Arizona republican., 1914-07-22
OUR RESPONSIBILITY

When Michael Kilroy reeled to his tenement home in the early hours of the holy Sabbath, in the Christian city of Boston, his pockets emptied of the money promised to his wife (she a floor scrubber and woman of general work, drunkard's wife and mother of drunkard's children)-to buy clothing for lack of which his children were freezing; when he an swered her appeal for a fulfilment of his promise with a blow that knocked her to the floor; when with his fingers upon her throat he choked her prayer for mercy; when with his heavy boots he kicked that wife about to become the mother of an other of his "drunkards children" " when he sat for hours listening to her moans and watching her suffer ings utterly unmoved by them; when he brutally maltreated the children who would have brought help: when he struck away the water that her little daughter was lifting to her bloody, thirsting lips; throughout all this, l say, drink alone actuated him. Neither earth nor hell has offered any other agency, in the history of the whole human race, that has i'm pelled men to deeds of such atrocity, In other words the saloon killed Bridget Kilroy; and the saloon not only made Michael Kilroy do that insanely devilish deed. but it has transformed uncounted thousands of other men into fiends of the some low type, driven to deeds of equal brutality.
 Drink. friends. is today preparing more men for just such deeds; and you know, and we know and the world knows, that it will take boys from your churches, boys from your schools,-aye, God pity you. perhaps even boys from your homes,-and will transform them into such brutes to work, later. similar atrocities on women who today are lovable and loving girls In my Sunday school. I personally know some who have al ready been carried to their homes drunk,
 It was only twelve days before the butchery in that Boston tenement, that Vincent Vincelsk came home drunk in Pittsburg and chopped his wife and children to death with a rail-cutter. It was only thirteen days before that John Blissett of Detroit. drunk, emptied his revolver into his wifes body and poured kerosene over her, and was standing with lighted
 
 to Drink when the police broke in upon him; and just one month and day before that father in Indiana came home drunk, sought to kill his wife with a hatchet, and instead was shot dead by his son.
 With what hideous glee must the devil have laughed when he saw these jokes of the saloon And such cases are innumerable. Indeed, before Michael Kilroy came home to kill Bridget, you and I and every body in the whole land kneW that because of the drink traffic some man would come home and kN his wife; knew that the hideous process sion of such crimes would keep right on from the same accursed cause.
 There follows another procession. Tn a column as long as the years they continue marching on through out the future, radiant with love and beauty, crowned with wifely devotion and motherly affection; some of them grey haired; some of them carrying infants in arms; some, like Bridget Kilroy, having little ones just ready for birth,-and others but just wear ing bridal veils; while beyond these are maidens and little girls, fewer crowned or with skipping ropes and dolls, advancing to take their places in the distance, for, if history re- peats itself," there is born every five minutes one innocent child who is destined to die drunkard; and the saloon made brutes, the man who be- cause of a law-sanctioned temptation, will have forgotten love and honor and plighted troth, will shoot and stab and stamp the lives out of them also. before the gaze of the Ameri- can people, should it still tolerate the saloon.