Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 282, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 December 1917 — Temperance Question Looms Large as Side Issue of War [ARTICLE]

Temperance Question Looms Large as Side Issue of War

In a large measure our interest in the temperance question is transferred overseas, where our troops are to be temporarily engaged. We may not revise our notions of the evils of alcohol, in fact conditions into which our troops are plunged may give the foes of liquor cause to stiffen their own resolution concerning the subject. These very conditions may even be justification for immediate nation-wide prohibition in the United States as a safeguard against the day when our boys come marching home again. There will be difference of opinion on that point, however. But while we are unable to change conditions “over there,” it is idle to close our eyes to the fact that liquor for the soldiers seems to be considered necessary for the prosecution of war and many young men who are not addicted to liquor may acquire a taste for it as a result of their experience abroad unless they are of unusually determined character. There is perhaps this saving grace connected with the situation. The terrific strain to which the men 1 are subjected, the arduous and exI hausting labor they perform does not leave the system weakened and a prey to intoxicants to the same extent as would be the case of civilians loafing around a barroom in times of peace. ’ . _ There is a considerable amount of common sense in the philosophy of Claude Parnell, of the British army, as expressed in a letter to a friend; “We are marching steadily, miserably along interminable communication trenches. The rain is falling softly. Everything is moist but not wet. We are cheerful enough—some of us—and we have had a good meal, with rum in our tea. May those who wish to rob us of our rum march forever in the Desert of Sahara! May they work fourteen hours a day and be awakened at two-hour periods during sleeping hours and be shot at by snipers! May they—well, do exactly what we are doing and about to do. My reflection at this moment is that no great race of conquerors was ever prohibition.” .> Things are done in war time 'that would not be done in times of peace, an J one of the penalties that must be paid by those of finer sensibilities and n’eher moral ideals is the fact that there is necessarily an apparent raveling oi *be texture of convention. , . But in a way these things »r e incidents to war, which after all merely organized and legalized Nations slay for Various reasons but the resort to apms »’ is after all cloaked with one term, no matter how lofty the aims of its statesmen and its armies, no matter what the provocation that compelled resort to force.

Therefore our effort should be concentrated upon the work of putting an end to war as rapidly as possible in order that the evils by which it is attended may the sooner again be brought under control. f