TEMPERANCE NEWS.

Feilding Star, Volume VI, Issue 1797, 18 May 1912, Page 1

TEMPERANCE NEWS.

BISHOP CONATY AGAINST THE

SALOON

The following from tho pen of no l less a person than the Roman Catholic Bishop Conaty, of Maine, U.S., will undoubtedly be received by surprise by many of those who persist that tho Bishop is in favour of temperance but NOT against the open saloon. This paper was read at a lecture given in Knights of Columbus Hall, in Monroe, Michigan, March 22, 1909, by C. P. Baron, the pastor of St. Martin's Catholic church of Yorkville, Indiana, U.S.A. "The saloon exists for the saloon alone, and saloon politics have care for no public interest except insomuch as it subserves the saloon. Tlie government of a city or town has, for the liquor traffic, only one ob- I ject, and that is to grant- license and allow it to use that license at will. What caro tho saloons about public interests—charities, schools, highways? Nothing, if only the liquor traffic is safeguarded from the fanaticism of temperance men. It is the i ulv establishment in a community winch has not the public good as a reason for its existence. It preys upon the weakness of individuals. It thiives upon their badly-regulated aopetites. It sucks the life-blood from labour. It curses the homes of many. It beggars many a family. It makes helpless orphans whom me charity o" the world has to house and clothe and feed. It fills the jails with diunkards and sends many a man to the scaffold and arms the hand that is raised to rob and even murder. Oh! but they say, 'you mii terfe.ro with our legal rights, and m cho m-ive oi the law we protest.' Li.w! The saloon a defender of law an 1 order; Yes, give the saloon its rigb-o under the law, its full and comr-h're rights, and how long would the saloon exist? Where license is gi-inr.ed. bow many live up to tho law? Not ono. Vested rights! Has the community no rights? Have not the people the right to see that no oligarchy rule and bring ruin in the prosecution of what it calls right? 'There is no reason for the existence of the saloon. Blot them all out, and what harm? The business of the town would go on all the better. Men who have any sense of morality are ashamed of the business." —Advt.