The American issue. [volume] (Westerville, Ohio) 1912-19??, 1917-12-07
Chicago Preachers Denounce
Alcohol AutOcracy in Their
Thanksgiving Sermons
WHAT Is PATRIOTISM?
Loyalty of Business Which Weakens
Country Is Questioned
KING ALCOHOL MUST DIE

Thankfulness for the great adv ance-
ment of the temperance cause was ex-
pressed iii many Thanksgiving SER
mons throughout the state. Mingled
with thanksgiving praises, however,
was the note of regret over the con-
tinucd wasting OF the nations re-
sources by the manufacture of in
toxicants. Speaking at great union
Thanksgiving rallies many Of Chca-
go's leading pastors pointed ont the
dangers connected with existence of
the liquor traffic in this country.
The following extracts fror a lew
OF the many temperance expressions
by Chicago pastors show chat the
people awake to the Importance of
putting an end to the business which
weakens every element OF national
strength:
REVEREND REGINALD I. RAY
MOND, Pastor of Plymouth Church,
said in part:l
Next to- the gratitude a people
should feel for deliyerance from peril
BY the powers of God working in
mans heroism and loyalty, there
stands the abiding thankfulness for
every sufficient warning against inn
pending national perils. The curse of
alcohol as a social evil of insidious as
we'll as fragrant nature has been it'll
us since man first learned the ar Of
fermentation. From lamcnting s
derelicts of the moral order in &C.
waited social life, from bevailina Is
grosser physical ravages in the ~ -
of the toilers, we have passed io -
newer horror of its blighting heredi.v
"a truth science has revealed vi
pitiless franllness. Unto the TIL {
and fourth generation is the physisaI
birthright of normal body and bra ii
denied the children OF the ALCOHOL
SSOR CLELAND B.
M'AFEE, of the Mccormick Theo-
logical Seminary, speaking in tie
Union Thanksgiving services at the
Second Presbyterian Church, said:
ITO be sure it is hardly fair to cali
for conservation on Our tables while
we are consuming vast amounts of
eatable grains in the making of liquor.
If the wives and children must con-
serve when they eat, the husband
may be fairly asked to conserve when
he drinks"
REVEREND GEORGE MAC
ADAM, pastor of the McCabc Memo
rial Methodist Church, speaking in
the Union Thanksgiving services at
the University Congregational Church,
said:
1--WE accept the limited Thanksgiv-
ing feast, we subscribe to the regime
of food conservation, we observe
wheatless and meatless days-with but
one rebellious thought and this is
caused by the fact that an alien and
seditious group in our midst is still
allowed to use food products for the
manufacture of Intoxicating liquors.
And when you remember that the con-
sumption of this supply delays the
work in cantonments, providing COM
forts for our soldier boys, holds up
our ship-building program, interferes
with the labor and transportation
forces of the country, and decreases
American efficiency all around from
10 to 20 per cent? am sure that our
gratitude for the great temperance
gains of the past few years will be
colored with earnest prayers for the
awakening of the American moral and
economic conscience until this tre-
mendous and absolutely unnecessary
burden shall be removed"
REVEREND w. A. BRIGGS, pas
tor of the Fourth Congregational
Church, speaking in the Union
Thanksgiving services at ST. Marks
Episcopal Church, said:
Prohibition of the accursed liquor
traffic is theme of great Importance
today. 1t supersedes even the ques-