers have reveled in the delirium of drunkenness, and little children have asked for bread when the only answer they received was a drunken blasphemy. And beyond all this — the shame and the misery and the desolation of the evil — it might be that the demon intemperance, that had ruined the life, came at last between the soul and its God.
Temperance, on the other hand, is one of the highest blessing, and a great virtue. The man who is temperate, is a man who is happy; he is the man who fulfills all his duties as a citizen, as a man, and a Christian. He may be a rich man who is temperate, and, if so, he enjoys the blessing of God's
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bounty temperately, as an intelligent being. He may be a poor man, but even a poor man who is temperate, has many things that he may be thankful for. His hands may be rough with toil, his daily bread may be steeped in the sweat of his brow, but when the heat and the burden of the day are over, and he retires into the bosom of his family, he brings no disgrace into his honest home. It may be exceedingly humble, but to him it is grander and nobler than a palace. He is surrounded by the family to whom he gives good example; he brings up his children in the fear and love of God, and teaches them the ways and the practices of virtue and religion; and, at last, when all is over, he descends into his grave with honor, and he leaves after him that testimony which is the best of all — the example of an upright and honest life. This is the cause that earnest men have come to plead before you to-night; they are eloquent, and, in a moment from now, I will have the pleasure of introducing to you one well known, not only for his eloquence, but as the constant advocate of temperance and teetotalism. (Applause).I have the pleasure, ladies and gentlemen, of introducing to you the first speaker of the evening, the Right Rev. John Ireland, Bishop of St. Paul.
Address of Rt. Rev. John Ireland, Bishop of St. Paul, Minn.
Bishop Ireland when he arose was greeted with a wild outburst of applause, and addressed the meeting as follows:
Your Grace, ladies and gentlemen: This is assuredly a solemn occasion. We are gathered together to do honor to the delegates in the Fourteenth Annual Convention of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America. They have come to us from all parts of this broad land to tell us of their battling for charity, patriotism and religion. They have come to take counsel together, to seek means of gaining new victories for their cause, and I am certain you will agree with me that it fills our own hearts with heroism to meet these noble soldiers of the cause. I honor them, and hail them with enthusiasm, to selfishness; men seek but what is for their own individual pleasure or their own individual interest. We need for the salvation of the world, heroes. (Applause.) We need men who are prepared to sacrifice their own pleasure, their own time, to go forth nobly to do battle for their fellow men. We need in the world the spirit of the old crusaders — men who will stand up at a moment's notice ready to sacrifice themselves for God and for humanity. (Applause.) This is the school of Christianity. It is the lesson which the Saviour of men taught to us, when on earth he passed his time doing good, healing the infirm, consoling those who were
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sad and suffering, and ever since the Saviour appeared on earth, throughout all ages, His spirit has lived, and His spirit has saved the world.And in the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America I hail the same great and glorious spirit! I hail men who labor for the good of others, and, too, in order to labor the more successfully, make sacrifices themselves. (Applause.) The sacrifice which they make is this: They practice total abstinence in order to induce men at large to combat fearful evil of intemperance. Temperance or moderation in drink is the virtue which the masses at large are invited to practice. As the means to temperance your Union proposes total abstinence. Men say to us it is temperance we need, and not total abstinence. Yes, I answer, it is temperance, but total abstinence is the means, the method; this is the evangelical form of combating vice. When our Blessed Lord proposed battle against vice he induced the chosen ones among His disciples to practice in a supreme, sublime degree the virtue which He was teaching to man, hence the evangelical counsels of chastity, poverty and obedience — some of the virtues which he taught. He did not expect that all men would practice these virtues in this sublime degree; but He wished to place before the world a certain number of His followers practicing them in this degree in order by their example to induce others to follow them, at least in their necessary form and degree. And this is what we are doing by the practice of total abstinence. It is the sublime degree of the virtue of temperance.
