y,
destroys virtue, breeds crime, fills prisons with victims and homes
with misery, and requires the expenditure on the part of the
government of millions of dollars in punishing the criminals and the
paupers it annually makes,--I say against this army engaged under the
banner of the rum traffic, what counteracting opposition is springing
from the home loving, the upright and pure-minded citizens of our
great cities? What concerted action is the church with her tens of
thousands of communicants putting forth? It would be an easy matter to
thwart the allied power of rum, if a few persons in every church and
every society for ethical improvement were ablaze with moral
enthusiasm, and wise enough to adopt lines of action similar to those
successfully carried out by the liquor interest. For example: Suppose
in every church four or six earnest men and women form a league for
the protection of the home; let them secure the pledge of every voter
in the church who has love for his fellow-men and respect for decent
government, that he will vote for no man for any office who patronizes
the saloon, who fraternizes with the liquor element, or who is
supported by the rum shops, and that he will use all honorable means
to further good government, by seeking the advancement to office of
pure and upright citizens. Something like that would be all that would
be necessary for the general membership to sign. Then let each league
appoint an executive committee of three or five to act precisely as do
officers in an army, to confer with the executive committee of other
leagues to _secretly_ arrange _or map out a campaign_, and to give
commands to the army. It would be an easy matter to poll the saloon
vote in such a way as to ascertain exactly where it stood in cases
where there was a question as to the position of candidates, after
which the word could be given that no votes be cast for the choice of
the saloon element. I am speaking now chiefly of municipal elections,
as they most intimately affect the saloon power in our great cities.
If something like this policy was followed, and every church had its
active league, it would not be long before there would be enrolled on
the side of pure government and true morality, an army far eclipsing
in strength and number the rum element, an army that could easily turn
the balance of power into the hands of high-minded citizens, who would
enforce the laws with equal justice, without fear or favor. I