Crime Is in the Land—In these days when vice and crime of every form are rapidly increasing, there is a tendency to become so familiar with existing conditions that we lose sight of their cause and of their significance. More intoxicating liquors are used today than have ever been used heretofore. In the horrible details of revolting drunkenness and terrible crime, the newspapers give but a partial report of the story of the resultant lawlessness. Violence is in the land.—Drunkenness and Crime, 3.
(Te 23.1)
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The Testimony of the Judiciary—The relation of crime to intemperance is well understood by men who have to deal with those who transgress the laws of the land. In the words of a Philadelphia judge: “We can trace four fifths of the crimes that are committed to the influence of rum. There is not one case in twenty where a man is tried for his life, in which rum is not the direct or indirect cause of the murder. Rum and blood, I mean the shedding of blood, go hand in hand.”—Drunkenness and Crime, 7.
(Te 23.2)
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High Percentage of Crime Attributable to Liquor—Nine tenths of those who are taken to prison are those who have learned to drink.—The Review and Herald, May 8, 1894.
(Te 23.3)
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Sequence of Drinking and Crime—When the appetite for spirituous liquor is indulged, the man voluntarily places to his lips the draft which debases below the level of the brute him who was made in the image of God. Reason is paralyzed, the intellect is benumbed, the animal passions are excited, and then follow crimes of the most debasing character.—Testimonies for the Church 3:561.
(Te 23.4)
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