It is too late in the day, ladies and gentlemen, to talk of the fearful ravages of which intemperance has worked through the land. We all know too well that it is one of the greatest evils in existence to-day. We all have seen the poverty that it has wrought upon individuals and families. We all have with saddened hearts viewed the wrecks of intemperance too oft accompanies to the polls the voters of the land. We have seen religion itself disgraced. We have seen obstacles thrown across the path of man towards salvation. We know it. The papers throughout the land daily give us the records of evil. We know it, and we know that there is scarcely an evil to be named to-day that does so much harm to the individual, to the family, to society, or to the church. We need not then speak of the evil, but we can well ask with some surprise how is it that men at large who think over the interests of their fellow men and society, have not awakened to the necessity of opposing this evil by creating some strong barrier to
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the constant advance of this evil of intemperance? They tell us that the ordinary methods for the propagation of virtue should suffice. But we answer, "in the presence of extraordinary evil we must take extraordinary means." If intemperance were not the evil it is to-day, it might do very well to preach in favor of virtue in general, and to invite man to receive the sacraments; but the evil has obtained such a degree at the present time that we must employ extraordinary measures to combat it. We Catholics know very well that the first and great source of power in a work of a moral reformation is the sacrament of God's church. We know very well that without those sacraments, and without prayer, weak man can accomplish nothing. But here is the practical truth which we must not forget, and which some among us do not forget — it is this: That God requires that we do our share. God never proposed to save man only by His sacraments. He demands co-operation of man, for the propagation of His own Gospel and for the spread of His own church. And when we put forth our own special generous efforts then will God grant to us special generous graces. He has made men free. He honors them in calling them His assistants, so to speak; and hence when there is great evil over the land, as there is of intemperance to-day, those who love their Maker, those who love their religion, those who love their fellow men, will gather together and oppose extraordinary efforts to the progress of this evil.This is precisely what the total abstainers are doing; they oppose to this evil total abstinence, and it is well that they do. When soldiers rally in opposition to any evil they should be above all suspicion themselves, and when they come together to oppose intemperance let the world know beyond all doubt that among these soldiers of temperance there is no fondness whatsoever for intoxicating drink. Let the world know that they are themselves beyond the suspicion of intemperance, and by taking the pledge, members of the Total Abstinence Union, you put yourselves above all possible suspicion; moreover, when you have forsaken altogether, even the moderate use of intoxicating liquors, necessarily your zeal is all the greater in your battles for intemperance. Very little is done, I assure you, by those men who will gather around the table upon which are placed their wine glasses to talk about evils of intemperance. They have not the heart themselves to go bravely forward, and when great strenuous measures would be proposed they would look back to their own glasses, and they are afraid that those measures would strike those glasses and they are cowardly in the attack against evil. (Great applause.) Whatever the method that may be proposed in favor of temperance the soldiers in the movement should be total abstainers. (Applause.) And then their fellow men will have confidence in them; their
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fellow men will address their loyalty to the cause. Their own acts of sacrifice will compel attention. The world will be obliged to admit that you are thoroughly disinterested and zealous in the cause.We do not expect that the multitude at large shall become total abstainers. This is an objection that is frequently urged against our movement. It is said: Do you expect that the whole country shall at any day abstain totally from intoxicating liquors? No. Candidly, I do not expect it. The masses at large are not made of that noble material. (Applause.) But I know that numbers are ready to make the sacrifice, and to these do I address my appeal. I confess, however, that it is somewhat of a surprise that the total abstainers throughout the country are not more numerous than we actually find them. There is no need indeed, for a revival of the spirit of the christian chivalry. Too many suffer from the atmosphere of the day and cannot arouse themselves to enter the battle field for the sake of their fellow men. We will labor to increase the number of our noble warriors. We will not cease to make the appeal to our fellow men to add to our numbers. We will not cease, especially, to invite all men of influence to come with us, all those who have at heart the benefit of their fellow men, all those who have at heart the glory of religious, the safety of their country. To them especially will we ever speak and say: "Come be with us. Take the pledge." (Applause.) Increase your battalions by your efforts throughout the country, and at once you will perceive the fortunate results of your noble example. The tens of thousands who will not have the courage to take the pledge as you do, will be for very shame compelled to practice the virtue, at least in a moderate form. Wherever your standard is uplifted there a sermon is preached in honor and in favor of the total abstainers; there the weak are encouraged; there those who are battling are strengthened. By your example you beget public opinion. And the misfortune heretofore in America was that public opinion was more or less in favor of drinking. I do not say that it was in favor of intemperance, but certainly it was in favor of drinking, and the many who will take the glass in hand determined to stop at the right time, through their weakness would be led through fire. Public opinion counseled the wine on the banquet table; public opinion compelled the friend to treat his friend; public opinion put forth the liquor traffic as one of the most honorable forms of business in the country; public opinion permitted the men who grew rich over the graves of their fellow men, to lift high their heads through the land, and walk almost as sovereigns of the country. (Great applause.) With such public opinion it is quite useless to speak to the weak among our
