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Economic Problem
29
Lawmakers and Liquor Dealers Held Financially Responsi-
ble
—Lawmakers and liquor dealers may wash their hands as did
Pilate, but they will not be clean from the blood of souls. The cere-
mony of washing their hands will not cleanse them when by their
influence or agency, they have helped to make men drunkards. They
will be held accountable for the millions of dollars that have been
wasted in consuming the consumers. No one can blind himself to
the terrible results of the drink traffic. The daily papers show that the
wretchedness, the poverty, the crime, that result from this traffic, are
not cunningly devised fables, and that hundreds of men are growing
rich off the pittances of the men they are sending to perdition by their
dreadful drink business. O that a public sentiment might be created
that would put an end to the drink traffic, close the saloons, and give
[29]
these maddened men a chance to think on eternal realities!—
The
Review and Herald, May 29, 1894
.
Schools Could Have Been Established
—Think of the money
wasted in saloons, where men sell their reason for that which places
them wholly under Satan’s control. What a change there would be in
society if this money were used to establish schools where children
and youth would be given instruction in Bible lines, taught how to
help their fellow beings, how to seek and save the lost!
There is a work to be done for all classes of society.... We are not
to forget the ministers, lawyers, senators, judges, many of whom use
strong drink and tobacco.... Ask them to give the money they would
otherwise spend for the harmful indulgences of liquor and tobacco,
to the establishment of institutions where children and youth can
be prepared to fill positions of usefulness in the world.—
Letter 25,
1902
.
The Starving Might Be Fed
—The cries of the starving millions
in our world would soon be hushed if the money put into the tills of
the liquor sellers were spent in alleviating the sufferings of humanity.
But the evil is constantly increasing. The youth are being educated to
love the vile stuff, and this is ruining them, soul and body. The work
they might do in God’s vineyard they refuse to do.—
Manuscript
139, 1899
.
Missions Might Have Been Established
—Think of the thou-
sands and millions of dollars that are invested in drink that will make
a man like a brute, and destroy his reason.... All this money could