Mr. Editor:
Temperance is an unpopular subject to talk about in this town, I know, and as there is nothing new to say on the subject as it is generally treated in print and on the platform, there may be something interesting at least to say as it is talked on the curb. I find that about everybody who has anything to say about rum selling and rum drinking is of about the same opinion. All seem to agree that there is just as much sold and just as much drunk, here in Norwood, as there ever was, if not a great deal more, in spite of all efforts to suppress the sale and practice.
“Why is it that we hear so little now-a-days of temperance organization?” remarked a middle aged man, in the midst of a crowd of curbstone tenants. “What has become of the Sons of Temperance, and the Good Templars organizations, that once flourished all over New England? I remember to have belonged to one of these lodges. My impression is, that as a social club, it was a great success, but as a reform club it fell far short of its mission.
The membership was made up of young men and women who had never tasted alchoholic beverages and probably never would have indulged in them aside from the influences of the lodge. The class most sought after was the moderate drinker, the excessive drinker and the drunkard. It was a curious fact that so few of these were ever taken into the lodge. When one was persuaded to join, it was astonishing how short a time he remained interested and kept the pledge. There seemed to be a division between the first and last named classes that never could be quite reconciled. They did not mix well.”
“It is easy to understand why they didn’t mix,” said a bystander. “I recall how some of those would-be reformed men would come into the lodge room more or less under the influence of liquor, thinking he was doing a smart thing. They did not seriously regard obligations when they took them and seemed to treat the whole matter in the light of a huge joke.
Of course the high-toned element of the lodge refused to mix with these characters and finally all hope of reclaiming the fallen died in that lodge as might be expected. If all the members had met on equal terms, showing a kindly interest much could have been effected in the line of moral suasion; the glory of manhood might have been restored and the miserable outcast brought back to the fold. The feeling that ‘I am better than thou’ has retarded good works in the church, it will quickly and surely stop good works in a reform club.”
There was a young man in the crowd who said he belonged to a local temperance society where there is no caste whatever. He said “We take into the St. Catherine’s T. A. & L. society the man who needs help, no matter how low he has fallen, as well as the man who is now and always has been an abstainer. We all work for the common good of all, and we leave no stone unturned to throw the best of influences around our members. We go farther than merely trying to keep our men and boys from drink; we are alert to hunt out places where liquor is sold and we use our best endeavors to close up such places. We have done some commendable work in this line without making any flourish of trumpets about it, and we mean to keep at it, in our own way, so long as the organization maintains its present strength and influence.”
I left the crowd after hearing the remarks of the last speaker, thinking how great was the power of organization. I wished that the influences of St. Catherine’s T. A, & L society might spread beyond those of the Catholic faith. Protestant young men need the staying hand of an organization of this kind, and it would be well for them to imitate our Catholic brethren in the matter of temperance organization.
Some of the latest public utterances of President Roosevelt were on the temperance question. He said among other wise things that “Everything possible should be done to encourage the growth .of that spirit of self-respect, self-restraint and self-reliance which if it only grows enough, is certain to make all those in whom it shows itself move steadily upward toward the highest standard of American citizenship.” Self-respect and self-restraint are two important attributes which the truly active and sincere temperance society inculcates. A society founded on true temperance principles, will imbue its members with these attributes, and the community feels purer and safer for its existence.
Permit me to say that the young men who compose Norwood’s only temperance organization are far in the lead toward reaching the highest standard of citizenship. As time goes on, and they remain in Norwood, our social and political life will feel the influence of more self-respecting, self-restraining and self-reliant men, moulded as such by their affiliation with the St. Catherine’s Total Abstinence and Literary society.