"I cannot say," the chief speaker replied. "The law may occasionally be broken,—I suppose it is. But," he added, "I can tell you this,—we have no drunkards on our streets. I have a boy,—he is ten years old, and he has never seen a drunken man in his life. How about the boys of the people of this city, of this audience?"
The persons in that audience looked at the chief speaker; they looked at each other. There followed such a serious, earnest, frank discussion of the "liquor problem" as had never before been held either in that club, or, indeed, in any assembly in that city. Since that day, that club has not only held debates on the "liquor problem" of its city; it has tried to bring about no-license. The chief speaker of that meeting was far from being the first person who had addressed the organization on that subject; neither was he the first to mention its relation to childhood and youth; but he was the very first to bring his own child, and to bring the children of each and every member of the association who had a child into his argument. With the help of the children, he prevailed.
One of my friends who is a member of that club said to me recently, "It was the sincerity of the speaker of that 'ladies' day' meeting that won the audience. I really must protest against your thinking it was his chance reference to his boy!"
"But," I reminded him, "it was not until he made that 'chance reference' to his boy that any one was in the least moved. How do you explain that?"
"Oh," said my friend, "we were not sure until then that he was in dead earnest—"
"And then you were?" I queried.
"Why, yes," my friend replied. "A man doesn't make use of his child to give weight to what he is advocating unless he really does believe it is just as good as he is arguing that it is."
"So," I persisted, "it was, after all, his 'chance reference' to his boy—"
"If you mean that nothing practical would have come of his speech, otherwise,—yes, it was!" my friend allowed himself to admit.
Another friend who happened to be present came into the conversation at this point. "Suppose he had had no child!" she suggested. "Any number of perfectly sincere persons, who really believe that what they are advocating is just as good as they argue it is, have no children," she went on whimsically; "what about them? Haven't they any chance of winning their audiences when they speak on no-license,—or what not?"