THE GREATEST ENEMY by C. S. Longacre

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Sep 7, 1915

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 42, No. 35.

THE GREATEST ENEMY

By C. S. Longacre

The Most Threatening Menace to the Constitution and the Flag—Murders Three Thousand Wives and Two Thousand Five Hundred Children Each Year—It Should Be Banished from the Land

By C. S. LONGACRE

(Speech at Anti-Saloon League Convention, Atlantic City, New Jersey, July 6-9)

When our forefathers founded the American republic, and formulated the Declaration of Independence and the federal constitution to be the fundamental law of the land, they aimed to do what had never been done before in the history of any nation, and that was, to safeguard and protect the inalienable rights of the individual, and to set all men free from the bondage of men. They endeavored to set aside that system of government which ignored the inalienable rights of men and prevented them from enjoying the full measure of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The great issue which is before this nation now is whether these principles, which were crystallized into form by our fathers on July 4, 1776, and have been thrice baptized in the blood of American patriots, are to endure with the consent of the governed, or are to expire under the reign of King Alcohol.

CONSTITUTION AND FLAG HAVE NOT PROTECTED ALL

The federal constitution has been unable to guarantee its promised rights and immunities with unstinted measure to all its citizens, and the American flag has been unable to protect every man, woman, and child from the assaults of the liquor tyrants, while the federal government has legalized and protected the liquor traffic, which has violated every principle of honor, justice, and right that the constitution and the flag represent.

A WRECKER OF HOME AND NATION

One of two things is inevitable: either the guaranties of the constitution must be maintained, and the liquor traffic destroyed, or the liquor traffic will destroy the nation. Every legitimate business enterprise will strengthen and fortify the constitutional guaranties of life, liberty, and happiness, and will serve as a home builder instead of a home wrecker. Any business enterprise, irrespective of its kind, which destroys the individual, wrecks the home, and puts a blight upon posterity, is an enemy not only to the constitution and the flag, but to humanity, and deserves to be utterly banished and destroyed by due process of law.

This noble army of men and women in this convention is waging a far more effective and significant warfare than all the combined armies of Europe. We are fighting for the protection and preservation of our homes, and for the protection and conservation of American citizenship, upon whose integrity and purity depend the future stability and perpetuity of a republican form of government.

THE GREATEST ENEMY

The greatest enemy of man to-day is the liquor demon. It destroys the peace of the home, breaks down the bulwarks of the family, debauches American citizenship, threatens the very existence of the republic, and ruthlessly assails the most sacred inheritance of every man, woman, and child—the right to life, liberty, and happiness. The legalized liquor traffic tramples upon every constitutional privilege and immunity granted to man. It is not amenable to God, or man, or the equitable restraints of law. It ravages the marts of sea and land. It is the greatest thief and outlaw in the world. It not only takes the last shoes off the feet, the last coat off the back, the last morsel of food out of the cupboard, the last piece of furniture out of the house, the last pane of glass out of the window, and the last shingle off the roof, but it also takes the joy out of the heart, the song out of the mouth, the iron sinews out of the body, the nerves out of the muscles, the affections out of the soul, and the sparkling light out of the eyes, and makes them ache for the last long sleep, which knows no awakening until the resurrection of damnation.

The liquor traffic in this country alone leaves in its slimy trail more than 100,000 ruined homes annually, from whose portals are heard the stifled moans of blasted childhood and wretched widowhood. Most of these innocent victims are forever barred from the avenues which lead to noble manhood and womanhood, and consequently are unable to cope with their stronger and more fortunate competitors as they are forced to meet the great issues of life.

Imagine the unutterable grief and consternation that would come to this nation if we should receive the awful tidings to-morrow morning that the entire American army had been massacred during the night. The whole nation would mourn, and float the Stars and Stripes at half-mast. Such an awful tragedy would go down in history as a never-to-be-forgotten event. And yet every year, an army of men, women, and children, four times the number in our entire national army, go down to premature death and hopeless graves through the American saloon.

