Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 3, Number 6, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 June 1859 — Factsand Figures. [ARTICLE]

Factsand Figures.

[From the Indianapolis Journal.

Eds. Journal: In your issue of the 18th it is stated that the papers say little or nothing on the subject of license. I.f no one else will speak, let me. The moans of cruelly injured wives, the wails of hungary and ragged children, and the woes of the drunkards themselves, demand an advocate; and over their accumulated sorrows let me renew my vows of eternal hatred to the liquor traffic. Let me say “hate is a feeble word” to express the loathing of my s ml for the thrice accursed aud pre-eminently Christian I'cense law. No others than Christians license men to commit crimes. Macauleysays a prince who selects his servants is responsible for their vices. More certainly a sovereign people, who elect their lawmakers, are responsible for the laws enacted. Therefore the Christians of Indiana are responsible for the license law that disgraces the State. License to sell intoxicating liquors include license for every crime. The voice of our brothers’ blood—those brothers having legally gone to drunkards’ graves—will cry for justice; and in that great day, when the assembled universe shall stand at the bar of a just Judge, the hands of all who by omission or commission have aided in sustaining this great crime will be found stained with that blood. I accept the Journals estimate, that our State will probably have 2,000 leg’ll and Christian grog shops, and that they will give §IOO,OOO to the school fund. These 2,000 grog shops will be patronized by 30,000 drinkers. Of this number possibly one hundred may reform and die sober men. in spite of their own efforts, (for drunkards do make sincere efforts to reform,) in spite of the labor, the tears, the prayers of friends, the remainder will go to drunkards’ graves and to the drunkard’s eternity—forever excluded from the Kingdon of Heaven! They will not all be hung for taking the lite of wife or friend, while legally and Christianly infuriate—they will not all die of delirium tremens, nor will all go to the grave through the gloomy portals of the penitentiary. They may call themselves temperate drinkers, (and why not, hereafter, Christian!) but as sure as they patronize the grog shops of Indiana they will die drunkards. The labor of all these drunkards will not be entirely lost to themselves and con munity, but inasmuch as the greatest intellects and stoutest hands are the oftenest palsied by drink, wc may safely estimate the loss at $1 per diem. Their families and the public are thus defrauded of §IOO,OOO each year. The penal and pauper expenses of the State exceed §200,000 per annum. But, alas! words fail if I attempt to estimate the outraged hearts and hearth-stones of 30,000 families. Can the accumulated wealth of ages dug from Golconda, from Peru and from California ever compensate for blighted honor, blasted intellect, perverted affections and ruined souls! Gray-haired parents weeping and refusing to be comforted; broken-hearted wives toiling for bread, and children, around whose t hin, hungry lips no smiles ever co.ne—children “In their tender weakness turning To their. Hoaven-appointod guide, How a lava-poison burning Will tinge with glad affection’s tide; Still that orphan-burden bearing, Darker than the grave can know, They do bow them down -spairing' To their heritage of woe.” What more dreadful heritage could h

community—a .Legislature of incarnate fiends inflict upon children than to make their parents drunkards! Yet it is dnacted that this lava-tide of disgrace, this far worse than orphanage, shall legally, and Christianly be conferred upon 100,000 children. There is no mistake about the Facts and Figures, that for every dollar paid to the school fund for license one of the young immortals must bow despairing to this heritage of woe. There is not a person in the world, v. ho will assert that, grog shops are a benefit to the community. The whole system of the liquor traffic, and its concomitant horrors, are fastened upon us, because it is a politi- ! cal machine, truly. It would have been dei stroyed long ago, but that some men obtain ■office by the votes of drunkards who would have to labor for their bread if all were sober. A voice of wailing comes from the gallows, the graye-yard, the prison, and the alm-house* protesting against the anomaly of making parents drunk, for the purpose of educating the children. The laws of Arkansas are humane in comparison with those of Indiana. That Sta’e sells the bodies of her free colored population to support her schools. The shackles of slavery, grievous as they are, only bind th” body; but the Schools of our State require Loth soul and body to be offered to Moloch for their support. Shall the price of blood be put into our Treasury—shall our schools rest upon these hecatombs of parents and children! Christians of Indiana, has the Legislature indeed enacted your instructions? Shall the undemocratic doctrine prevail that few must prosper at the expense of the many? Shall 2,000 men, for the paltry sum of §SO, each grow rich from the proximate and approxi--1 mate sufferings of 978,000! Thirty thousand drunkards, §9,000,000 lost in talent and ■ productive industry, §200,000 penal and pauLper expenses, 100,000 drunkard’s children, .60,000 women as wives and mothers, sharing the disgrace and abuse of drunkards; and for this outlay of time and money, blood and sinew, heart and hope, our School Fund will be enriched §IOO,OOO.