PROHIBITION STAL. WARTS.

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43119, 1 August 1907, Page 1

PROHIBITION STAL. WARTS.

GENERAL NEAL DOW. We could not speak of Mm as “ General ” Neal Dow until lie had acquired that title by his services in the Federal Army during the American |Ciyil Wer of 18.61-5. Previously he was known as “ the Hon. Neal Dow,” or more familiarly as; I “ Neal Dow ” the name I name Lshall use in this account of his remarkable career. Long, indeed, before the civil war, he was enlisted in the temperance forces of his country, and had been a (( General ” of high renown ; and when, on the 2nd of ; October, 1897, he resigned his commission and laid down ..his. baton of commaud, and when the inhabitants knew that their

chief citizen had been taken : from them, they also knew that V

he had left them, and the world, the record of a noble life and the stimulus of a great example. HIS PARENTAGE. Neal Dow was the sou of 3 Josiah Dow, a Quaker by faith and a tanner by trade. Under ;I wholesome influences at home, £ and in several sohools, the : Loy developed admirable "• qualities' - j that fitted him for business and public life. He was am able assistant to his- father in . tht t management of the tannery, of which he became the owner at his father’s death, which did not till Josiah Dow had attained his 93rd year—an example of patriarchal longevity which was rivalled by his illus- - trious son. , THE AMERICAN|TEMPERANCE 3"~---REFORM. ~ When Neal Dow was nearly 3 22 years of age, the American

Temperance Society was formed at Boston, in the State of Mas* sachusetts, adjacent to Maine, most 'eastern of the Hew Eng* r land States of the American Union. The influence of the Ameriean Temperance Society was quickly felt in Maine, and especially in Portland, which.-, then, as now, was the most - populous, and most commerci-” ally prosperous, city and port of Maine ; though Augusta, as the seat ore of Legislature, takes 7 rank as the cipital of the State. The young patriot could not be. indifferent to the claim upon all patriots of the new crusade against the use of ardent spirits • —often classed together by Americans under the name of “Bum ” —a power for evil, the evidences of which were visible on every side The advance to the higher level of total abstinence from all intoxicating liquors received the approval of-Neal Dow, as demanded by scieuce, consistency and pratical experience. But he did uot stop there. He carried his inquiry, ‘ his reasoning and his conclusions further. While temperance organisations were teaching and. - iuculcating abstiuence from all iutoxicating liquors because of their pernicious nature, a great counter organisation existed, licensed by law, the direct and inevitable effect of which was a counteract temperance teaching, by tempting abstainers to desert their standards and b} 7 inducting multitudes into habits of drunkenness. If the temperance organisations were right, the liquor traffic organisations \ cculd not be right ; and if thejj former were in harmony the law of God and human welfare, the latter must be in op* po ition to: them A But if in opposition how- could the law be justified in granting, the rum power to carry" on' 7 its direful work of counteracting temperance operations, tempting, the young, promoting disease, co ■ rupting social morals, aud im - M posing heavy burdens on all -ij| places of the people ? (To be Continued.)