OCTOBER 15. 1913 



Temperance 



SHALL WE CONTINUE TO GET OUR "REVENUE" 

 FROM THE BREWERS^ SALOON-KEEP- 

 ERS, AND DISTILLERS f 

 Mr. Root: — I always read your Home Department 

 with interest. In the paper of Sept. 15 you publish 

 a letter of G. M. Doolittle, in which he seems to give 

 credit to the saloonkeepers for paying half the reve- 

 nue, and says: "We are, willingly or ignorantly, 

 receiving pay to the half of our proportion of the 

 government expenses through the efforts of the sa- 

 loonkeepers." Surely Mr. Doolittle is not seriously 

 attempting to condone the sale of intoxicating liquor. 

 As an intelligent man he must know that three-fourths 

 or more of all the crime and poverty, and the result- 

 ing misery and degradation, are caused by drink. 



As for myself, I am neither willingly nor igno- 

 rantly receiving my share of the taxes paid by the 

 saloon-keeper. I accept it under bitter protest, being 

 forced to do so by laws made by men who are blind 

 to the awful results of the legalized liquor-traffic in 

 our land, or are bought over by the liquor interests. 



How can any part of the expense of the general 

 government be said to be paid by the saloon-keeper 

 when every dollar of liquor revenue costs the people 

 more than ten? And this is only the monetary view 

 of the matter. No amount of revenue paid to a gov- 

 ernment can make amends for the misery, poverty, 

 and ruin brought upon its people through the legal- 

 ized sale of injurious drugs or intoxicating poisons. 



Your reply to Mr. Doolittle is all right so far as it 

 goes; but does it cover the ground? If we could per- 

 suade all the young people to " seek the kingdom of 

 God and his righteousness " there would still remain 

 the blighting effects of the traffic in intoxicants with 

 its consequent misery and poverty, forced upon the 

 wives and children of the incorrigible fathers and 

 husbands, made drunkards by our government's will- 

 ingness to (in the language of the poet of the Sier- 

 ras) " sell hell to whom will pay for it." God not 

 only commanded the Israelites to bring up their 

 children in his fear, but those who led the people 

 astray were dealt with in a way to strike terror to 

 evil-doers. Not only did his prophets teach the evils 

 of idolatry, but those advocating idolatry, the false 

 priests, were slain without mercy. 



Let us not only teach the children of our genera- 

 tion the dangers of intoxicating liquor, but do all we 

 can, also, to destroy from the earth this Juggernaut 

 that is crushing the life, spiritual and physical, out 

 of hundreds of thousands of our people. 



If every one who claims to be seeking the kingdom 

 of God and righteousness would vote for the destruc- 

 tion of the distillery and the brewery, the greatest 

 hindrance to the coming of that kingdom, and Satan's 

 most efficient instrument for the ruin of the human 

 race, would be removed. 



Asheville, N. C, Sept. 21. O. Bromfield. 



Dear brother, Mr. Doolittle, myself, and 

 all good people, are in hearty accord with 

 •what you say. May God hasten the day 

 when his kingdom shall be first in our na- 

 tion — not the brewers and distillers and 

 liquor-dealei-s. 



KANSAS — SOMETHING FURTHER '''' THE MAT- 

 TER " WITH HER. 



A few years ago there was some sense 

 when the brewers said that prohibition was 

 a failure; but it is a piece of stupid folly 

 to keep up that old story just now. What 

 brought it about? A few days ago T heard 

 a remark from a man of considerable abil- 



ity, that it was a question whether Carrie 

 A. Nation did not do more harm than good. 

 I have seen Carrie Nation and talked with 

 her. Bless lier memory ! When the brew- 

 ers and saloon-keepers were trampling law 

 under foot in Kansas, our good friend Car- 

 rie took a hatchet and smashed things up. 

 Then she said to the Governor of Kansas, 

 to the mayors, and different officials, all the 

 way down, " Put me in jail for breaking the 

 laws if you choose. I have done some harm 

 in the way of loss of property, etc. But be- 

 fore you enforce the law in my case, please 

 consider the saloon-keepers who curse both 

 body and soul by trampling law under 

 foot." The grave judges and magistrates 

 were in a corner. It behooved them to be 

 consistent, at least where a woman was con- 

 cerned ; and the final outcome was that 

 Kansas became a model State in the way of 

 law enforcement. See page 699, Oct. 1. 



Now, here is something further about 

 that same Kansas that I clip from the 

 Union Signal: 



KANSAS YOUTH UPHOLD PROHIBITION LAW. 



Again and again it has been said prohibition is a 

 failure in Kansas ; that when the older generation 

 responsible for its adoption passed over the reins of 

 government to its sons and daughters — for Kansas 

 has recognized women's rights as full citizens — Kan- 

 sas would " come back to her senses." 



That this prophecy was without foundation is best 

 evidenced by the following statement from Attorney 

 General Dawson : 



"The last two sessions of the legislature answered 

 these false prophets by passing the most di-astic pro- 

 hibition law in the world, killing the drugstore sa- 

 loon, making it impossible even to cure snake-bites 

 by the liquor treatment, and absolutely clapping 

 down the ' lid ' and riveting it on. 



" They were not satisfied by going this far, but 

 showed their appreciation of the benefits of State- 

 wide prohibition by making it a felony for the fellow 

 who violated the law a second time. And I have just 

 lately received from the warden at the penitentiary 

 a receipt for one ' Red Mercer,' who was sent up 

 from Barber County as a first consignment to serve 

 nine years for violating the new prohibition law. 



" The law that sent him there was made by these 

 tow-headed, one-gallused boys who grew to manhood 

 on the Kansas prairies without ever having seen a 

 saloon." 



WHISKY FOR PATIENTS IN A TUBERCULOSIS 

 SANITARIUM. 



It seems from the Cleveland Plain Dealer 

 that the superintendent of the sanitarium 

 has been criticised for refusing whisky to 

 their patients. See this: 



" Superintendent Wright has no conception of 

 medical ethics, and endeavored to discipline physi- 

 cians and nurses as though they were children. I 

 believe a mistake was made in choosing Wright." 



Dr. Fox was asked if he knew that patients in the 

 tuberculosis sanitarium, many of them dangerously 

 ill, had been deprived of whisky at critical times. 



"Yes," he replied. "There is this about the whis- 

 ky situation: Mr. Wright called in the medical staff. 