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brethren, and to tell them that they should drink moderately. We know how weak men are when at all they have been accustomed to the danger of strong drink. We might as well tell them on the brink of a precipice not to fall over into the abyss. What we should do is to change public opinion, remove from those weak brethren the dangers, the occasions, and this you do by your total abstinence societies. Let there be in a parish a hundred, or two or three hundred, total abstainers recognized as such, and those total abstainers will change public opinion, and by their example will lead thousands, at least, to drink moderately if they have no courage to become themselves total abstainers. (Applause.) This first method which you employ is example and moral suasion, and let it be well understood that we put the force of example and moral suasion in the front round of our battlings. (Applause.) If we talk of other methods we are met at every step with an objection — that moral suasion is not the only agent. But we are not so shortsighted as not to admit that there are other methods also. We admit that there are, but it is the cardinal principle of our Union.But at the same time we are prepared to appeal to just and fair laws in the land (Applause) to stem the tide of this torrent of intemperance. Law we are told never created virtue; it may be, but law assists virtue. Law removes the obstacles, and the objections made against all temperance laws would tell against all laws, civil or divine. Law as it has been administered in America has been brought down to the service of alcohol. Men whose interest are built altogether upon the use of intoxicating drink, have been able to secure laws that would permit them to extend their trade beyond all permissible limits, to the great detriment of our fellow men. And when just and fair laws have been placed on the statute book these men have been able to obtain that these laws should be a dead letter. Law is a great power. Our enemies know it very well, and they make use of it; and we know the weaknesses of human nature; we know that it is perfectly useless to talk to the poor drunkard, and to tell him to abstain from liquor when as soon as he goes out of his little cottage into the street he is met at every step with men to whose interest it is that he should drink. It is useless to tell him to abstain morning, noon and night, Sunday and Monday, men are near him inviting him to drink, when men are ready to take our very children before the dawn of reason has come — when men are ready to make them drunkards even before they are capable of judging of evils. It is useless for us to work when men are ready to take the habitual drunkard and to step him still more in liquor until the vital spark itself has departed, and the soul has appeared before its God covered in sin. (Applause.) This compels the
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friends of temperance to make use of their rights as citizens, so that whatever just and fair laws may be enacted by our legislatures for the restriction of intemperance should be observed. (Applause.) How far we should go for the suppression of intemperance I will not now say. I lady down simply the general truth; it should go as far as the salvation of the people may demand. (Applause.) It is a question of the rights of citizens, a question of political statesmanship rather than a question of religion. But we know that there are laws already in our statute books which not only the State, but the church, absolutely demands, which the liquor traffic throughout the country does not intend to follow.We know very well that throughout the land the liquor traffic is determined to open their saloons on Sunday, to break the stillness of that day set aside by church and state for the peaceful repose of the mind in thoughts of God. We know very well that religious as well as the state approved the law forbidding the sale of liquors to habitual drunkards and to minors, and we are doing neither our duties as citizens nor our duty as teetotalers and soldiers in the cause of temperance if, whenever the occasion offers, we do not use our rights as citizens to enforce those laws. (Applause.) No one surely can complain of our interference in this matter. It is the utter lawlessness and recklessness of the traffic which invites our opposition, and certainly the liquor traffic is doing itself immense harm, and, permit me to say, it is doing the cause of temperance much good by its lawlessness. I will explain fully, because it is going so farm and working so recklessly that the citizens at large for the very salvation of the country will rise up, and some day with mighty voice will tell it to stop, and then the power of making drunkards shall be totally taken away. (Great Applause.) I speak as an American citizen, and this lawlessness of the traffic is the great evil of the day. We Americans hope for the perpetuity of our institutions through the law abiding spirit of the people. To come obedience to the law, we must rely on the consciences of our own people. And the great enemy of our country is he who advises a spirit of lawlessness, is he who says that the laws on the statute book should not be observed; and when temperance men throughout the country will seek so far as they can to enforce those laws they will prove themselves the great friends of liberty, the true American citizens. (Applause.) We must teach them to vote as free men according to their consciences, and not to vote because others indicate to them how they must vote. We must teach them, especially, to resent it as the greatest insult that could be offered
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to their manhood when men in the interest of beer or whisky will tell them to vote for their candidate. Never vote for the liquor element. (Great applause.)Ladies and gentlemen, this temperance cause is one indeed well fitted to awaken our deepest sympathy. It is one upon which men and angels look with admiration. Temperance is truly a cardinal virtue; around it all the social virtues hinge. Make our people temperate, get them to hate liquor, and you make them happy men and women. (Applause.) Too bring happiness to the fireside; you bring joy to wife and child; you stop the great torrent of evil which is sweeping over the land filling with victims our jails, poorhouses, asylums, and reformatories, and which, alas, too, is driving into hell itself tens of thousands of souls. It is a noble mission, one in which you must succeed because God is with you, one in which you will succeed because you have to deal with a people most anxious to be saved, a people replete with noble, magnificent instincts, and who, if they have been thrown in its misery and suffering have made the misstep too often because no one was near to lend a helping hand. They are a great, a noble people, and it were a shame to us if we did not devote our lives to saving them when we know how willing they are to be saved, and when we know what bright virtues will shine out before heaven when we take away from them that one fearful curse — intemperance. (Great applause.) And certainly as one of your co-laborers, as a member myself of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of America, as one who has attended many of your conventions long ago when the movement was weak, I feel deep joy this evening, and I thank heaven for the great progress your Union has made. Is it not a sight capable of inspiring us to noblest effort to see two of the most illustrious archbishops of the church (great applause) here bidding us God speed? Is it not cheering to see other devoted prelates of the church, a large array of priests, delegates from all the states, representing the talent and the zeal and the energies of the church throughout the whole country — to see such an immense gathering in this great metropolis of the West all united to do homage to the cause of total abstinence? (Great applause.) I feel that a new era has dawned upon us. I feel that we will al go forward after this convention with renewed courage and do yet more energetic battling. I feel that we will succeed, and if there is coldness yet around us our warm enthusiastic hearts will sooner or later melt away the ice aground us, and a bright day is near for our people, a day on which it will be said that they are all determined enemies of liquor, and when that day has come the world at large will proclaim that they are the noblest people o the face of God's earth. (Great applause and cheering.)
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ARCHBISHOP FEEHAN: I have now the great pleasure of introducing to you, ladies and gentlemen, the most Reverend Archbishop Elder of Cincinnati.
This announcement was received with great applause, and Archbishop Elder spoke as follows:
Address of Most Rev. Wm. H. Elder, D. D., Archbishop of Cincinnati.
