Select Temperance Tracts

by American Tract Society

In the fourth place, I appeal to these men as a neighbor and a parent, and in behalf of the drunkard’s wife and children. When Providence cast our lot in the same neighborhood, I considered, and doubtless you thought the same, that a regard to our mutual welfare bound us to do every thing in our power to make the community in which we lived intelligent, virtuous, and happy; and to avoid every thing that would mar its peace, degrade its character, or stain its purity. My complaint is, that by the manufacture of ardent spirits you have violated these obligations. The facilities for obtaining spirits, and the temptations to their use and abuse, have been thus so multiplied, and brought so near, that very many who were once kind neighbors and valuable members of society are ruined, or in different stages of the path to ruin. One has got as far as an occasional visit to the grog-shop and the bar-room: another is rarely seen there; but the wretched condition of his house, barn, and farm, his impatience of confinement at home, and his many foolish bargains, tell me, in language not to be mistaken, that the worm which is preying upon the root of his prosperity is the worm of the still. The frequent visits of the sheriff to the house of another neighbor, whose family is healthy and industrious; his bitter complaints of the hardness of the times; his constant efforts to borrow money to prevent executions from being levied; the mortgaging of his farm to the bank; his pimpled face, and bloated body, and dry hacking cough, are painful testimonies of his familiarity with the products of the distillery. It is distressing to look around upon our once happy neighborhood—did you ever do it?—and to see what havoc your manufactory of spirits has made upon the peace, property, reputation, intelligence, morality, and good order of the community. No wasting sickness, no foreign or domestic war, no premature frost; no drought, blasting, or mildew; nor any other visitation of God; no, not all of them combined have been the tenth part as fatal to our prosperity and happiness, as this one self-inflicted curse. And this curse we should never have felt, had not some of you put into operation your distilleries, and others fed them with the products of your farms: I mean, such would have been the happy effect, had the manufacture of spirits ceased in our land before these evils had followed: and I am now supposing that some one in every town and neighborhood throughout the land, where there is a distillery, is addressing the same language to those who conduct it as I am addressing to you. We make a united and earnest appeal to you, in view of the ruin that rises around us, that you would stop the work of destruction and strengthen the things that remain, which are ready to die. You stand at the fountain-head of that fiery stream which is spreading volcanic desolation over the land. Oh, shut up the sluices before every verdant spot is buried beneath the inundation.

But to come again into our own neighborhood: I have a family of beloved children growing up in the vicinity of your distillery; and when I recollect that every fortieth individual among us is a drunkard, and that about every third person above the age of twenty dies prematurely through intemperance, I cannot but feel a deep anxiety lest my boys should be found at length among the number. True, one of the earliest lessons I teach them is total abstinence, and I try to excite in their minds a disgust towards every species of alcoholic mixture. But they go to one of my neighbors and hear him telling of the whiskey and cider-brandy that have been produced upon his farm, and they see him mixing and circulating the bowl among his laborers, his visitors, and even his own children; and it is offered also to mine, accompanied with some jeer against cold water societies. They see the huge accumulations of cider and rye at the distillery, and mark the glee of the men who conduct its operations, and of those who come to fill their barrel or keg with spirits. They go also to the store in the vicinity, and see one after another filling their jugs with the same article. Now, these neighbors who thus distil, and vend, and drink whiskey and brandy, my children are taught to respect; and how is it possible that they should not feel that their father is too rigid in his requirements, and hence be tempted to taste; and tasting, to love; and loving, to be destroyed by the poison? Oh, is there no guilt in thus spreading a snare for my children? Should they fall, will none of their blood be upon your heads? Shall not the entreaties of a parent be felt by those who are themselves parents, and whose days may yet be rendered intolerable by the cruelty of drunken children?

I would invite the manufacturer of spirits, and the farmer who supplies the materials, to go around with me among the people in the vicinity of the distillery, that they may have some nearer views of the miseries produced by their employment. Let us stop for a moment at this tavern.

Myself. You seem, landlord, to be quite full of business to-day. What is the occasion?

Landlord. Neighbors X and Y have their case tried here, to-day, before Esquire Z, and you know that these matters cannot go on well with dry throats.

Myself. What is the point in dispute between your neighbors?

Landlord. Something about swapping a horse, I believe; but it is my opinion that both of them hardly knew what they were about, when they made the exchange. It was last town-meeting day, and I recollect that both of them called quite frequently at my bar that day. They are none of your cold water folks, I assure you.

Myself. Are these court days generally profitable to you, landlord?

Landlord. Better, even, than a town meeting; for those who come on such occasions have no qualms of conscience about drinking, if they have occasion, I assure you. But on town-meeting days, some of the pale-faced temperance men are always about, to frighten away honest people.