The record-union., 1896-03-09
TEE CHURCH And SALOON.
Hrs. Helen N. GOuSefS Temperance Ad-
dress Last Night.
A Large Audience at the sixth-street
Methodist Church Listened to
an Able Lecture.

Mrs. Helen NJ Gouger drew a larse
audience to hear her last night at the
Sixth-street Methodist Churcn, anu
proved herself to be an earnest, cultl-
waited and entertaining speaker, deahng
trenchant blows in the cause OF tenn
perance.
Mrs. .Gouger chose for her theme The
Church and the Saloon" She said that
the large audience clearly showed that
the s6bject was one Of interest to them
Whatever was good had to be defended
and whatever is bad must take care OF
itself. She was here tonight to discuss
the relation of the liquor traffic to the
good and bad in society and its results
She would be glad if she could impress
every man, woman and child with a
sense of their responsibility in relation
to it. and she hoped if she succeeded in
convincing them, they would go away
determined to do their duty fearlessly.
In this country, with its 60,O00,00O,
there are about 250,O00 men engaged in
the business. They admit that they
are in it to make money and talk or
their rights. If the traffic is right it
should not be molested. If it is wrong,
we have no right to license it, either by
be prohibited We have in this country,
freedom of opinion in religion, politics
and every other direction. But it is a
principle well established by law that
whatever is a damage to the interests
of the community should be suppressed
in those interests
Alcoholism is filing our prisons with
criminals Our Prison Congresses are
wondering at the appalling increase of
crime in our country. The last one
states that crime has increased 2S per
cent within the past five years. A
large proportion of the shoes and other
articles in our markets are the product
of convict labor and make it hard for
private capital to compete with them,
and labor is in the same position. She
spoke at length of the Tennessee min
ing troubles over convict labor, result
ing in the turning free of 500 criminals.
The greater part of all this crime is the
direct result of the liquor traffic.
A very large proportion Of the burden
of taxation under which the people
groan is the result of this traffic. For
one dollar of revenue received by tax
and liquor licenses, it costs $21 dollars
in taxes to pay the expense of the
crimes resulting from it.
She exhibited strip of cloth contain
ing clippings from Chicago daily papers
for four months giving the articles re-
lating to crime directly traceable to
alcoholic influence, which she said was
271 feet long and contained 450 ac-
counts of such crimes committed with
in that time
She claimed that prohibition gave
better protection to society than any
form of license could, and said Theodore
Roosevelt had carried it out in New
York one day in the week and it could
therefore be carried out on other days
also. In the list she showed she said
there were 134 murders, all due to IL
quor.
She spoke of the power and workings
of the National Liquor Dealers Asso-
citation and of the Women's Christian
Temperance Union and the influence
for good it was exerting. She claimed
that the only remedy for the present
state of affairs was prohibition and
woman suffrage.
She appealed to the boys to start in
on a life of teetotalism and to look
around on their friends and see over
what precipiee many of them were
sliding down. She appealed to the
women to lend their best influence to
forward the movement and Danish IL
quor from their homes.