Your Grace, and my dear friends: I feel now that the best service that I could do the cause of temperance would be to allow you to go quietly to your homes on what you have just heard. (Applause.) I feel that any words added to that, such words as I can give, would rather detract from the effect that I know they have made upon the minds and the hearts of all you here present. I notified good Rev. Father Hagan that he could not count on me as one of the orators of the evening; still he desired that I should say something, and I most say that from my own feeling, apart from what would do most good to you, I am not sorry to say a word to express to you my own pleasure on the occasion. (Applause.) My pleasure in finding myself, in the first place, addressing a large; audience in this city of Chicago, a city to which I am not entirely a stranger — because a number of years ago I had the happiness of enjoying not only the hospitality, but the fruits of the abundant charity of the reverend clergy of the various congregations of the city; I feel still more glad to have an opportunity, at last, to express my interest in the cause that you good gentlemen, delegates of the Total Abstinence Societies, represent. I have been invited to your conventions on different occasions, and this is the first time that it has been in my power to accept the invitation. I am happy then to be among you because I recognize in you not only a number of earnest individuals, but each one of you as a representative of a large number in your various homes scattered through the country. I heard one of you, whom I believe speak to you himself this evening, say, that he alone represented a society of a thousand members. (Applause.) And I know that many others of you represent your hundred.
Now, then, those glorious words that have fallen from the lips of the Bishop of St. Paul, which have gone to your hearts so deeply, tell you of the great things that have to be done and the necessity of nerving yourselves to do them. As I contemplate these great things I feel filled with courage and joy to know that you are already accomplishing so much. Each one of you represents an association which in its own home is a nucleus of
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what is earnest in battling for God: in the parish which contains you, each one of you represents a society of men, who, with their families, rejoice in that peace and that happiness which Almighty God intends should be the chief happiness of man — the happiness of a good, peaceful, Christian home. Each member of a total abstinence society is doing his share towards making not only his own family happy, but giving that example which he tells us is so influential and upon which we depend so much, to the families around; and the total abstinence members of the parish are men who do great good by practicing themselves the virtues that they preach. They are men who, in a temporal point of view, are keeping their families comfortable, are saving up their earnings, either possessing already their homes, or are preparing themselves to give homes to their families, and thus give themselves the position not only of good, but of influential citizens where they are. Each one of these is likewise giving the example of calling from Almighty God those graces which are the source of all good movements in your approaching the sacrament regularly every month or every quarter. In your attending faithfully to all your religious duties, and in the teachings and the examples you give to your children; you are doing a great, good work. You have already done a great deal of the good work which is to be done, and you will continue to do more. You are doing a great deal already in battling against that dreadful monster — intemperance, and besides, you and your societies at home form a nucleus of true good citizens and patriots who show your devotion to the good of the people by your exercise of this self-denial.Our country is one which depends upon the individual citizens for its peace and its prosperity. In our country the enforcement of the law of which the Rt. Rev. Bishop Ireland has just spoken, is a work which has to be done by the citizens themselves, and it is to be done by the citizens banding together with a spirit to enforce the law and see that the law is observed. It is, by those that the law is to be established throughout the country. In monarchial countries you have the government from those who are the ruling power, trying to force obedience from those who are subject to them. But in this country the power is held by the very persons who have to exercise the obedience. (Applause.) And, therefore, the very essence of the observance of the law in that each citizen, no matter whether high or low, should be himself an observer of the law, and should have the spirit of enforcing the law among his labors. (Applause.) The country depends upon each individual for its peace and its prosperity. Moreover, my good friends, we find in the practice of the laws of this country — the enforcement of laws depends upon public opinion. Public opinion is to be formed by organizations. We
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find wherever citizens in any place find an evil existing they band together in societies, and by their earnestness in those societies, they accomplish more or less for the removal of the evil by the enforcement of the laws. We have, for example, the Society for the Suppression of Cruelty among Animals. We have the Society for the Prevention of Vice. We have societies for various other purposes. Why should they exist? Why do not the police enforce the laws without these societies? Such is, however, the fact, that in our country laws will not be enforced unless the authorities of the law are backed by powerful organizations of numbers of citizens, and yours is one of those organizations which can always stand at the back of those who wish to enforce the laws. (Applause.) And while you are doing this for the special cause of temperance you are likewise giving the example to your fellow citizens around, even those who do not join you in your association — you are giving them the example of doing your and their duties as good citizens. It has well been said with regard to some of the greatest disorders existing in our country that they have arisen through the apathy of the people.While our American people are possessed of noble instincts, and are desirous for the observance of law, yet there is such an absorption of man's attention to business, that men are disposed to let abuses go on without discharging their duty as good citizens in the enforcement of laws; and the greatest disorders that exist in the country should all be hindered if the citizens would themselves be continually upon the lookout to discharge their duty as good, citizens. Bear this, in mind: This is a government of the people; therefore, the people are bound to govern, and every man who belongs to the people has a conscientious duty to exercise his share in the government. If any one were to say that these disorders, this violation of law by the interests of liquor — that is a thing that cannot be remedied or that we cannot put it down, then, my dear friends, you know what you would say to another governing power acting like that if a king acknowledged in any country that he cannot rule his people, or that he cannot correct the most terrible abuses there existing among them, why you would say to him that he had better abdicate and give the government to some one who could. (Applause.) And, dearly beloved friends, any American citizen who say it is impossible for us to put down those evils, to enforce the laws that are upon our statute books against the liquor interests, I would say to him then that he ought to abdicate. (Applause.) We are able to do it, and there is a good will to do it. If that good will can be animated, stirred up by such and address as we heard this evening, and by your example, each of you in your own place continuing to give that example. The
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difficulty is, that all American, citizens are so absorbed in their business that each man is afraid that attention to public affairs will interfere with his business. You give, indeed, a glorious example, in which you devote yourselves while you have your business to attend to. You let other citizens see that even with your business depending upon your daily attention, yet you find time to do your duty likewise to God and to your country. (Applause.) This, then, is a beautiful example which you are doing. You have done an immensity of good already. You are doing it now, and under the inspirations that this convention brings forth, I am sure that your holy cause will gain a new impetus all over the country, and will result in not only an increase in favor of the virtue of temperance, but will be likewise an example of encouragement to citizens in your own locality, so that they, like you, shall be willing to give up some share of their business to discharge their duty to their country and to the rulers of the country. (Applause.) In this, my dear friends, I feel, that we all owe great thanks to you that are here this evening, and particularly to a number among you whose names I cannot now recall, but you know yourselves who have been the men that for years and years engaged in this holy cause. O, God will reward you for every day you have given here, and your country will have reason to bless you, for the good you have already accomplished, and your example will raise up others after you, likewise to walk in your footsteps and to extend the good which you are now doing. Then we, as the clergy, give you thanks indeed for what you are doing in this holy cause of God, and we pray that Almighty God may continue to fill you with his holy enthusiasm, and may spread it among your neighbors that your example may accomplish those great works which have been set before you this evening. (Great applause.)ARCHBISHOP FEEHAN: The next speaker whom I have the pleasure of introducing is the Right Reverend Doctor Spalding, Bishop of Peoria.
