Eliminating the Saloon

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Dec 29, 1910

Eliminating the Saloon

THE right of the state to eliminate the saloon has sometimes been questioned, and that, too, by people who really oppose the use of intoxicating liquors. When there is considered, however, the influence of the saloon upon the community, the fact that it stands as the greatest menace to orderly conduct, and contributes not only to the downfall of man morally, but affects in a very large and direct degree his civil acts as well, the right of the state to eliminate the saloon from the community can hardly be questioned. The Herald and Presbyter thus comments upon this point:—

The question of the saloon is not the question of the use of intoxicating liquors by the individual. It is the question of tolerating, in a community, a place where men congregate to drink, and, in a maudlin condition, utter profane language, tell bawdy stories, and concoct all sorts of mischief, and from which they come forth to infest the streets, and to make themselves nuisances. Because the saloon is a menace and a nuisance, it must go; and every man or woman who cares for the good order of society, and wants to see a better day for those who are now making themselves the mudsills of humanity, must be found among those who are seeking to banish the saloon from the face of the earth.