THE GREAT DESPOILER by Charles S. Longacre

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 20, 1916

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 43, No. 25.

THE GREAT DESPOILER

By Charles S. Longacre

THE liquor traffic is the greatest of all menaces to the welfare of the home, of society, and of the nation. It destroys the peace of the home, breaks down the bulwarks of the family, debauches American citizenship, threatens the very existence of the republic, and ruthlessly assails the most sacred inheritance of every man, woman, and child — the right to life, liberty, and happiness.

Any business enterprise, irrespective of its kind, that destroys the individual, wrecks the home, and puts a blight upon posterity, is an enemy not only to the constitution and the flag, but to humanity and its most cherished rights, and deserves to be utterly banished and destroyed by due process of law.

Legalized, but Not Lawful

THE legalized liquor traffic tramples upon every constitutional privilege and immunity granted to mankind. In its operations, it is not amenable to God, or man, or the equitable restraints of law. It robs, mutilates, and slays alike the innocent and the guilty. It mocks at justice, jeers at honor, and laughs at purity. It ravages the marts of sea and land. Its mouth is like the open grave, which is never satisfied until it has devoured its last victim. It is the greatest thief and outlaw in the world.

The liquor traffic has no more constitutional rights for its existence than has the traffic of slavery. There will always be slaves, and so there will always be alcohol.

Man will make a slave of himself; but what the law prohibits is the traffic of slavery. Man will still make alcohol and drink it; but the law has a right to prohibit traffic in any poison that is so destructive to humanity, to society, and to the nation, as science and observation have proved alcohol to be.

When we consider the unspeakable sorrow, disgrace, debauchery, immorality, crime, poverty, wretchedness, and ruin which the liquor traffic brings annually to hundreds of thousands of innocent wives and children in the homes of the devotees of Bacchus, and to society at large, we believe that the civil government has a constitutional right — yea, more, it has a constitutional obligation — to use measures and to enact laws which will guarantee to each individual the unmolested enjoyment of his God-given, inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — all of which rights are trampled underfoot with impunity by those who are engaged in the promiscuous manufacture and sale of intoxicating and alcoholic beverages.

Has No Constitutional Right

No government has a right to license any traffic which leaves in its slimy trail more than 100,000 ruined homes annually, from whose portals are heard the stifled moans of blasted childhood and wretched widowhood. Our government has no right, under the constitution, to permit any enemy to put a handicap upon the unborn millions, barring them forever from reaching the nobler attainments of manhood and womanhood, and thus disqualifying them to meet the great issues of life. Self-preservation is the first law of nations, and the liquor traffic is the greatest foe to this greatest of all national laws.

If the whole American army should be completely massacred by an enemy, that would be considered a great national calamity. Yet every year, in the United States alone, an army of men, women, and children, numbering four times as many as our entire national army, go down to premature death and hopeless graves through the saloon.

More than 3,000 wives are murdered every year in this country by drunken husbands; more than 2,500 innocent children are murdered every year by drunken fathers; more than 30,000 helpless children are forsaken and thrown upon public charity every twelve months by drunken parents.

And as long as the federal government and the state governments protect this hellish traffic, by legalizing and condoning the business, and by accepting blood money as revenue, the nation and the states are equally responsible for all this crime, misery, and sorrow produced by the liquor traffic. Under such conditions, the privileges and immunities guaranteed to the individual citizen under the federal constitution and the state constitutions are nullified.

CHARLES S. LONGACRE.