Bishop Spalding when he advanced to the front of the platform was greeted with hearty applause, delivering the following address:
Address of Rt. Rev. John L. Spaulding, D. D., Bishop of Peoria, Ill.
Vice is the most fatal foe of human happiness, and he who desires to be really helpful to his fellow men, should by example and by word strive to promote essential holiness of life. A very efficacious way of doing this is to bear testimony against open and notorious sin and crime. Now in our day and country so vice is so glaring and wide-spread as intemperance; which is also
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the great pool whose steaming waters fill the land with a moral miasma, which produces hydra-headed crime as fatally as the malaria of foul marches produces fever and ague."We have," said the greatest statesman of oar day, speaking in the House of Commons, "we have suffered more in our time from intemperance than from war, pestilence and famine combined — those three great scourges of mankind."
There are, it is needless to say, other sources of sin and crime than intemperance, and a man or a people may be wholly free from this vice, and yet be worthless and immoral. We certainly have no desire to cram the essence of all goodness into our particular virtue. Our cause, indeed, is so great and so holy, the facts upon which it rests are so indisputable, that we have nothing so much to dread as the bringing unsound arguments and a narrow heart to its advocacy.
When I see men go so far in defence of total abstinence as to maintain that the use of alcoholic drink is forbidden by the Christian Bible, I am forced to confess that their ignorance is unpardonably gross, or else that they are not honest, and I sometimes imagine if the whole world were like them, a society diversified by whiskey hells would be a relief. (Applause.) Such advocates are the best friends of the enemies of temperance, for their blind and ugly fanaticism is token as the type of character which total abstinence tends to make prevail. These people seem themselves to be unhappy, and the world does not love unhappy people. They are like sullen children, who with envious eyes watch others eat the delicacies which they are not permitted to touch. As a true man would rather suffer than seek aid from one who had no sympathy with him, so there is in human nature an instinctive feeling that no help is to be looked for from those who offer it from a sour and contemptuous heart. (Applause.)
Let us be content to follow the example of our Divine Master, Who, when He seeks to lift men out of the wretchedness of sin into the free and fair Kingdom of Heaven, approaches them with the tenderest love, is patient and serene, and full of sympathy as a mother's soul.
We are, like the early Christians, surrounded by people who misunderstand us, who dislike us, who think us narrow-minded and fanatical, who hold us even to be the enemies of the joyousness of life, mere reformed drunkards, who, because we cannot drink in moderation, wish to deprive all men of an innocent pleasure. The noblest of all Roman Emperors, Marcos Aurelius, who, by the way, was a water-drinker (laughter and applause.) says it is a princely thing to suffer ill for doing right, and they who serve a good cause with a loving heart are made strong by calumny and opposition. There is in the temperance movement the deep
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moral earnestness which makes men insensible to ridicule and contempt."The sweetest revenge," says the imperial water-drinker whom I have just quoted, "is to keep ourselves unlike those who do us wrong."
This Convention represents the Catholic Total Abstinence Movement in the United States. We sympathize indeed with all honest efforts to repress not the vice of drunkenness alone, but all forms of vice, but our societies rest on the principle that total abstinence is the only sure and efficacious remedy for the evil of intemperance. (Applause.) And in holding this principle, we apply it not merely to those who are, or have been, the victims of alcohol, but to society at large.
Intoxicating drinks are not necessary to health, since women and children, to speak, in a large sense, do not use them, and their health is quite as good as that of men who drink. (Laughter and applause.) They are not necessary and they are harmful; bringing ruin upon countless individuals, despair to the hearts of innumerable wives and mothers, changing homes which were created by love into dens of misery and hate, filling asylums with orphans to whom the deaths of fathers and mothers came as a blessing, turning loose the spirit of lust and murder, obscuring the brightest minds and withering the most generous hearts. Not will any good or wise man say that all this concerns others, not himself.
