There is an asylum in this country where, I am told, they test a man’s insanity in this way.  They have a trough which holds one hundred gallons of water.  Above is an open tap through which the water pours constantly, and of course the trough keeps on running over.  The patient is brought to the trough, given a bucket and told to dip out the water.  If he dips all day and has not mind enough to turn off the tap, he is considered a very serious case.  If this test were put to our license lawmakers, I fear they would have to go to the incurable ward.  They have for many years been picking up drunkards from the gutters and opening taps for them to keep on pouring into the streets.  Under this system the saloon keepers are playing ten-pins.  You know in playing ten-pins there is a long alley, at one end of which stand the pins, while at the other stands the player with a ball in his hand.  He rolls the ball down the alley and knocks down the pins.  Some one sets them up, and to that some one, who is often a boy, the player will toss a dime and say:  “set them up quick.”  Does he let them stand?  No! he rolls the ball down the alley and down go the pins.  The saloon keeper has the ball of law in his hands.  No matter whether a high or low license ball, he paid the price for the use of the ball.  When temperance workers set up drunkards and they get a little money in their pockets away goes the ball and they are down again.  When a church revival picks up a few drunkards the saloon keeper will say:  “Here’s a dollar to help in your meeting.”  Then in his mind he says:  “Set up the drunkards who are out of employment and money, get them positions, and when they can earn money again, again I’ll bowl them down.”  Under the license system the saloon is playing ten-pins with temperance associations, ten-pins with the church and ten-pins with society.  I have faith to believe the time is drawing near when the balls will be confiscated and the pins can stand when we do set them up.

I know many have not this faith because they believe prohibitory laws are failures.  They base their belief on the violation of the law.  By that rule everything is a failure.  Married life is a failure; its laws are grossly violated.  Home life is a failure; there are many miserable homes.  The school is a failure; many a father has put thousands of dollars into the education of his son and found it wasted in riotous living.  The church is a failure; many of its members are Christians only in name and not a few are hypocrites.  But we know by the loyal, loving husbands and wives of every community that married life is not a failure.  We know by the happy homes about us, with sweetest of household ties binding the family circle, that home life is not a failure.  We know by the education that has refined our civilization, that the school is not a failure.  We know by the redeemed of earth and saved in heaven the church is not a failure, and we are convinced by the organized opposition to prohibitory laws by distillers, brewers, saloon keepers, gamblers and harlots that prohibition is not a failure.