The abolition of drunkenness by regulating the traffic through license is the most gigantic delusion that Satan ever worked upon an intelligent people. It is a well-known truth that "limitation is the secret of power." The best way to provoke an early marriage between devoted lovers is bitterly to oppose them. The stream whose water spreads over its low banks is without depth and current and power. But confine the waters between high, narrow banks, the bed of the stream is deepened, and its mighty current supports animal life and turns the wheels of mill and factory. The regulation of the liquor-traffic by license makes it a financial and political power second to none in America to-day. To vote for any party or man who advocates liquor license, is to give a loyal support to the American saloon.
To expect the abolition of drunkenness solely through processes of education is to preach one thing and to practice another. It is to perpetuate an evil that costs two hundred and fifty thousand precious lives every year. It is to leave to the next generation a work that God expects us to do here and now. Dr. Banks relates an incident witnessed by Major Hilton on the coast of Scotland. "Just at the break of day the people of a little hamlet on the coast were awakened by the boom of a cannon over the stormy waves. They knew what it meant, for frequently they had heard before the same signal of distress. Some poor souls were out beyond the breakers perishing on a wrecked vessel, and in their last extremity calling wildly for help. The people hastened from their houses to the shore. Out there in the distance was a dismantled vessel pounding itself to pieces. Perishing fellow-beings were clinging to the rigging, and every now and then some one was swept off into the sea by the furious waves. The life-saving crew was soon gathered. 'Man the life-boat!' cried the man. "Where is Hardy?" But the foreman of the crew was not there, and the danger was imminent. Aid must be immediate, or all would be lost. The next in command sprang into the frail boat, followed by the rest, all taking their lives in their hands in the hope of saving others. O, how those on the shore watched their brave loved ones as they dashed on, now over, now almost under the waves! They reached the wreck. Like angels of deliverance they filled their craft with almost dying men—men lost but for them. Back again they toiled, pulling for the shore, bearing their precious freight. The first man to help them land was Hardy, whose words rang above the roar of the breakers: "Are you all here? Did you save them all?" With saddened faces the reply came: "All but one. He couldn't help himself at all. We had all we could carry. We couldn't save the last one." "Man the life-boat again!" shouted Hardy. "I will go. What! leave one there to die alone? A fellow-creature there, and we on shore? Man the life-boat now! We'll save him yet." But who is this aged woman with worn garments and disheveled hair, with agonized entreaty falling upon her knees beside this brave, strong man? It is his mother! "O, my son! your father was drowned in a storm like this. Your brother Will left me eight years ago, and I have never seen his face since the day he sailed. No doubt he, too, has found a watery grave. And now you will be lost, and I am old and poor. O, stay with me!" "Mother," cried the man, "where one is in peril, there is my place. If I am lost, God surely will care for you." The plea of earnest faith prevailed. With a "God bless you, my boy!" she released him, and speeded him on his way. Once more they watched and prayed and waited—those on the shore—while every muscle was strained toward the fast-sinking ship by those in the life-saving boat. At last it reached the vessel. The clinging figure was lifted and helped to its place. Back came the boat. How eagerly they looked and called in encouragement, and cheered as it came nearer! "Did you get him?" was the cry from the shore. Lifting his hands to his mouth to trumpet the words on in advance of their landing, Hardy called back above the roar of the storm, "Tell mother it is brother Will!"
My friend, simply talking and praying will not save our loved ones from drunkards' graves. We must man the life-boat of municipal, State, and National reform, and vote for principle and Christian temperance until we save the last man. He may be "brother Will."
III. GAMBLING, CARD-PLAYING
GAMBLING has become a moral plague of modern society. In one form or another it has entered the rank and file of every department of life—in private parlor over cards; in hotel drawing-room over election reports; in college athletic grounds over brains and brawn; in the counting-room over the price of stocks; in the racing tournament over jockeying and speed; in the Board of Trade hall over future prices of the necessaries of life; in the den of iniquity at dice; in the drinking saloon at the slot-machine; in the people's fair at the wheel of fortune; in the gambling den itself at every conceivable form of swindling trick and game. Gambling has come to be almost an omnipresent evil. In treating this subject, it is our purpose to point out something of the nature of its evil, not only that we may be kept from it but that we may save others whom it threatens to destroy.
