Those who pretend to think that the opposition to the liquor traffic is confined to weak-minded sentimentalists, or to bigoted fanatics, willfully blind themselves to the widespread and mischievous evils which this gigantic and overpowering monopoly inflicts upon the whole body politic. Unlike any other business, it benefits only those engaged in it. It piles up fortunes for them by despoiling their patrons. What revenue it adds to the treasury of the State is immensely counterbalanced by the enormous drains caused by the poverty and crime it creates. It wastes, and robs, and ruins its victims, and yet, strange to say, it keeps its place and power as if it were the greatest blessing instead of the deadliest bane of society. Aside from the moral aspects of the question, it is most hopeful that business men are coming to look at its material and financial relations. At a recent Temperance Convention in Boston, Judge Aldrich called attention to the fact which the census discloses, that our annual consumption of alcoholic and fermented liquors amounts to six hundred millions of dollars. When the full force of this single item gains possession of the minds of statesmen and political economists, it is to be hoped that they will see the need of reforming this evil, which is sapping the industry, wasting the resources, and ruining the prospects of the producers of our national wealth.
—Christian at Work.