Falls of St. Anthony
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CHAPTER XXIII
RUM'S DOINGS
ALAS! the demoralizing
influence of ardent spirits. Nature had beautified
our domain, but intemperance was laying waste its
beauty, robbing the domestic circle of its charms,
making paths of quicksand for the feet of young men,
and more than brutalizing the poor ignorant native!
The bottle was the unfailing attendant on
every occasion and stood confessed the
life of every company.
My first visit to the
Falls of St. Anthony, a few days after my arrival
in St. Paul, was made in company with most of its
first citizens, conveyed in such vehicles
as could be found, or on horseback, as we could best
accomplish it. I was enjoying greatly my first impressions,
as we rode over those pathless prairies and "openings,"
when one of the horsemen approached our wagon and
called for the bottle. I knew that we were well supplied
with refreshments, but had no idea that this constituted
a part, and novice as I was, expressed my surprise,
remarking "it was the first time in my life I
had ever been in a company where it was used."
"Then," replied
the gentleman with great suavity, "you are entitled
to the first drink," at the same time presenting
the bottle.
"No sir, thank you,
unless you deliver into my sole charge."
"That could not be
done," and of course a hearty laugh was raised
at my expense by the repartee of the gallant cavalier.
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At the Falls was a tiny
log cabin, occupied by a lone widow and her son, whose
white disheveled hair evinced premature age; and the
secret was solved when we saw her accept the proffered
glass and quaff it to its dregs. We were not surprised,
a few months later, to learn she had died of delirium
tremens.
Cargo after cargo of whiskey
was discharged upon the dock during the season of
navigation, which found its way to the lumbermen of
the pineries, the soldiers at the garrison, and the
lodge of the red man. Men would boast of receiving
five dollars a pint when it was scarce and
money plenty, immediately after the receiving of annuities;
and thus, as they said, they would make quite a little
fortune from a barrel. On one occasion several Indians
of different bands had been indulging freely at one
of the stores, and a drunken affray ensued on the
ground, which was immediately fatal to one of the
parties, and resulted in the lingering death of the
other. Some of the whites had, by stratagem, secured
the tomahawks at the commencement of the quarrel;
but a concealed knife entered the heart of an assailant,
and his antagonist himself was stabbed in the back.
While the latter survived there were constant rumors
of a civil war, which would have been inevitable but
for his death, or his deliverance to the murdered
man's friends, who would have tortured and finally
killed him—the only condition of peace. Said
the father of this young man, when he came to the
missionaries for condolence, "My son was a brave
man, and so has gone to the Good Spirit; yet my soul
feels very sad—it weeps all the time; I must
lay him to rest; I want him to rest well; it will
take a large blanket to cover him." And in compliance
with his wish a winding sheet was furnished , while
his wail of eloquent sorrow, "Me charke! me charke!"
was continually heard.
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On another occasion a
shocking murder was committed at the door of a dying
woman, at the midnight hour—an hour when the
Indian is never out, unless under the influence of
"fire water," which the white man has sold.
An evidently excited group
was one morning gathered around an ox sled, visible
from my school-room window. An object strangely human
lay upon the sled. In a few moments there came a message
from the lady of the house of which he was an inmate,
saying ------ was dead, and that she begged my immediate
presence. Alas! one look and all was told. He had
frozen to death under the accursed influence; had
been found upon the prairie and brought in as described.
His brain crazed, he had wandered, probably not knowing
whither he went, and "died as the fool dieth."
Gentlemanly, affiable and intelligent, of fine address
and noble mien, he yielded to the debasing appetite,
and fortunately left no affectionate wife or loving
children, blighted in spirit by his dreadful end.
Will not this
death move the people? was the soul's inquiry, which
met no response, and hope well nigh expired. Winter
had yielded up his throne,
"The stormy
March had come at last,"
but with bright and gladsome smiles
which seemed to mock at my doubts, and contrast strangely
with the moral darkness around us. With joyful surprise,
I soon heard, for the first time, inquiries respecting
the constitution and pledge of a Temperance society.
The interrogator "had never seen one, but he
and others had resolved to be no longer slaves to
appetite, and to form themselves into a band for mutual
strength and encouragement." Permission was granted
for the occupancy of the school-room, and on the morning
following the first meeting, a fine
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drawing, indicative of the evening's
resolutions, greeted my vision from the black-board.
The picture exhibited a company of revelers assembled,
where wine and wit were wont to flow, emptying the
contents of their glasses, tipping over the decanter,
and turning with joy to a fountain "sparkling
and bright," which they had just discovered.
It was a noble example to the youthful Territory,
when the young men at St. Paul thus rose in moral
strength to wipe away her reproach.
Pursuant to arrangement,
Rev. Mr. Gear, chaplain of the garrison,
delivered the first temperance address in connection
with religious services, when a society was duly organized,
March 9, 1848. Thirty signatures were the same evening
appended to the pledge.
