p. 441 | Temperance

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Oct 4, 1883

Temperance.

Liquor Selling.

THE following is an extract from a thrilling prohibition speech made by John B. Gough, on the Fourth of July last:—

I will tell you my idea of liquor traffic very briefly. God forgive me, I do not speak of it boastingly, for my sin is ever before me; seven years of my life was a dark blank. I know what the burning appetite for stimulant is; I know all about it, and I have sat by the dying bedside of drunkards; I have held their hands in mine; I have tried to lead them at the last gasp to the Saviour who never turned any away who came to him; and yet, in the light of my own experience and the experience of others that I have seen through my observation, I could say: Father in Heaven, if it be thy will that man shall suffer, whatever seemeth good in thy sight of temporal evil, impose it on me; take from me the friends of my old age; let the bread of affliction be given to me to eat; let the hut of poverty be my dwelling-place; let the wasting hand of disease be laid upon me; let me walk in the whirlwind, live in the storm; let the passing away of my welfare be like the flowing of a stream and the shouts of my enemies like rain on the waters; when I speak good let evil come on me—do all this, but save me, merciful God, save me from the bed of a drunkard! And yet, as I shall answer to thee in the day of judgment, I would rather be the veriest sot that ever reeled through your streets than I would be the man who sold him his liquor for a month.

I think it is the most awful business that a man can possibly engage in. There is no good in it. How much benefit is it to a town that a man shall start a saloon? I wish Mr. Bowen, when he gives the next grand entertainment, would invite some of the liquor-sellers of Connecticut to come here and show the benefits of their business to this people. Let them bring a few specimens of their work. They can't do it. The raw material is always worth more than the manufactured article, always. As a boy said: “I know So-and-so's saloon is finished.” “How do you know it!” “I saw a fellow coming out of it drunk.” A liquor-seller was very angry with a boy who, when he saw a drunken man had fallen down in front of a saloon, said: “Mister, your sign has fell down.”

I hate it because we have no redress. There is not a mother here that has any redress. There is not a wife here that has any redress. A woman went into a grog-shop—and I give you facts that I can prove—to plead with the liquor-seller not to give her husband any more liquor. He took a tumbler of dirty water and threw its contents in her face. She told her boy, and he thrashed that liquor-seller so he was on his back several days. Then the liquor-seller prosecuted the boy for assault and battery and got the damages. They tried to prosecute him for throwing water in the woman's face. They failed, because she was intruding on his premises. There is not a liquor-seller that can't sell your husband drink, and you may plead with him if you will. You talk about moral suasion. Make it your own case. A young man once said to me: “I believe in moral suasion. I believe we have no right to attack the men.” I told him a little fact that occurred, and asked him: “Suppose that was your mother that was kicked out of a rumshop when she came to plead with Mr. Leonard not to give her boy drink, and when he made her little boy nine or ten years old drunk and sent him home out of spite because she tried to prevent him selling liquor to her boy. What would you do?” He said: “I would shoot him as I would a woodchuck.” Said I: “I would not. I believe in the simple way. I believe in the annihilation of the traffic in intoxicating liquor; and the sooner we get rid of it the better.”