Spiritual and Financial Advantages of Temperance

Spiritual and financial advantages in obeying the Word of Wisdom. — Convincing arguments about temperance, quoted from "Leaves from the Diary of an old Lawyer," etc. — Resolution condemning saloons and favoring "Sunday Law." ¶

I am pleased to have the opportunity of meeting with so many Latter-day Saints, and I earnestly desire that the time I may occupy, this afternoon, may be spent for the mutual benefit of all of us who have assembled. I have been deeply interested in all that has been said thus far in our conference, and I hope and pray that the words that were spoken here this morning and this afternoon, appealing to the Latter-day Saints to observe God's law, may find lodgment in the hearts of the people. Upon my return from Europe, and in traveling in some of the stakes of Zion, I made the remark that I believed the Latter-day Saints were becoming more careless many of them, in observing what is known among us as the Word of Wisdom. I regretted to see it, and in my public utterances from this stand, since my return home, and in the stakes of Zion, I have endeavored to urge upon them the necessity of returning to an observance of this law of God. I know there are many Latter-day Saints who feel that the breaking of the Word of Wisdom is a small affair, that it is a very slight matter to partake of a cup of tea or coffee, or to use tobacco, or to occasionally take a drink of liquor, but I, for one, cannot believe, and never have believed, that it is a slight affair for any man, woman, or child, to do that which God our heavenly Father has commanded us not to do. From my investigations, I believe, beyond a doubt, that the saving to this community by the observing of the Word of Wisdom would be far more than the profits that are made todav by our great sugar factories in the State of Utah. When we stop to reflect upon the fact that we spend enough money, in breaking this commandment of God, to build about two factories every year, then we can realize the importance of what some people call an insignificant matter. I rejoice, beyond measure, to have the prophet of the Lord lay it down so forcefully to this people, under the inspiration of the Spirit of God, telling us that it is in very deed our duty, an obligation from God Almighty resting upon us, to obey this command. I have heard some people say that many of those who preach upon the Word of Wisdom — one of whom I have always been — are standing up so straight that they lean over backwards. No man stands up any straighter than he ought to stand, by keeping the commandments of God and urging the people to do the same. ¶

Now, I have read, time and time again, as I have traveled through the stakes, some very strong and forceful arguments against the liquor traffic. I have read the same thing here from this stand, but, like a good song, or like one of the revelations of the Lord that contains truth and instruction, a repetition will not hurt the people. Although I realize, as I stated the last time I read these same things from' this stand, that it is wearisome to an audience to listen to reading, yet at the risk of wearying this large audience by a repetition of what I have read here once before, I shall read it again, and I believe if the people will listen attentively and will mark carefully the wonderful items that are brought forth in that which I shall read, that it will be of more benefit, perchance, than anv remarks that I might make myself along the same line : ¶

From "Leaves from the Diary of an Old Lawyer :" ¶

"I believe that it will require the force of the whole people, men and women, applied at the ballot box, to effectually blot out of existence the great curse to the country, 'The Laws that License and Permit the Sale of Alcohol as a Beverage.' I deny the right of the government to sell to one citizen the privilege to tempt another to commit crime — " ¶

Incidentally, I wish to say I also deny the right, but I thank God that you and I have the right to stamp out this evil that is in our midst, if we determine to do it. ¶

"I doubt the policy of those laws that seek to raise a revenue by the sale of that which debases the people, is the prolific source of crime and pauperism, and costs the country annually a thousand times more than the revenue received therefrom. I deny the justice of those laws that on one page of the statute books legalize that which promotes crime and makes criminals, and on the next page provide severe penalties to be administered to those they have tempted to transgress. This little volume [and it is as large as the book I hold in my hand, exhibiting the large edition of the Book of Mormon] is presented to the public to promulgate these views. They may be thought radical, and perhaps are so ; but they are the result of long years of experience in our criminal courts, and are but a feeble expression of my abhorrence of the vice of intemperance, and the laws that encourage and promote it. ¶

"Tell me I hate the bowl — ¶

Hate is a feeble word ; I loathe — abhor — my very soul With strong disgust is stirred Whene'er I see, or hear, or tell Of the dark beverage of hell."* "My experience at the bar has satisfied me that intemperance is the direct cause of nearly all the crimes that are committed in our country. I have been at the bar over thirty years, have been engaged in over four thousand criminal cases, and on mature reflection I am satisfied that over three thousand of those cases have originated from drunkenness alone, and I believe that a great proportion of the remainder could be traced either directly or indirectly to this great source of crime. In sixty-three cases of homicide forty-nine have been caused by the maddening influence of strong drink." ¶

Think of one lawyer defending forty-nine cases of murder, all originating from strong drink ! If there *The entire poem is inserted as a footnote on next page. had never been but one boy or one girl murdered, and only one boy had become a murderer, through the influence of strong drink, then every father and every mother ought to rise up and determine that there shall never be another from the same cause if they had the power to prevent it — and we have the power, by legally putting down the saloons. ¶

