THE TIDAL WAVE SALOON by C. M. Snow

Pacific Press Publishing Company · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Sep 5, 1900

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 26, No. 36.

THE TIDAL WAVE SALOON.

By C. M. Snow

WHERE drink is sold, I passed one day, With senses all attune To the ruin wrought, and read this sign, "The Tidal Wave Saloon." O, what a truth was written there In that repellant sign, As they might tell whose ruined souls Went out on the flow of wine!

That flood I've seen, and felt its swirl, Whose murderous, rushing flow Has crushed the earth six thousand years With cruel, crying woe. Methinks I see through vistas dim, Where hope and beauty bow, The bitter wrecks that strew its course From Noah until now.

There's cowering shame where beauty reigned; Despair, where hope had stood; And rampant evil, raging round, Has practised as it would; A beggar's rags where wealth had been, A beggar's crust for food; In homes where all was joy and peace Now want and woe intrude.

The foaming torrent rages on. Its roily, rolling wave Has wrecked full many a humble home, Formed many a nameless grave. The mother with her wretched dead A lonely vigil keeps; The father mourns a blasted hope; The infant orphan weeps.

A sister stands with saddened brow And views the ruin wrought; A widow kneels in tears for grace To bear it as she ought— A ruined home, a ruined name, A ruined hope and trust; The brightest joys of human life All trampled in the dust.

Yet on it sweeps; it will not wait, Nor heed th' imploring cry. What recks this foe that women weep And famished children cry? The mother's, wife's, imploring arm Is crushed beneath its tread. An hundred years would not suffice To number all its dead.

This burning flood, this cruel woe, This sin-soaked caravan, This world-wide-rolling Juggernaut, This enemy of man, Six thousand years has rumbled on, Till every land has shed Its sacrificial blood and tears, And bartered for its dead—

Yea, bartered; for the dead that fall By rum-directed hand Are but the toll the rum fiend takes To desolate the land. Man names the price, and grants the right To spoil the human race; Rum pays the golden bribe, and flings Our dead men in our face.

Our ninety thousand drunken dead, Which heaven's books record, Are sold to fill a traitor's purse, As Judas sold his Lord. And still we sit, and still we dream Of peace and duty done, While this gigantic tidal wave Rolls westward with the sun.

Then fling the temperance banner out Between the earth and sky. Your battle-field is here below, Your Captain is on high. The hosts of God are with the right, And right shall victor be; And some shall sing that victor song Through all eternity.

O, haste the day when love shall reign; When wickedness shall cease; When this old earth shall know again The blessedness of peace! That glorious morning will not wait; 'Tis coming swift and soon, When God Himself shall reckon with "The Tidal Wave Saloon."

Oakland, Cal.