A new historical lecture--Abraham Lincoln: liquor men's lies exposed and facts of absorbing interest strangely omitted by his leading biographers

A

Ne^v Histof ical Lecture

Abraham Lincoln

■THE-

First American

By

Rev. William Frost Crispin, D. D.

AKRON, OHIO
1911

PRICE 10 CENTS

A New Historical Lecture

Abraham Lincoln:

Liquor Men's Lies Exposed and

Facts of Absorbing Interest

Strangely Omitted

By His Leading

Biographers.

By

Rev. William Frost Crispin, D. D.

AKRON. OHIO. 1911,

PREFATORY.

Who S.\roTK Lincoln in 1865?
And Who Smitks Him Today?

This Booklet says to Everyone : Be sure you
read me from cover to cover. I am a mouthpiece
for Abraham Lincohi. I will tell you many facts
about him which you have not known. I will re-
peat many of his best sayings and doings of
which most people are ignorant. I also ask :

Who killed Lincoln? And who killed McKin-
ley? You think you know and you possibly
do know, but the chances are you do not know.

To be certain who the guilty culprit is, you should
inquire within, for I can tell you. But to under-
stand fully what I say I request that you read me
from start to finish.

Copvright, 1911,

By

Wm. Frost Crispin.

^13. nk\^3 .

A New* Historical Lecture — Abraham Lincoln:

Liquor Men's Lies Exposed and Facts of

Absorbing Interest Strangely Omitted

by His Leading Biographers.

For years the liquor people have taken special
pains to parade Abraham Lincoln as one friendly
to their vile occupation, tellino- us that he was a
bartender, a saloon-keeper and a ''can rusher,"
and that he opposed Prohibitory legislation, etc.,
etc. And, especially has one Robert J. Halle,
of the notorious Champion of Pair Play, shown
himself a defamer and mendacious falsifier in his
publications about Lincoln. And various other
liquor papers and other publications have con-
tained statements so atrociously false and the
harm they are calculated to do is so evident that
I have felt called upon to give the facts of history,
as to Lincoln's attitude toward the drink habit
and the drink traffic, from early manhood to the
close of his life, so that these facts, of themselves,
shall abundantly disprove these vile charges.

It is highly important that a careful and copi-
ous compilation be made of all his notable utter-
ances and his doings on the subject, including
every historic event of his life which bears upon
this matter; and as far as possible, the authority,
place and date of record be given, so that the

* The author of this lecture is greatly indebted to Wm,
P. F. Ferguson and the splendid paper which for many
years he so ably edited, The National Prohibitionist, of
Chicago, for vahiable services rendered in assembling
many of the facts herein recorded about Abraham Lincoln,
and in pointing out the 0"iginal authorities who have
made record of the various events.

public may have a chance to know exactly what
this foremost America]! thought, said and did
concerning strong drink and the traffic therein.

A Spurious Paragraph.
A certain paragraph which the liquor people
pretend to quote from Lincoln is undoubtedly a
forgery ; they never cite the time of his saying it
and it was never heard of until during the Prohi-
bition campaign in Atlanta, Georgia, nearly twen-
ty-five years after Lincoln's death ! Lincoln's
whole life and teaching, both public and private,
give the lie to the paragraph here referred to.

What Wk Purpose To Show.

It is not our purpose, however, to show the
falsity of each and every such separate charge
which these defamers of Lincoln have made, for
they have been thoroly refuted, repeatedly, by
The National Prohibitionist and other Prohibition
papers. Hence we purpose to give the public an
array of unimpeachable testimony, showing that

Lincoln Was a Total Abstainer All His
Life; that he made temperance speeches far and
wide; that lie joined the Sons of Temperance ;
that he stumped the State of Illinois for state-
zvide prohibition; that he avowed himself a polit-
ical prohibitionist ; that he accepted the Maine
Prohibitory lazv as the Solution of the liquor
problem; and also that he zvas aliz'c to the Pro-
hibition question up to, and inchiding the last day
of his earthly existence. — such an array of evi-
dence as would silence all Lincoln's contemners,
if it were not that the accursed liquor business is
built on lies and could not live over night, except
by the publication of lies.

4

People's Knowledge oe Lincoln Limited.
The people's knowledi;e of Lincoln's life is
largely limited to the years of the great Civil
War when his time and labors were almost
wholly absorbed as President of the United States
and as Commander in Chief of the Army and
Navy, in that trying struggle to save the Union.
Being little known, outside of his own state when
nominated, and assassinated as soon as the war
was over, the general public had little chance to
know Lincoln in that broader and deeper sense
which a careful survey of his life as a whole,
would have enabled them to know him. The
masses know almost nothing of his debates with
Judge Douglas ; and even Douglas made false
charges against Lincoln; and these charges being
recorded, are well calculated to mislead the care-
less reader. They were intended, to be humor-
ous, no doubt, but at the same time intended to
put Lincoln on the defensive.

Douglas's Charges Not To Be Taken

Seriously.

