A COMPARISON | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 20, 1906

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 32, No. 24.

A COMPARISON.

AFTER describing in vivid language the saloon-ridden condition of San Francisco before the earthquake, and the general rally of the country to the relief of the sufferers by the recent calamity, Evangelist James W. Zachary calls attention to the far-worse devastation continually at work throughout the United States under the saloon-license system. By way of comparison, he says:

But who cared for such moral devastation and debauchery? What millionaires banded themselves together and gave freely of their money to correct the appalling evils? What was done by the San Francisco daily press to arouse the city, mould public opinion, and drive out the city-debauching saloons? What did the mayor and supervisors do except to make it easy for saloons and harlots to conduct their business unmolested, in every way to the great detriment of the city?

America mourns the loss of San Francisco, and pours her wealth into the very lap of luxury to rebuild the “Pride of the West.” But the same people, without defense or plausible excuse, license, protect, and encourage in most all municipalities and states, the scourge of death in the form of law-sanctioned saloons, which each year kill, debauch, and enslave over five hundred thousand citizens, corrupt the very life-blood of the nation, and inflict untold physical, mental, and moral injury upon the race.

For the license saloon system puts a crown of poverty upon the aching brow of American labor, and literally squanders or diverts from the wholesome channels of trade millions of dollars that go into saloon tills to pay for snake-juice which poisons the body and damns the soul.

Americans are a most inconsistent people. They strain out gnats and swallow camels—hair, hoofs, and all. They tithe the mint and anise, and neglect the weightier matters of the moral law. They deplore the results of an earthquake, and with their own hands, by whisky-soaked ballots in behalf of rum-ruled politicians, inflict upon themselves and the republic, through the licensed saloon policy, far more financial, physical, mental, and moral injury and desolation than have been caused by all the earthquakes and physical calamities that have destroyed property and human life since the foundation of the world. For the licensed saloon and its attendant evils is the darkest blot upon the escutcheon of Christian civilization; a sin that turns the joyous prattle of children into piteous wails; stifles the music of home, and fills it with desolation; a crime against humanity that has dug more graves and sent more souls unprepared to death and the judgment than all the pestilence that has wasted life since God sent the plagues to Egypt, and all the wars that have stained the earth with blood since Joshua stood before Jericho.