Liquor and Crime in the Cities

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 6, 1906

Liquor and Crime in the Cities

LOCAL option is gaining ground in the State of Missouri. According to an official report recently made public the license question was submitted during the last year to thirty-seven counties. Of these only seven voted for license, and fourteen other counties are arranging for a test of the question at the polls. It is a significant fact that of the total 4,642 saloons in the State 3,371 are in the three largest cities. This leaves only 1,271 for all the rest of the State.

If this is any indication of the conditions throughout the country, it gives the strongest reasons for the greater amount of crime in cities generally. Liquor being a notorious breeder of crimes of all kinds, we can not expect any other result where these great congregations of humanity give it license to prosecute its business; and the fact that this is carried on to so much greater extent in the cities than in the country, and that the resultant evil is spreading and increasing, should appeal to us to make a swift and earnest work in these places before the opportunity is gone. The cities are great, needy mission fields; but they are the poorest places on this earth to rear a family. That was true in the days of Lot, and it is emphatically true now; and that is the reason that we are counseled to work them from suburban places. But work them we must until the jewels they contain are gathered out.