Gambling grows out of a misuse of the natural tendency to take risks. A social vice is some social right misused. Men have the social right to congregate to talk over measures of social and economic welfare. But if they discuss measures which oppose the principles of free Government, their meeting together becomes a crime against the State. A personal vice is some personal right misused. As some one has put it, "Vice is virtue gone mad." It is a personal right and a personal virtue to be charitable, even beneficent. But since justice comes before mercy, if one uses for charity that which should be used in payment of debt, his virtue of beneficence becomes a vice of theft. So it is with gambling. It is giving the natural tendency to chance, to risk an illegitimate play. The person who is afraid to risk anything accomplishes but little in any way, is seldom a speculator, and never a gambler. Usually the gambler is the man who is naturally full of hazard, who loves to run risks, to take chances. Nor will one find a more practical and useful tendency in one's make-up than this. See the discoverer of America and his brave crew for days and days sailing across an unknown sea toward an unknown land. But that was the price of a New World. Note the hazard and risk of our Pilgrim Fathers. But they gave to the world a new colonization. See the Second greatest American on his knees before Almighty God, promising him that he would free four million of slaves, providing General Lee should be driven back out of Maryland. General Lee was driven back, and that immortal though most hazardous of all documents, from man's point of view, was read to his Cabinet and signed by Abraham Lincoln. All great men have taken great risks. Not a section of the United States has been settled without some risk. No business enterprise is launched without some risk. To secure an education, to learn a trade, to marry a wife, all involve some risk, much risk. The tendency to risk, to hazard, to chance it is a practical and useful tendency. Only let this tendency be governed always by wisdom and justice. No person ever became a gambler until consciously or unconsciously he forfeited wisdom and justice in his chances and risks.
Gambling takes a variety of forms. First of all is the professional gambler. He has no other business. His investment is a "pack of cards" and a box of "dice. See him with his long, slender fingers; with his shaggy, unkempt hair; with keen eyes, and a sordid countenance. He is prepared to "rake in" a thousand dollars a night, and would not hesitate to strip any man of his fortune. The professional is found at county fairs, on railway trains, in gilded dens, and at public resorts. Being a professional outlaw, and subject at any time to arrest and imprisonment, usually he has an accomplice. Sometimes a gang work together, so that it is with perfect ease they may relieve any unwary novice of his money. They know human nature on its low, mercenary side, and soon can find their man in a crowd. But few persons have started out in life having it for their aim to get something for nothing who, sooner or later, have not been "taken in" by this gang of swindlers. They know their kind. The end of the professional gambler is final loss and ruin. He will make $100, he will make $500, he will make $1,000, he will make $2,000; then he will lose all. Then he will borrow some money and start anew. And again he will make $200, he will make $600, he will make $1,200, and he will lose all. Like the winebibber and the professional murderer, the professional gambler has his den. Not a large city in the world is without these haunts of vice. Who is it that feeds and supports them? The novice at cards and dice, husbands and sons of respectable families, just as the occasional dram-taker supports the saloon. As one has asked:
"Could fools to keep their own contrive,
On whom, on what could gamesters thrive?"
—GAY.
The penny novice seeks the penny gambling den. The aristocratic speculator seeks the gilded gambling den. The expert trickster of large luck and large fortune makes his way to Monte Carlo, the gambling Mecca of the world. Monte Carlo is a famous resort situated in the northwest part of Italy. It is notorious for its gambling saloon. This city of nearly four thousand inhabitants is located in Monaco, the smallest independent country in the world. Monaco is about eight miles square, and lies on a "barren, rocky ridge between the sea and lofty, almost inaccessible rocks." The soil is barren, except in small tracts which are used for fruit-gardens. For centuries the inhabitants, the Monagasques, lived by marauding expeditions, both by sea and land, and by slight commerce with Genoa, Marseilles, and Nice. But in the last century the people have converted their country and city into a world-wide resort. In 1860, M. Blanc, a famous gambler and saloon proprietor of two German cities, went to Monaco, and for an immense sum of money received sole privilege to convert their province into a gambler's paradise. Soon immense marble buildings arose in the midst of such beauty as to make it a modern rival of the gardens of ancient Babylon. Costly statues, gorgeous vases, graceful fountains, elegant basins, and beautiful terraces, all of which are made alluring by blooming plants, by light illuminations, and by free concerts of music day and night,—these are the attractions in this gambler's paradise. Here fortunes are won and lost in a night. For, as has been sung,