You are soon to have the local option test in your county.  If I could do one thing I could make the victory for the home overwhelming.  You know if the saloons continue they will have their victims in the future as they have had in the past.  You know too their victims will come from the youth of your county.  Those who are victims now will soon be dead bodies, or “dead broke.”  The men in the saloon business do not look to men who are drunkards now, for future use nor do they intend to use horses or cattle or dogs, but boys.  If I could announce that on the evening before the vote is to be taken I would present to the public the future victims of the saloons in this county.  If I had a prophet’s eye and could select these victims, how many homes I would enter where I would not only be an unwelcome but an unexpected visitor.  When the hour would arrive for the exhibition, what an audience I would have!  Nothing like it ever gathered in this county; from every corner of it parents would come.  When placed in line on an elevated platform so all could see, I would speak through a megaphone saying:  “I present to you the future victims of the liquor traffic in your county; here are the boys who will be your future drunkards and here are the girls who will be the wives of drunkards.”  I imagine some father, who thinks regulation the best policy, would exclaim: 

“There’s my boy.  I never thought the saloon would take my son.  Don’t talk to me about regulation.  Come, you fathers whose sons are not here, and help me save my boy.”

Another would press through the crowd to be sure that he was not mistaken and say:  “There’s my daughter.  I never dreamt she would be a drunkard’s wife.  I have said prohibition won’t prohibit, but I will say it no more.  Come, good fathers who love your children, and help me save my child.”

This is but the forecast for some parents in this audience.  Would it be wrong if I should say:  “O God, if the saloons are to continue in this county, if they are to have their victims in the future as in the past, let the fathers who vote the curse on the county furnish the victims.”  I do not offer up any such prayer, but I do say:  “O God, give to the home the protection of a prohibition law, and may the victims not be anybody’s boy or anybody’s girl.  Go out of this hall tonight resolved you will link your faith in principle with your work.  Faith and work!”

I like that story of the mother in New England, who on a visit from home, received a message calling her to the bedside of a daughter who was hopelessly ill.  Hurrying to the nearest railroad station she said to the conductor:  “Sir, do you connect at the junction with the train that will take me to my sick child,” at the same time handing him the message.

“No, madam, we do not run our trains to connect with trains on that road.  The train will be gone some little time before we reach the junction.”

“Sir, are you a Christian?”