"I have seen upon the counsel table of our court room the skull of an aged father who was killed by a drunken son. My brother and myself sat by his side as his counsel, and I never shall forget the look of that son when the ghastly evidence of his guilt was laid on the stand before him. That silent yet eloquent witness ! It was but an arch of bone, and was handled carelessly by the jury in their investigation, yet it had once been covered by a father's gray hairs, beneath it had throbbed a brain full of pride and affection for the son who was now on his trial for murder, and as it passed from hand to hand the fearful expression on the face of the accused plainly told the terrible feeling of remorse that filled his soul. It was a wicked and most unnatural crime, and begot feelings of loathing and horror in the breasts of all who witnessed the trial. Yet it was not in reality the son who had committed the crime, but the demon that lurks in every cup of strong drink. And that cup had been filled and placed to the lips of that son by the hand of a most respectable member of society — a man who had a license from that very court to sell that which maddened the brain and prompted the hand to murder. ¶

"I saw upon the table the skull of young B — , who was killed by his most intimate friend in a drunken brawl at Hartstown, and the respectable proprietor at whose hotel the murder was perpetrated, and who sold the maddening spirit that prompted the deed, was a witness to the trial. He said he had a li HATE OF THE BOWL. ¶

Go feel what I have felt — Go bear what I have borne — ¶

Sink 'neath the blow a father dealt, And the cold world's proud scorn ; Then suffer on from year to year — ¶

Thy sole relief the scorching tear. ¶

Go kneel as I have knelt, Implore, beseech, and pray — ¶

Strive the besotted heart to melt, The downward course to stay — ¶

Be dashed with bitter curse aside, Your prayers burlesqued, your tears defied. ¶

Go weep as I have wept O'er a loved father's fall — ■ See every promised blessing swept — ¶

Youth's sweetness turned to gall — Life's fading flowers strewed all the way, That brought me up to woman's day. ¶

Go see what I have seen — ¶

Behold the strong man bow, With gnashing teeth,lips bathed in blood, And cold and livid brow— Go catch his withering glance, and see There mirrored, his soul's misery. ¶

Go to thy mother's side, And her crushed bosom cheer — ¶

Thine own deep anguish hide — ¶

Wipe from her cheek the bitter tear; Mark her wan cheek and pallid brow — The gray that streaks her dark hair now, Her failing frame, and trembling limb; And trace the ruin back to him Whose plighted faith in early youth, Promised eternal love and truth, But who, foresworn, hath yielded up That promise to the cursed cup ; And led her down, through love and light, And all that made her prospects bright; And chained her there, 'mid want and strife, That lowly thing, a drunkard's wife ; And stamped on childhood's brow so mild, That withering blight, a drunkard's child ! ¶

Go hear, and feel, and see, and know, All that my soul hath felt and known ; Then look upon the wine-cup's glow — See if its beauty can atone — ¶

Think if its flavor you will try! ¶

When all proclaims, 'tis drink and die ! ¶

Tell me I hate the bowl — ¶

Hate is a feeble word ; I loathe — abhor — my very soul With strong disgust is stirred — Whene'er I see, or hear, or tell, Of the dark beverage of hell. License from that respectable court to sell liquor ; yes, from the very court then sitting in judgment on that act, which was but the natural sequence of the license it had sold and granted. ¶

"I have seen upon the table the skull of a little child, with the evidence upon it of a murderous blow, inflicted by the hand of a drunken mother. Yet it was not the mother who had committed the most unnatural crime. All our knowledge of the promptings of the human heart deny the charge. Who that remembers his own mother and her maternal love could believe it? No! a demoniacal spirit had violated the sanctuary of the mother's heart and cast out the tender, loving tenant that once resided there, and that was the spirit of strong drink, sold to the woman by a man who held a license to sell under the seal and sanction of that very court. ¶

"I have seen upon that table the bloodstained skull of a wife, cleft from top to base by an axe in the hand of a brutal, drunken husband, who came home from a neighboring licensed beer shop, reeling, drunken, and maddened by drink there sold by a most respectable dealer, by a man who had a legal right to sell that poison whose effects are more terrible than the plagues confined within the fabled box of Pandora, and under whose baneful influence " 'The hand that should shield the wife from ill, In drunken wrath is raised to kill.' "I once defended a man for killing his own brother, by whom, in a fit of drunken frenzy, he had been attacked with a dangerous weapon, thereby compelling him in his own defense, to strike a blow that had taken his brother's life. He was tried for murder, and in his defense I called the 'landlord' to prove that the murdered brother was mad from the effects of the liquor he had received at the witness' bar. He so testified, yet seemed conscious of no wrong. Why should he? He had a license from the court, and why should that brother's blood cry to heaven for vengeance against him ? Oh, no ! he was a respectable citizen, possessing a good moral character, for the law grants licenses to none other! He had a legal right to present the maddening cup to his fellow's lips, and no one should complain of him. He had acted in accordance with the law, and did not one of England's greatest and best men say that 'the law was that science whose voice was the harmony of the world, and whose seat was the bosom of God?'" ¶