What I am I owe to a thousand influences, not my own, and I am the shallowest of men, if I imagine that it is possible for me to take care of myself without caring for others. What injures the neighbourhood, the city in which I live, injures me, and when my faith or my country suffer wrong, I also am wronged; (applause) and a man becomes a total abstainer, not necessarily because he has been a drunkard, or has special reason to fear he may become one, but because he loves his fellow-man, his religion, his country: because he pities women who are the wives of brutal husbands and the mothers of the helpless children of drunken fathers, and maidens who are the victims of men for whom love means only lust. (Applause.)
He feels that in the presence of the sin, the misery, the crime and the degradation which hang like noisome reptiles around the wine-cup, and spill their uncleanness upon the fair name of Catholics and Americans, nothing is worthy of a true man but complete renunciation of the whole business. (Great Applause.) Though he does not condemn those who go no farther than to persuade men not to drink in saloons, or not to invite others to drink, or to drink nothing more intoxicating than wine or beer, still he holds, since alcoholic liquors are not necessary to health
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and since they are the cause of three-fourths of the crime and misery which disgrace religion and society, that the proper thing is to abstain altogether, because, though we grant that many may drink with impunity, yet a given number of moderate drinkers will infallibly produce a given number of drunkards, and another given number of incomplete and crippled lives, as a given number of Typhus fever cases will cause a given, number of deaths. (Applause.) I, of course, speak of countries where drunkenness is a national vice, for if I lived in Spain I should not think of practicing or preaching total abstinence. But where drunkenness is a national vice, moderate drinking tends to excessive drinking, and to encourage moderate drinking is one way of encouraging drunkenness. And in our country, at least, efforts to induce people to drink only wine or beer are not likely to produce good results. The adulteration of beer, which makes it more difficult to get pure beer than pure whiskey, and which in a government like this cannot be prevented renders beer more hurtful, both morally and physically, than probably any other drink. Between this stuff and the pure light beers of Germany and Belgium there is nothing in common but the name. There may be no worse criminals than those adulterate food and drink, but it is easier to punish the president of a bank than one of these. (Laughter and applause.)However this may be, this Convention represents not drinkers, or the drinkers of wine or beer, but water-drinkers, (applause and laughter) and no one can belong to us, or work with us, to good purpose, unless he is a total abstainer.
The pagan priests of Rome, when faith in the gods and in virtue had died out, could not meet one another, it is said, without a smile, and so, I have heard it used as an argument against our cause, that temperance people when they meet, have been known to smile, (applause and laughter) though in secret. If so, are they not like the pagan priests, mere hypocrites and snakes in the grass? And is not a man who openly drinks in the lowest dram shops better than one of these wolves in sheep's skin? (Applause.) To make profession of total abstinence in order to influence others, and to drink because drinking is not in itself wrong, is an odious mockery, repugnant to the scared sense of truth and honor.
And I do not think the cause of total abstinence needs even the eloquence of moderate drinkers, for, whereas it is commonly supposed that nothing is so potent as wine to loosen the tongue and give volubility, I am persuaded that in fluency, copiousness and length of speech the water-drinker excels all other men. (Applause and laughter.) Is not the pledge better than the diploma of a School of Rhetoric, and does not a man become an
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orator by the mere fact of joining a temperance society, just as by being born an American he becomes the equal of kings? To speak more seriously, I believe that those who advocate total abstinence without themselves being total abstainers, can be of little or no help to our cause, and this is the reason why I so late in life have become a temperance speaker. (Applause.)In fact, those who drink, but speak n favor of total abstinence, necessarily though tacitly assume that our societies are a kind of inebriate asylum, into which one who has never gone to excess ought not to seek admission; and this is not only a false assumption, but it is one which it is our duty continually to combat; for while we consider it an honor to have among our members many who have been redeemed from the curse of drink, there are also great numbers of whom this cannot be said, and whatever tends to strengthen this prejudice, must end also to drive away from us the very men who are able to render the greatest service to the cause of temperance.
We are persuaded that total abstinence is good for all men, and our aim is not merely to reform inebriates, but, by enlightening the public conscience and influencing public opinion, to create a greater dread of the danger of drink, and a deep horror of the miseries and degradation which it inflicts on mankind, and above all upon women and children, who are the innocent victims of the slaves of these vice; and in this holy struggle we need the help not so much of the reformed, as of those whose lives have been distinguished by moral earnestness and purity of purpose, and especially of those who believe in God and in the soul, and who know that religion which does not rest upon the basis of morality, is no better than superstition. (Applause.)
As in a noble thought there often lies a whole poem and philosophy of life, so in a great cause such as ours innumerable opportunities for good are enfolded. When the temperance movement, for instance, becomes also a protest against obscene literature, which is at once a symptom and a cause of the worst corruption, this manifestation of a new activity is but the development of the general principles underlying our whole organization. (Applause.)
