LIQUOR LEGISLATION. 791 



from that previously mentioned, is that they do not pursue methods 

 calculated to bring them in contact with the persons whom they seek 

 to benefit. If there were no liquor-buyers, there could be no liquor- 

 sellers. So long as there are persons disposed to be liquor-buyers, 

 there will be liquor-sellers, in spite of all the statutes and constitutional 

 provisions that ever have been or ever can be enacted. The liquor 

 crusade (I intend to use the word in no offensive sense) is now directed 

 toward the overthrow of the liquor-seller, and not to the rescue of the 

 liquor-buyer. I could greatly regard and admire the temperance mis- 

 sionary who should seek out the drunkard at his home or in the grog- 

 shop, and endeavor to persuade him of the evil of his ways, of his 

 power to refoi-m, and of his capacity to become a respectable, respect- 

 ed, and useful member of society, and who makes the attempt to find 

 such objects of interest for him as will make his home or some loung- 

 ing-place as attractive to him as the grog-shop. Such missionaries are 

 scarce, however. The usual temperance work consists in occasionally 

 getting up meetings which respectable people, not drunkards, are so- 

 licited to attend, and at which some one holds forth on the evils of 

 intemperance (which all are ready to admit), and dwells on the neces- 

 sity for further legislation or a constitutional amendment. Not a sug- 

 gestion is made that it is desirable to organize committees to solicit 

 funds to pay for the time and services of such a missionary as afore- 

 said, or committees to aid him in such work. If by any chance the 

 meeting is not devoted to a consideration of the law, and an effort has 

 been made, or is made, to get hold of the drunkards and reform them, 

 they are more than as likely as not to be put forward at once on their 

 profession of reform, to tell how drunk they used to get, and to abuse 

 persons who do not join the movement, do not believe in prohibition, 

 and have never been drunk. Temperance work comes, too, in waves 

 like our " cold snaps," and, after a season of intense excitement, dies 

 away, leaving to be sure a residuum of good, but also furnishing a 

 majority of backsliders among the reformed, to the regret of the judi- 

 cious and the delight of the scoffers. What is needed is not more but 

 different law, and sustained and unobtrusive, not spasmodic and demon- 

 strative effort for the reform and rehabilitation of drunkards. When 

 the history of temperance reform for the last fifty years is considered, 

 the progress made seems astounding ; but it must be remembered that 

 the greater advance by far was made before and not since the enact- 

 ment of prohibitory laws, and by persuasion, not by force. 



Before going further I wish to say that I yield to no one in my 

 appreciation of the fact that crime, wretchedness, poverty, and squalor, 

 inevitably follow the excessive use of intoxicating drink, and that any 

 use of intoxicants is dangerous on account of the liability that it may 

 become excessive. I am also fully of the opinion that any law can be 

 justified that will prevent such use of them, and, if I had the power, I 

 would destroy every drop of alcoholic drink on the face of the earth. 



