Closed Its Career in a Deluge of Blood
At midnight on June 3, West Virginia entered the ranks of prohibition states, through a law that was endorsed by a majority of 91,886 in the November election of 1912. The last day of the licensed sale of intoxicants in the state was marked by five deaths due to alcohol. One man was murdered, and robbed of ninety cents. An officer of the law was killed while attempting to arrest a drunken man. In the shooting, the drunken fellow himself was killed, presumably by another officer, who was assisting. And two miners were cremated while lying in their cabin in a drunken stupor. But notwithstanding these deaths that were directly due to the last day of the reign of liquor in West Virginia, there is complaint that the measure put some three thousand men out of employment, and takes a million dollars out of the revenues of the counties, the towns, and the state. But are not the lives of men worth anything? If one of these men that were killed had happened to be your son, your husband, or your father, would you be willing to take a million dollars for him? One of the worst things in connection with the whole whisky traffic is its insistent effort to balance dollars against men. It would like to have us blinded to the murders, to the robberies, to the violations of chastity and virtue, and all its unspeakable crimes, while it dangles before our eyes just dollars — nothing but dollars. There is no question but that there are many men so depraved that a dollar looks bigger to them than a man. Possibly one of these murderers in West Virginia did not know what he would get from the man he killed. Possibly he was too drunk to think that closely. But he only got ninety cents. The value that some men place on their fellow beings when their own selfish interests are at stake is represented, in many instances, by just ninety cents. The moral sentiment of this nation needs to be aroused to the fact that men and women are of more value than money or property. The great Man of Nazareth, who manifested His appreciation of humanity in the supreme tragedy of Calvary, asks the question in the strongest tones, "What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"