One of the most prominent men in this State told me, some months ago, of
a conversation he had with a well-known New York socialist. The Kansas
man said to the New Yorker: “You claim you desire to elevate humanity.
You know, as every intelligent man does, that for a very large
proportion of all the poverty, crime and woe of this world the liquor
traffic is responsible. Why, then, don’t you endeavor to close the
saloons of this city?” The reply was prompt and conclusive. Said the New
Yorker: “Close the saloons? Why, if that was done we should have no
meeting-places. We find and make most of our converts in the saloons!”
Here, then, in the saloons, where poverty, vice, crime and suffering are
bred and nurtured, are the haunts, and homes, and recruiting offices of
the dynamiter and bomb-thrower. From the saloons come the miscreants who
parade with red flags, and who revile and denounce the brave old banner
of the “Stars and Stripes.” From the saloon issue the wild-eyed and
crack-brained enthusiasts, and the brutal and vicious emissaries of envy
and hate, who want to substitute for a republic of reason, order,
security, liberty, and law, the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, and
arbitrary government of the mob.