MH page 345

It is not the drunkard and his family alone who are imperiled by the work of the liquor seller, nor is the burden of taxation the chief evil which his traffic brings on the community. We are all woven together in the web of humanity. The evil that befalls any part of the great human brotherhood brings peril to all.

The harms of the liquor traffic extend broadly across the entire community rather than remaining isolated. This asserts the social interconnectedness of community harms and risks stemming from alcohol availability.

Many a man who through love of gain or ease would have nothing to do with restricting the liquor traffic has found, too late, that the traffic had to do with him. He has seen his own children besotted and ruined. Lawlessness runs riot. Property is in danger. Life is unsafe. Accidents by sea and by land multiply. Diseases that breed in the haunts of filth and wretchedness make their way to lordly and luxurious homes. Vices fostered by the children of debauchery and crime infect the sons and daughters of refined and cultured households.

No individual is completely insulated from the societal breakdown, lawlessness, and disease fostered by the liquor traffic. It combines ethical admonitions about social responsibility with empirical claims regarding the transmission of filth-borne diseases across social strata and rising crime.

There is no man whose interests the liquor traffic does not imperil. There is no man who for his own safeguard should not set himself to destroy it.

Every person has a personal stake and a duty to oppose the liquor traffic for self-preservation and community safety. The paragraph argues universally that everyone is at risk from the liquor traffic and should work to destroy it.

Above all other places having to do with secular interests only, legislative halls and courts of justice should be free from the curse of intemperance. Governors, senators, representatives, judges, men who enact and administer a nation's laws, men who hold in their hands the lives, the fair fame, the possessions of their fellows, should be men of strict temperance. Only thus can their minds be clear to discriminate between right and wrong. Only thus can they possess firmness of principle, and wisdom to administer justice and to show mercy. But how does the record stand? How many of these men have their minds beclouded, their sense of right and wrong confused, by strong drink! How many are the oppressive laws enacted, how many the innocent persons condemned to death, through the injustice of drinking lawmakers, witnesses, jurors, lawyers, and even judges! Many there are, “mighty to drink wine,” and “men of strength to mingle strong drink,” “that call evil good, and good evil;” that “justify the wicked for reward, and take away the righteousness of the righteous from him!” Of such God says:

Civic leaders and legal authorities must maintain strict temperance so their judgment remains unclouded by alcohol. It asserts a direct causal link between alcohol consumption by officials and distorted legal decisions.