The Saloon’s Indictment
By Editor
The following indictment of the saloon is by Dr. Lyman Abbott:— “As a deceiver and a liar it swindles the poor and rich; it creates the base and horrible appetite on which it lives; it is a breeder of crime and poverty beyond anything else; it corrupts juries and courts of justice; it fills almshouses and idiot and insane asylums; it makes orphans of children, and widows of wives, breaks up homes innumerable, robs men of their mental and spiritual worth; slavery never so robbed the workingman of his wages; Mormonism never so debauched womanhood, and struck so fatal blows at the home; it is a corrupter of the nation at the very source of its power.” This is only a part of the charge which he brings against it, yet he advocates high license on the ground that “the saloon should be made to pay fully for the wrong it does.” Thereupon the Voice challenges the doctor as follows:— “Now, will Dr. Abbott take pencil and paper and figure up for us just how high the license should be for the saloons ‘to pay fully’ in dollars and cents for these wrongs which it inflicts on society? Come, doctor, try your hand at it.” In civilized countries it is not considered that money is an adequate compensation for a murder. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” The only way that the liquor traffic can do anything to atone for the wrong that it has done is to give up its life that the wrong may stop.