What Rum Does | AdventAI

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Apr 2, 1885

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 11, No. 14.

What Rum Does.

IN contrasting evils which are merely local, with intemperance, and giving reasons why the liquor traffic should be prohibited, the Toledo (Ohio) Blade says:—

“However rum is quite another thing. Its ravages are felt quite as much in the homes in the country as in the dwellings in the cities. There is not a hamlet too small for it; there is not a farm so remote from the highways of trade, but what its cold finger reaches. The brewer and distiller have been for years pushing out their infernal wares, with a persistency born of avarice, and wherever man is they have their customers. There is scarcely a family in the country that does not mourn a rum murder; there is no community that has not its tale of shame, sorrow, and distress, caused directly by rum. Men of the greatest intellect, and men of the lower grades have alike fallen into the hands of the rum-maker and seller, and suffered from the domination of the appetite they have carefully fostered.

“It needs no argument to convince any one not interested in the profits of the horrible traffic, of its enmity to the human race; it needs no special pleading to convince any one of the necessity of doing something to stay its murderous hand. This necessity comes home to every father, every mother, every brother, and every sister in the land.

“Every method has been tried to stay its ravages, and all of them have failed—but one. Licensing the sale of liquor has never affected the evil a particle. It has in some cases confined its ravages, but, in fact, it has added to its power for evil. The licensed rum-shop has the sanction of the law, and therefore a sort of respectability, which enables it to draw within its serpent-like embrace the better classes, while the lower grades of men find no difficulty in getting their supplies illicitly. To license, no matter how high the license, is to confine the curse to fewer channels, but it increases the volume of the destroying streams.

“Moral suasion has accomplished some good, but what can the platform, the press, and the pulpit do against the personal efforts of the unnumbered thousands whose business it is to seduce the young and thoughtless? What can moral suasion do for the young man or boy who has the devil's agencies constantly at his elbow?

“There is but one way, and that is absolute prohibition. It is a disease which admits of no milder treatment than extirpation. Prohibition has accomplished its work wherever it has been tried, and everything else has failed.”