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The Ministry of Healing
licenses the liquor seller should be held responsible for the results
of his traffic. And if it is a crime worthy of death to give liberty to
a vicious beast, how much greater is the crime of sanctioning the
work of the liquor seller!
Licenses are granted on the plea that they bring a revenue to
the public treasury. But what is this revenue when compared with
the enormous expense incurred for the criminals, the insane, the
paupers, that are the fruit of the liquor traffic! A man under the
influence of liquor commits a crime; he is brought into court; and
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those who legalized the traffic are forced to deal with the result of
their own work. They authorized the sale of a draft that would make
a sane man mad; and now it is necessary for them to send the man
to prison or to the gallows, while often his wife and children are left
destitute to become the charge of the community in which they live.
Considering only the financial aspect of the question, what folly
it is to tolerate such a business! But what revenue can compensate
for the loss of human reason, for the defacing and deforming of the
image of God in man, for the ruin of children, reduced to pauperism
and degradation, to perpetuate in their children the evil tendencies
of their drunken fathers?
Prohibition
The man who has formed the habit of using intoxicants is in a
desperate situation. His brain is diseased, his will power is weak-
ened. So far as any power in himself is concerned, his appetite is
uncontrollable. He cannot be reasoned with or persuaded to deny
himself. Drawn into the dens of vice, one who has resolved to quit
drink is led to seize the glass again, and with the first taste of the
intoxicant every good resolution is overpowered, every vestige of
will destroyed. One taste of the maddening draft, and all thought
of its results has vanished. The heartbroken wife is forgotten. The
debauched father no longer cares that his children are hungry and
naked. By legalizing the traffic, the law gives its sanction to this
downfall of the soul and refuses to stop the trade that fills the world
with evil.
Must this always continue? Will souls always have to struggle for
victory, with the door of temptation wide open before them? Must