A heathen emperor when appealed to for a tax on opium as a source of revenue said:  “I will not consent to raise the revenue of my country upon the vices of its people.”  Yet this Christian republic, claiming the noblest civilization of the earth, is found turning the dogs of appetite and avarice loose upon the home life of the republic that gold may clink in its treasury.  The politician’s excuse for this compromise with earth’s greatest destroyer is, it can never be prohibited and therefore regulation and revenue is the best policy.

I can well remember when the same was said of slavery.  With billions of dollars invested in slaves, with a united South behind it and the North divided, it could never be abolished.  At that time the prospect for the overthrow of slavery was far less than the prospect of national prohibition today.  I own I was among those who said “slavery cannot be destroyed.”  Now I am one of the reconstructed.  I’m like the pig I used to read of, “When I lived I lived in clover, and when I died I died all over.”

During the Civil War Union soldiers arrested several of my neighbors and took them to a northern prison.  My southern blood was aroused.  I said:  “Let a Yankee soldier come to take me and he will never take another Kentuckian.”  Then my mother was alarmed.  She knew how brave her boy was.  A few days later I met a squad of Yankee cavalry on the road near our home.  They said “Halt!” and I halted.  They said “Surrender!” I did so, and mother did not hear of any blood being shed.

Again a half-drunk Union soldier rode up to our gate and said:  “Who lives here?” When I answered, he asked:  “Can your mother get supper for fourteen soldiers in thirty minutes?” “No, sir, she cannot,” I replied.  Drawing a pistol, the mouth of which looked like a cannon’s mouth to me, he said:  “Maybe you have changed your mind.”  I had, and that supper was ready with several minutes to spare.  We can, and we will stop the liquor business.  I am amazed, however, to find so many intelligent men of the North advocating the same policy on this liquor problem the South adopted on the slavery question, which cost her so severely.  I find the same effect revenue in slaves had upon the consciences of the tax-payers of the South, high-license revenue from saloons is having upon the consciences of tax-payers in the North.

In the early days of slavery, when wealth in the institution was very limited, the conscience of the South was against slavery.  Old Virginia, when a colony, appealed to King George to remove the threatening danger from her borders.  It was the voice of a General Lee of Virginia that was lifted against slavery in the House of Burgesses.  But with the passing of time slaves grew in value, until a slave in the South reached about the price of a saloon license now in the North.  Then the conscience of the South quieted and slavery was justified by press, politics and pulpit.  There is a remarkable analogy between