"
General Sherman said: "War is hell." Certainly the one now raging
between the leading nations of the old world is a hell of carnage. And
yet intemperance has destroyed more lives than all the wars of the
world since time began. It has added to the death of the body the
eternal death of the soul and then the sum of its ravages is not
complete until is added more broken hearts, more blasted hopes,
desolate homes, more misery and shame than from any source of evil in
the world. If what Sherman said of war is true, and the liquor curse
is worse than war, how can this government hope to escape punishment
for raising revenue from a business so abominable and wicked?
A heathen emperor when appealed to for a tax on opium as a source of
revenue said: "I will not consent to raise the revenue of my country
upon the vices of its people." Yet this Christian republic, claiming
the noblest civilization of the earth, is found turning the dogs of
appetite and avarice loose upon the home life of the republic that
gold may clink in its treasury. The politician's excuse for this
compromise with earth's greatest destroyer is, it can never be
prohibited and therefore regulation and revenue is the best policy.
I can well remember when the same was said of slavery. With billions
of dollars invested in slaves, with a united South behind it and the
North divided, it could never be abolished.
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