For since there is an intimate connection between the drinking of alcoholic liquors and the commission of crimes, such as fill the columns of many newspapers; and since the habit of reading these disgusting narrations familiarizes the public mind with all kinds of sin and vice, and so warps and deadens the public conscience, what is more proper than that we who seek to put away from men the temptation of drink, should also use every effort to shield them from the poison of an immoral press? Only the vile keep company with murderers, thieves and prostitutes, and to thrust day after day the sayings and doings of these people before the
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eyes of the whole world is the grossest outrage, and each publications inevitably tends to destroy shame and reverence. (Applause.) To maintain that the public announcement of criminal offences, in the way this is generally done, has a deterring and corrective influence, is equivalent to the assertion that the sensational lives of bandits and burglars are lessons of morality. Crime, like sin and disease, is contagious, and the reading of suicides has caused many unfortunate beings to take their lives. Though our influence with newspapers is not likely to be great, since we have nothing to advertise, (Applause and laughter) temperance societies may at least be the means of shielding many families from this moral contagion, which is more fatal to the innocence of the young than drink itself. I am not sure indeed that a total abstainer who reads the "Criminal Calendar" of some of our newspapers, is not justified in taking a drink of whiskey, on the principle of similia similibus — of killing one nasty thing with another. (Applause.)There is another evil, which, if not checked, must undermine free government, and for which the liquor, trade more than any other cause, is responsible--the desecration of Sunday--the tendency of which is to pervert a day meant for religious and moral education into a pagan festival of debauch. Whatever views we may hold as to the proper attitude of government towards intemperance, there cannot be two opinions, I think, among honest and enlightened men, as to the duty of the civil authority to force liquor sellers to dissociate themselves from common criminals and violators of the law. So long as saloon keepers, in defiance of law, sell their wares on Sunday, or at forbidden hours, or to minors and drunkards, so long will all good citizens have the right to employ political means to suppress this illegal traffic, and if other remedies fail, to try what effect prohibitory legislation will have. (Great applause.) The chief arguments which can be brought against Prohibition, so far as my knowledge of the question extends, are these two: First, that such laws are inoperative, fail to produce the intended effect. To, which I reply, if so, then those who oppose laws will get their liquor, but if by any chance it should happen that Prohibition prove effective, then drunkenness will die out and three-fourths of the crime and poverty which disgrace our country will disappear. The second argument rests on the objection that if the principle underlying Prohibition were carried to its ultimate consequences, it would change governments into the most odious of tyranny. To which I make this reply: Precisely what distinguishes a statesman from a doctrine, the framers of the American Constitution from the authors of the Reign of Terror, is the knowledge that political principles are not always to be pushed to their ultimate consequences, that practice
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and speculation are not the same thing, and consequently that it does not follow because one is a prohibitionist, that therefore he ought to be in favor of a law to forbid women the luxury of tightlacing. (Applause and laughter.) The political axiom that the will of the people is the supreme law, would, if insisted upon, justify all possible tyrannies, of which majorities might approve, and is, if taken in a logical, and not a practical sense, in contradiction with freedom of conscience, which is the basis of civil liberty.If the end of all political agitation is to strengthen morality, which is the only secure foundation of free government, I shall never be able to understand why the chief source of crime should be surrounded by a holy wall and declared a sacred asylum into which the law may not enter. (Applause and laughter.)
Another consideration which has a bearing upon the work of temperance societies, may be brought from the relationship which exists between the occupation and mode of life of people and the temptation to drink. In great cities, allurement to dissipation is not only stronger and more constant, but the wretchedness, the scant food, the impure air that so often in crowded districts surround the poor, super induce a chronic state of bodily enfeeblement, which makes the craving for stimulants a physical disease. Among such populations it is manifest that moral remedies must necessarily in great measure prove ineffective, and if any great improvement is to be hoped for, it must come from a change of work and place. Hence, our societies, so many of which are found in the most densely populated portions of our country, can not labor more effectively in the cause of temperance than by using whatever influence they may have to give their friends and neighbors true views of this question. In the actual condition of our country, it is sheer folly for laboring men, who are also heads of families, to continue to hire themselves to masters and corporations, when it is not difficult for an industrious man to own his own home and to work for himself and his wife and children (Applause.) How immeasurably more favorable or virtue, to sobriety, to independence and happiness is not to the life of one of our western farmers than that of a day laborer or a factory hand in a town or city? Even under the most favorable circumstances, there wage-workers have no means of providing their children, and hence so many of our youths and young men take to railroading and other occupations which remove them from the moral restraints of home, and throw them, without protection, into the midst of the worst temptation to drink and debauchery. I often think that if I could persuade only one man to give up this foolish and dangerous kind of life and become a farmer I should die content. (Applause.) But the thought I should succeed, the great probability
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is that his wife would become a Prohibitionist, and so bring the whole thing to naught. (Applause and laughter.)In offering an apology for speaking so long, when others are present who are more worthy to be heard, I feel that it is not possible for me to give you an impression of the depth and earnestness of my faith in the cause in which we are engaged. Surely we are working with God, we are laboring for our faith, our country, our fellow-men, and thought the good we do should be imperceptible, yet with God a noble aim is like a noble deed, and the desire to be of help is of itself a choice privilege.
The pledge we have made our souls is as a Divine promise that we shall not lie until the Judgment Day in the drunkard's grave, that our minds shall not be darkened and our hearts palsied by the slow but certain poison of alcohol. The widow and the orphan, the murderer and the madman, shall not point to us, to say that by silence even, we are partakers in the guilt that brought ruin upon them. Let others believe that drink is more than the man, that animal sensation is human joy, and that the boisterous have glad hearts, but we shall still hold to the faith that a pure conscience is a perpetual feast, and that it is nobler to bear the sorrows and trials of life than to seek to drown in the poisonous cup the sense of misery. (Great applause.)
