A Great Temperance Lesson

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 12, 1906

A Great Temperance Lesson

By far the most effective temperance lesson that San Francisco ever has had was the recent great fire. Men were frightened out of their senses by the earthquake, and when the fire broke out and appeared to be beyond control, they became frantic and took to intoxicating drink. At the very time when the occasion demanded cool heads and sober minds, they were crazed with drunkenness. Civil law and municipal officials were not equal to the occasion; it was not till martial law backed by the regular army was given prestige that the diabolism was overcome.

The army, yes, the army — so often counted as the synonym of debauchery and rowdyism — had to step in and protect the citizen populace from themselves and from one another, because so many of them were drunk. And the army began its work of protection by a radical prohibition of the liquor traffic. There is no doubt that many lives and much property would have been saved had prohibition been in force before the fire.

It was not till the army had destroyed the supplies, and men became sober, that really effective work was accomplished in checking the fire fiend. Nor was order fully restored until the army went outside the city and closed the drinking resorts that hung upon the borders by sanction of the civil authorities of the adjoining county. Order, under the intense excitement and suffering and anxiety, was an utter impossibility until the demon alcohol was abolished from the community.

Even the city administration — elected by the combined labor union and saloon elements and the Examiner — had to concede the necessity of prohibiting the “personal privilege” of selling and drinking fiery beverages during the great emergency. The innate fiendishness that crops out of human nature where men are abnormally enmassed was all that the authorities could well keep under, without the addition of artificial intoxication.

The Examiner says: “The city has had before its eyes the salutary effects of closing the rum shops. The decrease in the amount of crime in a disorganized city has caused the astonishment of the police and the gratitude of the people.”

Yet the Examiner never has been, nor

is it yet, a prohibition advocate, notwithstanding the logic of its admission leads one to wonder why. Here is a further admission in the same connection: “Crime is one of the most expensive luxuries in which a city can indulge. If half the crime could be cut off by closing the saloons, the cost of running the city government could very easily be kept under the dollar tax limit, and there would be plenty of money left for permanent improvements. It is the saloon that makes taxes high by making necessary the maintenance of a large and expensive system of police protection.”

Yet the Examiner, admitting that the saloon is such a prolific source of crime, is willing to continue the evil provided the saloon proprietors will pay a sufficiently high license to meet the expense of the necessarily increased police force. What would the editor, and other license advocates, say to a general licensing of crime provided that those who procured the licenses would pay enough to meet the expense of an increased police force?

But after the suggestion of a thousand-dollar saloon license, which it is supposed a thousand saloon-keepers would be willing to pay, the Examiner makes the further concession that “there should be no hurry about restoring the licenses” which the authorities “so wisely revoked.” And this concession is backed by the following good reasons: “If the city is quiet and orderly now, it is in no small degree due to the fact that a taboo has been put on whisky. It should be a matter of months at least before the ban is raised. The experience of the past month has demonstrated that the saloon is not necessary to the life of this city; it is a luxury that can well wait until the process of reconstruction is so far advanced that the opening of drinking places will not add to the police and civic problems that beset the city.”

Here we have admissions from a leading political daily newspaper, not by any means a prohibition advocate on general principles, that the saloon at best is a dispensable “luxury;” that it is a prolific source of crime; that it is not to be tolerated at all in a time of general calamity; and that as a source of revenue it costs more than it produces. Surely a business that causes only evil and expensive disorder, whose revenue can be advantageously dispensed with at the very time the city is most in need of revenue, is a “luxury” that thoughtful people will hardly care to encourage at any time. The lesson certainly warrants prohibition for all time.

Even Oakland, just across the bay, has seen the wisdom of closing the saloons during the night time, at a time when the business has a boom. Were it a legitimate business, there would be general appreciation of an increased trade. That it is not a legitimate business is demonstrated in the fact that no one, except the liquor dealers, feels encouraged by its prosperity. They know that the safety of the community demands its limitation, and the more it is limited the better.—Signs of the Times.