The banner of temperance
was now unfurled in auspicious breezes. The drunkard
was reclaimed, and young men were saved from following
in his steps. But the destroyer of domestic peace—the
murderer of the soul, could not sleep. Efforts were
made to win the drunkard back to his cups; to overthrow
the resolves of the young; to entrap the unwary; and,
because this could not be done by strong
drink, the temptation was presented in the form of
light wines and beer, that this pampering of appetite
might draw men back to their "wallowings in the
mire."
"Come in here and
take a drink of brandy," called a rum-seller,
to one who had been "saved, so as by fire,"
from the drunkard's grave. The words were powerless
and he quickened his step.
"Come and have a
drink of beer, then, plenty of that yet; might pious
notions you are getting into your head. Come,
be a man."
"I shall not do it;
I want none of your brandy or
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beer;" and the enticer, crest-fallen,
turned to enter his store, as I approached the steps
from an opposite direction. A gang of idlers leaned
upon the counter, whom the now polite dry-goods merchant
pushed aside, fearing, perhaps, he might also lose
a lady customer; but I left that store with a mental
resolve never to enter it again.
Persevering efforts are
generally successful. The beer soon created a thirst
for something stronger; and not many months had elapsed,
ere one and another had fallen never more to rise.
Among them was the merchant above mentioned, who,
after leaving our community, in a drunken fit, crushed
an infant, by dashing it on the floor. Another, the
president of our society, a year or two later, when
intoxicated, fractured the skull of a fellow-laborer,
who was in a like state, and who survived but a few
hours. The murderer was arrested, tried before the
first judicial court of Ramsey county, and acquitted
on the ground of justifiable homicide. This acquittal
resulted, in truth, from the skill and eloquence of
his attorneys, Messrs. Rice and Ames, natives of the
Green Mountain State.
Such were some of the
fruits of the sale of ardent spirits amongst us, and
the reward of those who thus lead their victims down
to death! But good had been achieved, though unprincipled
men sought to overthrow it.
In the spring of 1849,
a division of the Sons of Temperance was instituted,
with twenty charter-signers, and not long after the
Territorial Society was organized, followed by the
"Temperance Watchmen." These, each, have
done a great and noble work; but though they have
laid "the ax at the root of the tree," the
monster, with its thousand heads, still lives.
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"News from Maine,"
is wafted on the breeze, and fires the soul of every
true lover of his race with new enthusiasm, and rouses
to new effort. We must have the "MAINE
LAW." Mass meetings were now held, stirring
speeches made, and sermons preached on the subject
from every desk in the Territory. The Legislators
met. The petition of five hundred women, and eight
hundred men, praying for the law, was sent in. The
contest between the followers of Bacchus and the cause
of temperance was severe, and was finally referred
back to the people.
The first day of April,
1851, was bright and glorious. Every voter was at
the polls. A day of more general commotion had not
been known in St. Paul; the ladies were at the "Sons'
Hall," where a free sumptuous entertainment was
prepared for all who would come and partake. Each
guest was required to leave his autograph, and over
three hundred names were entered. With what emotions
both friend and foe of temperance awaits the countings
of the "YES" and "NO."
The sun has set, courier after courier arrives at
the capital, and, hark! the bells are ringing. Six
bells announcing VICTORY! VICTORY! VICTORY!
The most honorable of
the rumsellers closed their business before the first
of June, when the law was to take effect. Rum shops
were closed on the Sabbath, and every where the magical
workings of the law were felt and seen. Seizures of
liquors were made when landed upon the levees, and
the prospect was fair for the complete prevention
of the traffic, when one individual who had invested
all his means in a cargo liquors, which was seized
on its arrival, encouraged by bad men, determined
to test the constitutionality of the law. The result
was
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a decision, by Judge Hayner,
favorable to defendant, which involved the county
in a debt of several thousand dollars, and aroused
the slumbering energies of the advocates of strong
drink. These efforts placed a majority of this stamp
in the ensuing Legislature, and the consequence was,
a repeal of the wholesome law.
Now came the reverse.
On the night of the repeal, a large steamboat bell
was mounted upon wheels, and attended by scores of
miserable beings, went booming through the streets
of the capital, proclaiming death to the temperance
principles, and loud hurrahs for the movers of repeal.
Year by year each party
becomes stronger and stronger. Men there are who fight
valiantly for TRUTH; but still the
blight of this greatest of human curses exists. Rev.
A. Sabin, Baptist Minister, and Member
of Congress, from Vermont, once, in my hearing, illustrated
another theme, by reference to his father's farm,
more famous for Canada thistles than any other in
the State. The owner labored diligently to root them
out; still there would be thistles, and yet it was
a good farm, for it gave his widowed mother
a maintenance; had supported himself and his children,
till all had gone from him; and, said he, "it
is a good farm still, though the thistles are not
all rooted out yet." Who will say that by those
persevering efforts to root out the thistles, it was
not made a better farm than it otherwise would have
been? So will Minnesotians continue their efforts
to root out the nefarious traffic from our midst,
and the RIGHT will eventually
triumph.
Chapter XXIV
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