Archbishop Feehan next introduced the Right Rev. Dr. Waterson, Bishop of Columbus, Ohio, who was greeted with applause and spoke as follows:
Address by Rt˙ Rev˙ John A˙ Watterson, D˙ D˙, Bishop of Columbus, Ohio.
As this is an assembly of water drinkers, and as I am a water drinker myself, you will excuse me if I take a drink of water. (Laughter.) And drinking from the same spring that Bishop Spalding drank his inspiration from a little while ago, I trust that I will catch some of his spirit. (Laughter and applause.)
Having been traveling since half past five o'clock this morning to get here, and having arrived only at seven o'clock this evening, I am not in very good trim to make a speech, and to tell you the truth, I came here to see rather than to be seen, to hear rather than to be heard. I came here to make the acquaintance of those men amongst the clergy and the laity who have been prominent in this noble cause of temperance and total abstinence throughout the land for so many years. (Applause.) I am here to wish a hearty, God-bless-you and God-speed-you to all who are interested in this noble cause. I said that I came rather to be a looker on than anything else, but my dear friends, if there is any one who can look upon vast assemblages of men and women such as this is, all united heart and soul in the interests of this holy work, and
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not be aroused to enthusiasm, then all I have to say is, that the emotions of his soul are dark as night, and let no such man be trusted. (Applause.) Let me, therefore, merely echo what has already been said. I came here this evening as a distant echo from Ohio. {Applause.) And all that I have heard here this evening I echo heartily to-night to you, and I am going to echo it hereafter. (Great applause.) So permit me in conclusion to express my pleasure at being here to-night and seeing so many delegates of the total abstinence societies from ail parte of the country assembled here, and to see the interest that is taken in this holy work by so many people in Chicago, and let me ask God's blessing apon all those who have been working in this cause, and let me beg them to go forth and still continue the work both by precept and by example. Let them not lay the flattering unction to their goals, that because they are members of the total abstinence societies they can thank God because they are not like other men — drunkards and so on; bat that each and every member of a temperance or total abstinence society become amongst his fellow men an apostle of temperance and total abstinence. Let him try to win others to the cause. Let him try to do this every way he possibly can, by all the influences that he can exercise round about him, and then he will have a blessing apon himself and a blessing also upon his cause, and the cause of total abstinence will increase and multiply throughout the land. (Applause.)Abchbishop Feehan; I shall now introduce to you, ladies and gentlemen, the President of the Philadelphia Catholic Total Abstinence Union, Mr. John H. Campbell.
Mr. Campbell was greeted with applause and addressed the meeting as follows:
Address by John H. Campbell, Presdt. of C. T. A. Union of Philadelphia.
Your Grace, Ladies and Gentlemen: Were I to contsult my own feelings to-night I would certainly wish that I were home safe in Philadelphia instead of presuming to speak after the eloqnent remarks that we have heard from the distinguished members of the hierarchy of oar Church. I feel it is but presumption on my part to stand here to advocate a cause that has such advocates. The cause needs no other advocates, bat the managers of this meeting have no doubt asked me to speak out of compliment to the State of Pennsylvania, which compromises within its borders nearly one-half of the entire membership of the Union of America. They desire to pay special honor to that great State on account of its work in the total abstinence cause, and it is for that reason I have been selected to say a few words to you. We, in Pennsylvania,
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have looked forward to this day, feeling certain that the time would come when the hierarchy of the Church in America and the clergy of our Faith would lift the banner of total abstinence and lead a great advance that would effect a final success. (Great applause.) And I will certainly go back and report to the eighteen thousand total abstainers of my State the great success of this meeting. (Great applause.) Particularly will I go back to my own society of a thousand members, and I will say to them that the advance has been ordered and that they, if they do not work, will before long be left in the rear. (Applause.)Ladies and Gentlemen: It would be presumption, as I said, on my part to preach total abstinence on this platform to-night; and the best respect that I can pay to the noble words that have been said will be to merely add on behalf of the total abstainers of the State of Pennsylvania, and I might say, on behalf of the lay delegates of this body, that we thank God that we have had the opportunity of witnessing such a spectacle as two of our Archbishops and three of our Bishops publicly standing up for the cause. {Great applause.)
Archbisbop Feehan: The next Reverend gentleman who will address you is the Reverend Father Mackey, of Cincinnati.
Father Mackey did not make a total abstinence speech, but entertained the audience by relating to them several amusing anecdotes. He was heartily applauded.
Archbishop Feehan: There is one more speaker, ladies and gentlemen. This meeting has been entirely catholic, it seems to me. We have had eloquent addresses by gentlemen from the east, from the west and from the far north. The last speaker, and the last name that I have to mention to you, is from the land of the sun — the genial south. I beg to introduce to you Mr. N. F. Thompson, President of the Catholic Total Abstinence Union of Savannah. (Applause.)
Address by N¨ F. Thompson, President of C¨ T. A¨ Union of Savannah.
Mr¨ Thompson spoke as follows:
I feel like uttering the words of my friend, Mr. Campbell, to-night, and saying to you that the beet service that I could perform now would be to take my seat; but since my section is expected to say something in this grand meeting, I will ask your indulgence only for a moment or two.
Some years ago, while a non-catholic, I was engaged in the temperance work. I saw in the cause then enough to enlist my sympathies and my services, so much so that I gave to it, my friends, I fear, the best years of my life. After becoming a catholic it was only natural to me that I should compare catholic
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