Not Blood Money | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Feb 7, 1884

Not Blood Money.

IN a number of instances, some good men, having an interest in the good name of our Government, have attempted to prove that in placing a tax on poison beverages, the Government has not licensed or permitted or encouraged the traffic in them; has not taken blood money to condone crime. They have gallantly defended our country and artistically and gracefully whitewashed its politics and politicians; have almost made our people proud to feel that our beloved guardian Uncle is so virtuous as to decline all bribes and blandishments, and say severely to the whisky man: "Sir, I emphatically disapprove of your traffic; I condemn it; I hate it; I despise it; my virtuous soul loathes it; my religious sentiment is in violent rebellion against it; so, sir, while I reward with an approving smile, all the honest industries of this great nation and say "well done" to them—my conscience compels me to punish you by a fine of 90 cents a gallon on the whisky you produce, and $1 a barrel on the pigslush beer with which you poison and curse and debauch the men, women, and children that open two-edged whisky could not get at. And, sir, let me tell you, it is a mercy to you, which you should highly prize, to have me inflict this punishment on you, because your killing, starving, wife-beating, jail-filling, and grave-digging traffic is so vile, that but for this Government protection which I extend to you, my people would soon hang you on the lamp-posts."

It is very consoling to take this view of it; it shows us conclusively that the Government is entirely innocent, and the tax is levied with a pure, unalloyed hope of stamping out the traffic; which would have been taxed out of existence long ago, but for the perversity of the man-killers who are too stupid to see it in the true light.

If when a bank robber, a forger, a train wrecker, a pickpocket, or a murderer is arrested for committing his particular type of crime, he should produce a receipt from the U. S. revenue office, showing he had paid $25 for the year 1884 as a tax on his retail burglar business, or $100 on his wholesale forgery traffic, there would be some unreasonable people to say that the Government was encouraging and condoning crime, but they would of course be styled fanatics.—Selected.