THE GREATEST CRIME-PRODUCING AGENCY

Over 3,000 wives are murdered every year in this country by drunken husbands; more than 2,500 innocent children are murdered every year in this country by drunken fathers; more than 30,000 helpless children are forsaken and thrown upon public charity every year in this country by drunken parents; more than 99½% of all murders, more than 75% of all crimes, more than 85% of all paupers, and more than 89% of all insane, in this country, are traceable either directly or indirectly to the effects of the liquor traffic; and so long as Uncle Sam protects this hellish traffic by legalizing and condoning the business, and by accepting blood money as a revenue, he is equally responsible for all these crimes and murders that are committed by the liquor traffic. Under such conditions, the federal constitution and the American flag are powerless to defend and protect its citizens.

A CIVIL AND NOT A RELIGIOUS QUESTION

The prohibition of the sale of intoxicants as a beverage is not a question of interference with the rights of individual conscience, or an invasion of the sacred precincts of religion, on the part of the state. If it were, I should be among the first to raise my voice in protest, for I am unalterably opposed to any movement designed to shackle the individual conscience, or to enforce the requirements of religion by human law in any form whatever. This question of suppressing the promiscuous sale of liquor is not a religious question, and should never be put on that basis. We have much to lose and nothing to gain over our enemies by putting this question on a religious basis. It is purely a civil, social, economic, and scientific question, relating to man's proper duty and conduct toward men.

I believe in the divine right of free choice, and in the personal liberty rights of the individual. But true liberty does not seek a license to do an injury to others. The prohibition of the promiscuous sale of poisons and dangerous weapons is not an invasion of

the natural rights of the individual, but is organized society's most effective method of protecting individuals in their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The prohibition of the liquor traffic rests upon identically the same basis. Every man must recognize the great universal law of humanity, that every man's personal rights end where another's personal injury begins. This is the great law that must control all human conduct.

A REVENUE CONSUMER INSTEAD OF PRODUCER

The liquor traffic claims to be a great national tax raiser and revenue producer, whereas it is only a tax collector and revenue consumer. The man who hands the money over the bar is the revenue producer, and the man behind the bar is only a revenue collector. Five times more revenue is required to take care of the criminals, paupers, insane, and orphans, for whom the saloon is responsible, than the amount of revenue paid to the government by the saloon, breweries, and distilleries.

If my house, upon which I am paying an honest tax to our town council, should cause the town council to pay out five times more revenue than I paid them, they would drive me out of the town, or raze my house to the ground. But the saloon seems to have been able to deceive the public. It thrusts its hands into the American pocket, and takes out more than $2,000,000,000 annually for which it returns no equivalent. It creates no economic values which can possibly accrue to the individual or to the nation in final results. The more it induces a man to spend for booze, the less he will have for shoes; the more he is induced to spend for the product of hops, the less he will have to spend for crops; the more he is induced to spend for wet goods, the less he will have for dry goods; and the more he is induced to hand over to the bartender, the less he will have for the coal vender.

IT IS AN ARCHDECEIVER

Let us not be deceived. “Wine is a mocker, and strong drink is raging; and whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise.” Alcohol is not only a destroyer of home and nation, but a most pernicious deceiver. The drunkard is deceived into the belief that he ought to drink all the year round, in the heat of the summer to cool him off, and in the cold of the winter to warm him up. It makes him think he is the strongest man in the country, the champion pugilist, the keenest business man, the smartest orator, the richest lord, the greatest politician, and the finest citizen, whereas it really makes him the weakest, dullest, poorest, and meanest citizen on earth. Even the saloon is ashamed of its finished product. It transforms a man's step into a stagger, his clothes into rags, his speech into twaddle, his words into curses, and his home into a brothel. His cemetery is the potter's field, and his final rendezvous is hell.

UNCLE SAM'S TAPEWORM

The American saloon is a human parasite, and produces suicides, homicides, fratricides, parricides, aching sides, and burnt-out insides. It is Uncle Sam's great tapeworm, which has fastened itself upon the vital organs of the nation. Like the tapeworm, the liquor traffic constitutes a great organism made up of many composite joints. It has the grill joint, the saloon joint, the red light joint, the gamblers' joint, the white slave joint, the thugs' joint, the dance joint, the criminal joint, and the devil's joint. The only remedy for this national disease is a national crushing of the head of this hideous monster.

