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About The Conservative (Nebraska City, Neb.) 1898-1902 | View Entire Issue (April 5, 1900)
8 TTbe Conservative * BORROWS GIFT. Tljorc iiuiHt be times when sorrow cometh to us , All else must wait while she her message brings ; All hearts must bow through moments of her staying While o'er the sight her somber veil she flings. Bright joys depart beyond our clouded vision , Gleaming and fair they seem but shadows dim. Sunlight ia drear when sorrow cometh to us Bearing a cup embittered to the brim. Always alone wo take whato'cr she bringeth , Anguish and pain that each alone must bear. Always alone each heart must outer darkness , Groping , it shrinks from all that's hidden there. There must bo times when sorrow cometh to us I Broken and crushed our spirits weary lie ; Long will she dwell near pathways she has shadowed , Oft will return to breathe again a sigh. Vat , with her touch there falls a heavenly- sweetness Filling the heart that once beside her lives ; Sweetness that grows to love for all the stricken ; Tenderness springs from out the woo she gives. MAIIY FHENCH MOKTON. THE ETHICS IN THE I.IOUOB QUES V > TION. ( CONTINUED FIIOM I ABT WEEK. ) Having stated briefly , but it is to be hoped clearly , the nature of cosmic ethics and principle of natural morality , it now remains to consider the liquor question in the light of those principles. The ethics in the liquor question must be looked upon in three directions , viz. , the consumer or individual drinker , the 751 dealer and the public. While the con sumer is an ethical factor to the dealer , the liquor business itself may be un ethical to every one connected with it and to the uou- drinking public. It is a singular business in which no one inter ested has any liking for the other. The dealer is the only one to whom the busi ness can possibly be ethical. It is self- preserving to the dealer when he does not consume his own poison. In so far and no farther does his ethical responsi bility lie. He has absolutely none , either to the public or the consumer , save not to sell too poisonous poison and give the consumer the customary money's worth. The public recognizes the business as a necessity and the consumer's wants as legitimate. It gives the dealer permis sion to fill the consumer to his satis faction. The public charges the dealer for filling a want , it , itself , creates. Here we run up against the rock on which accepted morality founders. It places almost all the moral responsibility on the liquor dealer. It looks upon him as a disreputable person , utterly regard less of his individual character. The public ignores the fact that he does a business which it licenses because it considers it necessary. If the liquor dealer does not drink his own poison and fulfills the public demand according to the law , and thereby is self-support \ ing , he is the only ethical factor in the whole business ; ( all who make a living out of the liquor business are included. ) This is important enough to be repeated. The liquor dealer is ethical , the business is ethical for him , so long as it supports him , and he does not lessen his support ing power by drinking the poison. The Immoral Factors. The only immoral factors in connection with the liquor or any other business are those who are injured by it. Self- evidently , these are only those who drink and the public that pays for all the crime , pauperism , and misery that result from it. The self-supporting tax-paying public , largely non-drinkers , eventually pays for every drop of liquor that is drunk. That statement is found ed on the Gibraltar of cosmic ethics. It is invulnerable. The dealer who does a paying business in filling the public de- maud is on the same level as the grocer , doctor , merchant , banker and minister. The demand exists. He has the ability to meet it. He meets it and yet has might enough to control himself and tastes not , no matter how much he handles. If in undertaking anything , the individual does it to a self-maintain ing degree and in no way imperils his health , or excites no limiting environ mental reactions on the free use of his abilities for himself , that individual is ethical. The fact that the business it self may prove dangerous to others has nothing whatever to do with the moral ity of the proprietors. In this sense , it would be equally just to say that the owner of a powder mill is a bad and im moral man , because the mill is more or less dangerous to the community in its vicinity. The people desire the powder and the man fills the want. It supports him. It is ethical to him. If the mill blows up through carelessness of employ ees that does not make the proprietor an immoral man. If it burns down the town the unethical element is the public that wanted the mill there because it would bring business at great risk and the workers who took their lives in their hands in going into such a business. The same is true of the liquor business. One more point. The Liquor Dealer and the 1'ubllc. It may be asked , "but has the liquor dealer no responsibility to the commun ity as a member thereof ? " In order to "kill two birds with one stone" the con sumer may also be included in the same question. The public recognizes it as one of the "God given rights" of man to drink all the liquor he pleases so long as he does not disturb the public peace by undue noise , quarreling , murder , or arson. By its acts the public exonerates dealer and consumer of all responsibil ity. The public admits , and gives per mission , that the consumer may keep royally full ; he may not save a cent ; he may live on some one else ; he may re duce his family to begging ; and still the public says he has not forfeited his God given liberty to keep "full as a lord" and be as happy as King Rum can make him , so long as he does not maliciously or noisily disturb its repose and somnol ent moral indifference. The public cares not an iota about the dealer so long as ho pays his license or the consumer of liquor so long as he disturbs not its quietude. The public is perfectly con tent to pay the bills. If the public does not hold the consumer morally respons ible until he becomes either a public nuisance or has actually committed some overt act , how is it possible to claim that the dealer has a moral re sponsibility to the public ? If the public admits it to be one of the inalienable rights of man to get full and keep full , within the mentioned limits , and , rec ognizing this privilege as a public neces sity , licenses or permits the business , what absurdity it is to talk of the "mor al responsibility of the liquor dealer. " Public Immorality. The public being the one that finally gets hurt , it is according to common ethics and rational morality that the public should protect itself. If the pub lic has not the might to protect itself , if it has not the might to control its busi ness to its protection then the public is a moral imbecile and should suffer the fate of the unfit. It does. It pays the bills. It weakens itself. In the ethical sense the public has no right to exist so far as the liquor business is concerned. It shows no ability to protect itself. It is worse than the consumer whom it permits to ruin himself. It only seeks to control him after he has ruined him self at its cost. The position of the pub lic in reference to the liquor question is that of the most insane and determined suicide. The public practically makes and supports the drunkard and all the crime and misery resulting from his in sane acts. The public is indescribably the most immoral. Alcohol as a Medicine. While this is a study of the ethics in the liquor question it may be interpolat ed that while alcoholic preparations have preservative value for dead animal tis sues , no one has the audacity to claim that their protracted use threatens any thing but injury to the living tissues. Alcohol is a poison. Like every other poison ic requires a certain amount and a definite degree of action to exert a strictly poisonous effect. There is not a reputable and intelligent physician there are plenty of 'doctors' who are re putable but by no means intelligent who does not know that there is as much danger of a patient's acquiring the liquor habit from its medicinal use as there is danger from the use of mor phine , cocaine , chloral or other poisons of that nature. All such physicians are as delicately sensitive in prescribing al-