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Liquor Traffic and Prohibition
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have to answer for the souls he has sent unprepared into eternity.
And those who sustain the liquor seller in his work are sharers in his
guilt. To them God says, “Your hands are full of blood.”
License Laws
The licensing of the liquor traffic is advocated by many as tend-
ing to restrict the drink evil. But the licensing of the traffic places it
under the protection of law. The government sanctions its existence,
and thus fosters the evil which it professes to restrict. Under the
protection of license laws, breweries, distilleries, and wineries are
planted all over the land, and the liquor seller plies his work beside
our very doors.
Often he is forbidden to sell intoxicants to one who is drunk or
who is known to be a confirmed drunkard; but the work of making
drunkards of the youth goes steadily forward. Upon the creating of
the liquor appetite in the youth the very life of the traffic depends.
The youth are led on, step by step, until the liquor habit is established
and the thirst is created that at any cost demands satisfaction. Less
harmful would it be to grant liquor to the confirmed drunkard, whose
ruin, in most cases, is already determined, than to permit the flower
of our youth to be lured to destruction through this terrible habit.
By the licensing of the liquor traffic, temptation is kept con-
stantly before those who are trying to reform. Institutions have been
established where the victims of intemperance may be helped to
overcome their appetite. This is a noble work; but so long as the sale
of liquor is sanctioned by law, the intemperate receive little benefit
from inebriate asylums. They cannot remain there always. They
must again take their place in society. The appetite for intoxicating
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drink, though subdued, is not wholly destroyed; and when tempta-
tion assails them, as it does on every hand, they too often fall an
easy prey.
The man who has a vicious beast and who, knowing its dispo-
sition, allows it liberty, is by the laws of the land held accountable
for the evil the beast may do. In the laws given to Israel the Lord
directed that when a beast known to be vicious caused the death
of a human being, the life of the owner should pay the price of his
carelessness or malignity. On the same principle the government that