AMERICAN HOMES WITHOUT A PROTECTOR

Many a time, as I have passed through the main entrance to the Senate chamber of the capitol building at Washington, I have stood and gazed with intense feeling at that magnificent group of statuary on the door panels, where the artists have endeavored to present the true spirit of American chivalry and patriotism in majestic bronze figures. One of these figures represents an American home. A bloodthirsty savage has invaded its precincts, and stands with an uplifted weapon over the mother and her child, who plead for mercy at his hands. But there is no pity or mercy in his heart, and he stands ready to dash out the precious lifeblood of mother and child. His attempt is in vain, because over him towers the majestic form of an American patriot and father, who grips the threatening arm with muscles of iron and sinews of steel, which seem to say: “Thou shalt not commit this awful tragedy. I am the protector of this home.”

Sometimes, as I have watched that scene, I have turned my head away, lest I should seize the arm of the assassin, in my anxiety to protect the mother and the child. But why should I become so eager to shield mother and child from the attacks of a bloodthirsty savage, when the scene was not real, but only set forth in cold statuary, while all around me the American saloon has made that tragedy real a thousand times over, with multiplied intensity in sorrow and in suffering!

The American saloon keeper stands to-day with an uplifted weapon over the American mother and child, who plead for mercy at his hands. But he too has no pity or mercy in his heart; and though the uplifted weapon in his hand is not an Indian's tomahawk or scalping knife, but a golden bludgeon filled with rum, made out of the coin which rightfully belongs to the stricken mother and child, he deliberately strikes down and murders over 3,000 wives and 2,500 innocent children every year in this country alone. Unless the manhood of this republic marches to the polls on election day and seizes the fiendish arm of the heartless rum assassin, and through the ballot box declares that the rum tyrant must die, and that the liquor traffic must cease, the American mother and child will stand without a human protector in thirty states of this Union.

O American patriots and citizens, let us grapple with this modern murderer and liquor Apollyon, and let us give him no quarter until he makes an unconditional surrender! In the name of country and home, in the name of honor and justice, in the name of the constitution and the flag, let us say to this seven-headed drunken monster: “I am going to protect the American home, the mother and the child; and I am going to hurl back at your own evil brow the burning and shameful symbol of your own hellish trade; and I am going to remove from you my strong arm of protection, which you enjoyed when I legalized your damnable business; and I am going to drive you out, not only from one, two, three, four, five, or six cities, counties, or states, but out of one of the grandest republics upon which the sun shines.”

THE BLACK FLAG OR THE STAR SPANGLED BANNER — WHICH?

The black flag of the legalized saloon, which stands for poverty, misery, and crime, for destruction, death, and damnation, must be transplanted by the Stars and Stripes, which can brook no rival. The red, white, and blue, which stand for protection, peace, and prosperity, for honor, justice, and loyalty, must wave triumphantly over every American home, and be true to the colors and principles they represent. There cannot be such a thing as an American flag that permits itself to stand against justice and the inalienable rights of all mankind as guaranteed by the constitution. No nation can prosper or long endure that permits any enemy of humanity to lift itself up by pulling mankind

down for the sake of greed and lucre. Let us trample underfoot the black flag of the saloon—the symbol of destruction, death, and damnation; and let us unfurl Old Glory to the breeze, and dedicate ourselves anew to the noble and eternal principles our standard represents.

In closing, let us consider the poet's ideal of our national emblem:

“When freedom, from her mountain height, Unfurled her standard to the air, She tore the azure robe of night, And set the stars of glory there; She mingled with its gorgeous dyes The milky baldric of the skies, And striped its pure celestial white With streakings of the morning light. Then from her mansion in the sun, She called her eagle bearer down, And gave into his mighty hand The symbol of her chosen land.”

If we cannot win, let us remember that God can. Though the grand consummation of His plan may tarry, He will ultimately triumph over every foe. The poet caught the true conception when he wrote:

“Careless seems the great avenger. History's pages but record One death grapple in the darkness 'Twixt old systems and the Word. Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne; Yet that scaffold sways the future, And behind the dim unknown Standeth God within the shadow, Keeping watch above His own.”