Alcoholism - Temperance Literature : Part 2

The Curse and the Cure of Strong Drink
by T. S. Arthur

(Page 17 of 19)

"Among the early publications of the society were those printed upon 'The Adulteration of Liquors,' 'The Physiological Action of Alcohol,' 'Alcohol: Its Nature and Effects,' 'Alcohol: Its Place and Power,' 'Is Alcohol Food?' Text-Book of Temperance,' etc., followed later by 'Bacchus Dethroned,' 'The Medical Use of Alcohol,' 'Is Alcohol a Necessary of Life?' 'Our Wasted Resources,' 'On Alcohol,' 'Prohibition does Prohibit,' 'Fruits of the Liquor Traffic,' 'The Throne of Iniquity,' 'Suppression of the Liquor Traffic,' 'Alcohol as a Food and Medicine,' etc.

"The truths of these books and pamphlets, which have been reproduced in a thousand ways in sermons, addresses, newspapers, etc., have already permeated the community to such an extent as to bear much fruit."

In the creation of a literature for children, the society early issued The Youths' Temperance Banner, a paper for Sunday-schools. This has attained a circulation of nearly one hundred and fifty thousand copies monthly. It has also created a Sunday-school temperance library, which numbers already as many as seventy bound, volumes; editions of which reaching in the aggregate to one hundred and eighty-three thousand five hundred and seventy-six volumes have already been sold. The society also publishes a monthly paper called the National Temperance Advocate, which has a wide circulation.

Remarkable Growth of Temperance Literature

The number of books, pamphlets and tracts which have been issued by the National Temperance Society during the twelve years of its existence, is four hundred and sixty, some of them large and important volumes.

To this extraordinary production and growth of temperance literature in the past twelve years are the people indebted for that advanced public sentiment which is today gathering such force and will.

And here, let us say, in behalf of a society which has done such grand and noble work, that from the very outset it has had to struggle with pecuniary difficulties.

Referring to the difficulties and embarrassments with which the society has had to contend from the beginning, the secretary says:

"The early financial struggles of the society are known only to a very few people. It was deemed best by the majority of the board not to let the public know our poverty. Looking back over the eleven years of severe struggles, pecuniary embarrassments, unexpected difficulties, anxious days, toiling, wearisome nights, with hopes of relief dashed at almost every turn, surrounded by the indifference of friends, and with the violent opposition of enemies, we can only wonder that the society has breasted the storm and is saved from a complete and total wreck.

This society never was endowed, never had a working capital, never has been the recipient of contributions from churches or of systematic donations from individuals. It never has had a day of relief from financial embarrassment since its organization; and yet there never has been a day but that the sum of ten thousand dollars would have lifted it out of its embarrassments and started it with a buoyant heart on towards the accomplishment of its mission."

And he adds: "Notwithstanding all these constant and ever-pressing financial embarrassments, the society has never faltered for one moment, but has gone steadily on doing its appointed work, exploring new fields, and developing both old and new truths and documents and principles, and it stands today the strongest and most solid and substantial bulwark against intemperance in the land."

A Most Important Agency

As the most important of all the agencies now used for the suppression of the liquor traffic, and as the efficient ally of all let us rally to the support of our great publication house and see that it has ampler means for the work in which it is engaged. There are hundreds of thousands of men and women in our land who are happy and prosperous today because of what this society has done in the last twelve years to create a sentiment adverse to the traffic and to the drinking usages of society. Its work is so silent and unobtrusive in comparison, with that of many other efficient, but more limited instrumentalities, that we are apt to lose sight of its claims, and to fail in giving an adequate support to the very power, which is, in a large measure, the source of power to all the rest.

If we would war successfully with our strong and defiant enemy, we must look to it that the literature of temperance does not languish. We are not making it half as efficient as it might be. Here we have a thoroughly organized publication house, with capable and active agents, which, if the means were placed at its disposal, could flood the country with books, pamphlets and tracts by millions every year; and we leave it to struggle with embarrassments, and to halting and crippled work. This is not well. Our literature is our right arm in this great conflict, and only in the degree that we strengthen this arm will we be successful in our pursuit of victory.

About the Author

Timothy Shay Arthur (1809 - 1885) was a popular nineteenth-century American author. He is most famous for his temperance novel Ten Nights in a Bar-Room and What I Saw There, which helped demonize alcohol in the eyes of the American public. Virtually forgotten now, Arthur did much to articulate and disseminate the values, beliefs, and habits that defined respectable, decorous middle-class life in antebellum America.