A Few Statistics by C. D. Wilson

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jan 26, 1882

A Few Statistics.

By C. D. Wilson

WILL statistics wake the people? Here they are from official data: In one year there are consumed 74,472,810 gallons of spirituous liquors in the United States, or, to put it in other words, 27,000,000 bushels of grain or 1,080,000,000 lbs. of flour, giving everybody in the country, if the bread was distributed, forty-seven and one-third loaves. The barrels would reach from Philadelphia to Omaha. In 1878 we spent $77,600,000 in buying intoxicating drinks. There are 4,528,084 people in the country who cannot read. These could have been educated at the expense, of about $60,000,000. All the papers in the States and Territories could be supported for $10,000,000. All the taxes paid in the United States in 1878 amounted to $27,000,000. The wages of all the builders were $48,741,000; of all the iron workers, $76,000,000; of the clothing manufacturers, $98,000,000; of the makers of farmer's implements, $12,000,000. Adding all these, leaves $10,372,000 balance in favor of the tipplers. What better argument in favor of prohibition can be wanted than this? Can any sensible man after reading this think for a moment that it is a folly? No pen can portray the deadly ills that follow in the train of this satanic sin, of hopes blighted, of intellects debased, of homes ruined, of hearts broken, of virtue lost, of children debauched in their youth; of sorrow, misery, and woe here and Heaven lost hereafter.—C. D. Wilson.