That ends the extracts from the "Leaves of an Old Lawyer." I now desire to read an advertisement issued by a saloon keeper, and certainly nobody can complain if we give free advertising to those engaged in the saloon business by reading their own advertisements, for which they have spent their money. It is headed : ¶

"an honest saloon keeper. ¶

• "Tombstone, Arizona, claims credit for the frankest saloon keeper in the United States. He keeps the Temple Bar saloon, and advertises his business with moSt enterprising frankness: 'Allow 'me to inform you that you are fools,' he says, yet his place is usually filled. He maintains that he is an honest saloon keeper, and that it will not hurt his business to tell the truth about it. He has had printed an advertising card which would make an excellent manuscript for a temperance lecture. Copies are being circulated through the western states and are attracting attention. The card reads as follows : ¶

" 'Friends and Neighbors : I am grateful for past favors, and having supplied my store with a fine lot of choice wines and liquors, allow me to inform you that I shall continue to make drunkards, paupers and beggars for the sober, industrious, respectable, part of the community to support. My liquors will excite riot, robbery and bloodshed. They will diminish your comforts, increase your expenses, and shorten your life. I shall confidently recommend them as sure to multiply fatal accidents and incurable diseases. They will deprive some of life, others of reason, many of character, and all of peace. They will make fathers fiends, wives widows, children orphans, and all poor. I will train your sons in infidelity, dissipation, ignorance, lewdness and every other vice. I will corrupt the ministers of religion, obstruct the gospel, defile the church, and cause as much temporal and eternal death as I can. I will thus accommodate the public. It may be at the loss of my never-dying soul, but I have a family to support— the business pays, the public encourages it. I have paid my license, and the traffic is lawful; and if I don't sell it somebody else will. [If we don't go to hell somebody else will.] I know the Bible says : Thou shalt not kill. No drunkard shall enter the kingdom of heaven, and I do not expect the drunkard-maker to fare any better, but I want an easy living, and I have resolved to gather the wages of iniquity and fatten on the ruin of my species. I shall, therefore, carry on my business with every energy, and do my best to diminish the wealth of the nation and endanger the safety of the state. As my business flourishes in proportion to your sensuality and ignorance, I will do my best to prevent moral purity and intellectual growth. Should you doubt my ability, I refer you to the pawnshops, the poorhouse, the police court, the hospital, the penitentiary and the gallows, where you will find many of my best customers have gone. A sight of them will convince you that I do what I say. Allow me to inform you that you are fools, and that I am an honest saloon keeper.' " ¶

I wish to read a few words from a book written by David Starr Jordan, entitled "The Strength of Being Clean." I believe that President Smith has paid this little book the tribute of saying that it is one of the strongest arguments yet produced or written by a non-Mormon in support and vindication of the teachings of God, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, contained in the Word of Wisdom. (The speaker turned to President Smith, and then continued) : The President says that is true : ¶

"So far as the drink of the drunkards is 'concerned, prohibition does not prohibit. But to clean up a town, to free it from corrosion, saves men, and boys and girls, too, from vice, and who shall say that moral sanitation is not as much the duty of the community as physical sanitation. The city of the future will not permit the existence of slums and dives and tippling-houses. It will prohibit their existence for the same reason that it now prohibits pig-pens and dung-heaps and cesspools. For where all these things are, slums and cesspools, saloons and pig-pens, there the people grow weak and die." ¶

Now we, as Latter-day Saints, do not wish to. grow weak and die. We wish to grow in strength, in power, in ability, in the Spirit of Almighty God. We wish to grow in the power to be clean and sweet in our lives ; we wish, in very deed, to so live that other men seeing our good deeds shall glorify God and be ready to investigate the truth. ¶

I indorse, with all my heart, the teachings of the Presidency of the Church and the teachings of the President of the quorum of the Apostles, in our hearing today. I believe that if the Latter-day Saints would, in very deed, observe this law of God, that the rich outpourings of the Spirit of God would be felt among the people as never before. ¶

May God bless us and inspire us, one and all, with a determination to live up to this resolution and with a determination to serve God and to keep His commandments, is my prayer, and I ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. ¶

At the conclusion of his remarks, Elder Grant read the following RESOLUTION. ¶

Believing in the words and teachings of President Joseph F. Smith, as set forth this morning on the subject of temperance, it is proposed, therefore, that all officers and members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints will do all in their power, that can properly be done, with lawmakers generally to have such laws enacted by our legislature, soon to be elected, as may be necessary to close saloons, otherwise decrease the sale of liquor and enact what is known as the "Sunday Law." ¶

On motion, the immense congregation voted in favor of the resolution submitted, proclaiming "aye" in a unanimous shout. ¶