Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1885-11-30
JOHN B. FINCH.
The Eloquent Temperance Lecturer
Brief Synopsis of His Address.


The Congregational Church was COM
pletely filled Saturday evening to listen to
the address of John B. Finch, the re-
nowned temperance lecturer. Below is
given brief synopsis of his remarks:
Good Templars believein total abstinence
from the use of alcoholic beverages and in
total prohibition of the manufacture and
sale OF the same. The principal of total
abstinence from the beverage use CT alco-
hol is adopted by Good Templars because
experience, history and science have DEM
onstrated 1t to be correct principal. Every
sane person desires TO live long. to live
well, to die happy. If the use of alcoholic
liquors lengthens life. increases the utility
OF life and makes the death-bed easier.
then man is justified in using it. If the
use shortens life, cripples physical powers
and makes the death-bed wretched then
the man who uses it wrongs himself, his
friends and society. This question is set
tied by the experience of life insurance
companies. Drinking alcoholic liquors
impairs physical powers and sbortens life
Is the verdict compelled by the death losers
OF the companies. Few, if any, standard
companies will insure habitual user of
ilquor. II an Insurance company, as
business investment, cannot afford to take
risk on the life of habitual drinker, is
1t good business for a man to take risk
on his own life by using LIQUORS. That
men have used liquors for wears and re-
NAMED healthy, is the exception. not the
rule. II man urged that because one
man had gone through a severe battle
ana escaped without scratch, there
lore war was healthy, the people would
Vote nm a fool. To married man
TINS reas oning specially applies. A man who
enters INTO partnership is bound bv every
principle of honor to deal fairly with his
partner and use honestly partnership funds.
Marriage as civil contract gives the wife
financial interest in the bone, nerve and
muscle OF the husband. For him after
marriage to destroy himself by drink is to
swlndle his partner. An honorable man
will deal honOrably with his wife. A man
who spends bis money for drink and so
wrongs his wife and family, to say the
least, is not an honorable man. A man who
undertakes to support the wife and fam
ily OF drunkard-maker while he neglects
his own wife and family is too little, dirty.
low and mean to live in civilized society
The brutal vulgarity of drinking will soon
be trowned down by all decent people
The use of liquor iniuring the individual
who is the unit of the State, Injuries the
state and makes it necessary for it to pro-
tect itself by prohibiting the places where
Its sale encourages its use. a State is an
organization of ethical, reasonable human
beings. Its strength depends upon the
character, intelligence and morality of the
people. Any institution that debauches
morality and intelligence is an enemy to
the Government, and a man who supports
or sustains such an institution is not loyal
to his country. The saloon or drunkard-
factory does all this. and for its crimes it
must die. The war between it and the
forces of American civilization is battle
to the death. The drunkard-makers are
doing as much to hasten the issue as the
temperance men themselves. There comes
a time in the history of every reform move
ment when the evil to be destroyed does as
much to destroy itself as the reformers who
are working against it. A man who can
sleep with his own conscience is either a
good man or a terrible raScal-either so
good that conscience approving will let him
sleep, or so mean that conscience has
given him up as bad Job A man
who knows he is wrong will never rest.
The slave power did more to force the is
sue and destroy itself than the abolition
lists, though it would not have done so but
for the abolition whip to stir its conscience
and arouse its fears. Ii could not, did not
rest aud by Its own intolerance and ag-
gresSiveness compelled the nation to bury
II. The liquor interest has reached the
same point. Either the country will de-
stroy the accursed liquor trade and rid
society OF the vile parasites who prey off
its manhood and womanhood, or the
country will be governed by these men
through the drunken votes of their vic
Tins. The traffic and dealers are outlaws
OF the most pronounced kind. In Nebraska
when ColonS Watson b. Smith undertook
to enforce the license law. he was muir
dered by the tools of the accursed trade
In Kansas Republican candidate for
Governor, because he was a friend of the
homes and women and an enemy of the
drunkard-makers was defeated In Illinois,
New York, Michigan and other States the
liquor power has again and again proved
that it will destroy any politician who is
not its plant tool. The ablest men of the
nation have crouched like dogs before this
power and its votes begging that it would
elect them to office. This tremendous
power is the power of the organized traffic
to control, through their appetites, its de-
bauched victims. A saloon education de-
stroys will power, moral PERCEPTION, intel
ligenCe and their Observation-Disclosures
The victim of drink has but one positive
trait left and that is the desire to drink.
He is fitted by the saloon education to be-
come the tool of those enemies of our Gov
eminent, men who buy votes and organ
ize political rings. A man who will
buy a vote is traitor and
villain, and man who will
sell a vote is no better. The institution that
debauches the voter is vile institution,
that the Government should suppress. The
home life of this country is the sheet
anchor of the Government and ANYTHING
that destroys home life is an enemy of lib
epty. People say this gigantic power can
not be destroyed. They said the same thing
when William Lloyd Garrison and Wen.
dell Phillips were mobbed in Boston by
the friends of the slave power. Abolition
leaders were mobbed and spit on and ostra-
cized. When they died the nation did
them honor. The battle with the LIQUOR
trade is battle to death. The black flag
is at the head of the column. To compro.
mise with the leaders of that interest is to
betray our country. To allow the business
to continue is to allow it to ruin more men
and curse more women and children. The
Good Templar army will stand for total
prohibition and will take no part in any
halfway measures. No compromise with
wrong.