TO ARMS! TO ARMS! by W. N. Glenn

International Tract and Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 9, 1890

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 16, No. 22.

"TO ARMS! TO ARMS!"

By W. N. Glenn

If some foreign foe were assuming as formidable an attitude toward the government of the United States as is presented by the domestic foe, intemperance, the cry, "To arms! To arms!" would ring throughout the length and breadth of the republic, and a million of men would be ready at once to respond to the call, with their "lives, fortunes, and sacred honor." Here are a few statistics over which even a national sand-lot agitation might be pardonable.

There are 600,000 drunkards in the United States.

Intemperance kills 60,000 persons every year.

Intoxicating drink sends more than 100,000 persons to prison annually.

The same cause furnishes the poor-houses and other charitable institutions with over 200,000 inmates per annum.

The frenzy of intoxication causes 500 murders, and leads to probably 400 of each year's suicides.

The proportion of deaths of intemperate people to those of temperate livers is as four to one.

Magistrates, chaplains, and prison-keepers testify that four-fifths of all the crimes have their origin in intoxicating liquors.

Seven-eighths of all the pauperism in the Union has arisen from the same cause.

It costs the country $60,000,000 a year to support pauperism and crime.

The United States makes for home consumption 250,000,000 gallons of fermented and brewed liquors annually—about five gallons to each man, woman, and child. And of distilled liquors, about 85,000,000. Besides these amounts, 25,000,000 gallons are imported for consumption, and probably millions of gallons are made of which there is no statistical account.

The whole cost of the liquor drank in the United States is not less than $700,000,000; and the total revenue to the government is but 50,000,000. The balance, $650,000,000, is total loss in cash, to say nothing of the loss of life, of happiness, of morals, of time, and of material productions of a legitimate nature—the aggregate of which, figures fail to compute.

In view of all these facts, relating both to time and eternity, what is the duty of every loyal citizen—Jew or Gentile, Christian or Pagan? W. N. GLENN.