Does it deceive and mock? It meets a young man at a
social feast, garlands itself with the graces of hospitality, sparkles
in the brilliant jewels of fashion, smiles through the faces of female
beauty, furnishes inspiration for the dance and mingles with music,
mirth and hilarity. Gently it takes the young man by the hand, leads
him down the green, flowery sward of license, filled with the rich
aroma of the wild flowers of life. When it has firmly fixed itself in
his appetite, it begins to strip him of his manhood as hail strips the
trees, and when, with will-power gone, nerves shattered, eyes bleared
and face bloated, he stands with the last vestige of manly beauty
swept from the shattered temple of the soul, it stands off and _mocks_
him. It goes to a home, tramples upon the pure unselfish love of a
wife, enthrones the shadow of a drunkard's poverty upon the
hearth-stone, makes the empty cupboard echo the wail of hungry
children for bread, with its bloody talons marks the door lintels with
the death sentence of an immortal soul, and then stands off and
_mocks_ the home. It goes to the Congress of the United States and
says: "Put upon me the harness of taxation and I'll pull you out of
the mire of national debt, and make the administration of the party in
power a financial success." Then with a government permit, it proceeds
to take out of the pockets of the people five times as much as it pays
the government; creates three-fourths of the country's crimes,
four-fifths of its pauperism, sixty per cent.
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