LET us go this road though we go aknee. Let us lift our hands, loose our tongues, and tell the truth about this foe of human kind.
Let us tell the truth about it, aye, tell the whole truth.
Tell it —
Until its wickedness shall be laid bare.
Until the poverty it creates shall cease to be.
Until the pauperism it produces shall disappear.
Until its wrongs to womanhood and its injustice to childhood shall be exposed.
Until almshouses and hospitals shall be no longer needed to house the defectives it creates.
Until jails and prisons shall be emptied of its victims.
Until the crime it impels shall no longer be laid upon the souls of men.
Until murder shall stop its riot, and arson its carnival.
Until the insanity it begets shall cloud the intellects of men no more.
Until men shall see it with the blood upon its naked, knotted hands.
Until fathers shall cease to neglect their offspring.
Until mothers need fear no more for the children they bear.
Until childhood, robbed no longer of its birthright, shall receive a fair chance and a square deal from every man and woman beneath the flag.
Until this corruptor of boys, this ravisher of girls, this despoiler of homes, shall stand condemned, with sentence of death pronounced against it, arrayed for the execution.
Until the nation shall hear, and hearing, be convinced.
Until this republic shall become a saloonless land, its flag a stainless emblem.
— Hon. J. Frank Hanly, former governor of Indiana.