Norwich bulletin., 1914-03-26
ANSWERS REQUEST TO SPEAK
 ON LIQUOR QUESTION.
Rev. c. H. Ricketts Before Men at the
 Richmond Radiator Company.

Rev. C.. H. Ricketts spoke at the Y. M C. A. shop meeting held during the noon hour Wednesday at the Rich mond Radiator company. Mrs. L. o. Potter accompanied her solos on the violin in a very pleasing manner.
 Rev. MT. Ricketts spoke upon the liquor question, and in part said:
 I have received from a number of the men here a request to express my views of the great liquor problem. I approach that subject with no little hesitation, not because of any lack of positive convictions or interest in the matter; not because of timidity in ex- pressing those convictions: not be- cause of any difficulty in finding some thing to say, but in making a selec- tion out of the great mass of available material that ought to be said, within the limits of 15 minutes.
 I do not speak today as representa- tive of any temperance society, for I do not belong to any. It is not my purpose to advocate any special phase of legislation. AS l stand sponsor only for my own conscience, | shall briefly state my personal views and you may take them for what they are worth
 Healthy Body Has No Use for It.
 The human body in it's health and strength has no use for alcoholic stimulants. No conclusion of science is clearer than this. What effect al cohol may have on the body under abnormal conditions is quite another question. If l were a sick man and had put my case into the hands of a reputable doctor. l should follow his advice, whatever he prescribed. But it has been proved beyond question that alcohol destroys the live tissue of the body in health. It acts as a dead ly poison on some animals and young children, For healthy men to brace up" their nerves for some great emer- gency by liquor in any form is all moonshine Men are not fitted to grasp the usual or the unusual task with brains befuddled by rum. It is an established fact that physical eff ciency is lowered under the stinula- ton of whiskey. Judgment and req son never act clearly when our pro- ductiVe powers are keyed up to un- natural tension. All over a mans body the finger of God has written, let rum alone if you want to be we'll"
 A Sighting Factor.
 Alcohol is chief among the factors that blightS a mans earthly condi- ton. Last November one cold aday a man-not living in the Figi Islands was walking with his little boy when he noticed that the little fellow had a congested chill. All at once it dawn ed upon him that the boy was thinly clad. The money that ought to have gone into clothes went for rum. It came to the man with such a blow that he quit the vile habit. Poverty, distress and a thousand other ills are the legitimate children of the rum habit.
 I hold logically that any institution, built up and maintained at the ex- pense of a blighted body and lost soul, has no right te live. Let us dis criminate betw ween a lawful and 8 le gitimate business In this state 1t is as lawful to sell rum as it is flour. I am going to be a law abiding citizen. l shall burn nobodys saloon, smash mo- bOdys gin bottles, defame nobody character. But l will fight tooth and nail, the institution that damns hu- man society more widely than all other evil influences combined. The open saloon is bad enough. but not a whit worse than these high toned dram shops that skin the law under the name of social clubs. Ton can't i'm prove carrion by sprinkling it with rose water. Both the saloon and the tony dram shop "are full of dead mems bOnes."
 The speaker said that clean institu- tions come only as clean men make them and stand behind them. Hs urged those present. if any were play ing with the dragon, to leave him while they can.