Some readers of these debates have taken
Douglas's charges seriously, but in this they have
fallen into a grave error and have done Lincoln
a grave injustice. Douglas, at Ottawa, said that
when Lincoln and he were boys together Lincoln
could ruin more liquor than all the boys in town
together. And because the records do not show
that Lincoln then and there literally denied this
ridiculous and preposterous charge, some people
who are zealoiis in attempts to show there are no
exceptionally noble souls, tJiat there are none
who live above the fog which envelops the aver-

5

age man — tliese men who wish to bring all others
down on a level with themselves — assume with-
out question, that Douglas's charge was true; and
hence that Lincoln was a whisky drinker. But
as a matter of fact it is evident that Lincoln did
deny the charge by what follows — denied it
in the most eloquent way possible — by the con-
tempt of silence.

Mr. Lincoln's language clearly shows that he
regarded the charge as so "very gross and pal-
pably false" as to refute itself and hence, a
formal denial was needless. For Judge Douglas
had also charged Lincoln with having kept a
"grocery*", that is, a saloon, or "groggery", as
"grocery" then meant. The fact is. it was Doug-
las's plan to make false charges and misrepre-
sentations and thus consume most of Lincoln's
time and thus defeat him in debate. But to this
latter charge (of keeping a "grocery") Lincoln
entered his most emphatic denial, saying : "When
a man hears himself somezvhatf misrepresented it
provokes him — at least it is so with myself; but
when misrepresentation becomes very gross and
palpable it is more apt to amuse him."

This Explains Lincoln's Silence.

It is clear that this rejoinder covers the whole

case and fully explains Lincoln's silence over

Douglas's charge of liquor-drinking. It was so

"very gross and palpable" that the charge could

* The Standard Dictionary, p. 795, col. 3, says: "1.
Grocery. 2. [Local U. S.] A Groggery." Examplecited:
"He extended his condemnation beyond the bar and the
grocery, as the saloon was then called."

t Page 73 Lincoln-Douglas Debates.

6

only be treated with contempt and to have form-
ally denied it would have been a needless waste
of precious time. But to the charge of keeping
a "grocery", (saloon or groggery), Lincoln re-
plied :

"The Judge-'' is woefully at fault about his
''friend Lincoln having been a grocery-keeper,
"{meaning a saloon-keeper). He is mistaken.
"Lincoln never kept a grocery anywhere in the
"world." Now that is emphatic and explicit.

To be sure the record does say that Lincoln
did confess to the "little folly" of working part
of one winter in a little stillhouse. But this con-
fession of a "little folly" does not warrant anyone
in assuming that he was a drinker of intoxicants.

Douglas's charges were made to put Lincoln on
the defensive. Says Alonzo Rothschild, in his
"Lincoln the Master of Men" (page 105) : "It
"was a matter of fact that Douglas had, thruout,
"with the artfulness in which he had no peer, so
"misrepresented Lincoln's career and mis-stated
"his principles as to place him almost entirely on
"the defensive." Hence, against such of Douglas's
charges as were so "very gross and so palpably
false" as to refute themselves, the contempt of
silence was the best and wisest answer Lincoln
could make, for he had more important matters
to deal with.

Lincoln .\xi) Bkrkv's MkrcantilK
Transaction.
But it is charged that in their regular mercan-
tile transactions Lincoln and Berry sold liquors.
Yet, what of that ? Tn those days to sell liquors,

* See Lincoln and Douglas Debates, p. 75.

7

// done in the ordinary routine of store-keeping,
was regarded as respectable. Liquors were not
then, (1833), in the white Hght of scientific in-
vesti oration as nozv: thcv were not then ^ener-
ally known to be poisons, as they now are; their
power to create an uncontrollable appetite for
more of the same kind of poison was not then
universally conceded, as nozv; the fact that three-
fourths of all crimes and ten per cent, of all
deaths and most all our idiots and other defectives
are caused by the use of alcoholic liquors, had
not then been so clearly supported by the Gov-
ernment statistics and by the investigations of
scores of scientists, as now. And Uncle Sam had
not then taken all the liquor makers and liquor
sellers into partnership for the sake of revenue,
as he has done since 18G2, whereby the traffic
was legalised, popularised and nationalised and
whereby it came to be the riding power in poli-
tics, and thus debauches our politics and our
politicians.

In 1860 we consumed only G.43 gallons per
capita, but in 1910 we consumed 21.86 gallons per
capita ; and there is good reason to think the per
capita for the year ending June 30, 1911, will
reach 22 gallons ! In 1833 our legislative bodies
and our executives were not elected bv the contri-
butions, the votes and dope of this most infam-
ous political dictator and money power — the
licensed liquor traffic — as they are today. To-
day, to be elected to any of these positions, the
candidate must be, either openly or silently, a
friend of the liquor traffic, and these facts dis-
grace the traffic today, in the eyes of a large

8

I

class, as it was not then disgraced. But under
the infamous revenue law of 1862 thk Liquor
Trafi^ic has grown and grown to enormous

PROPORTIONS and HAS AMASSED VAST MILLIONS
UPON MILLIONS^ UNTIL IT BUYS EVERYTHING IN

SIGHT. Like the Slave-Trade before Lincoln was
elected, the Liquor Power today controls

BOTH STATE and NATIONAL ELECTIONS. IT BUYS

MILLIONS OE VOTES. Why, Hsten to the damning-
revelations made by Judge Blair at the Colonial
last May, in Akron, when he implicated that vile
traffic in nearly all our hellish vote-buying ! It
dictates old-party platforms and their liquor-
licensing policy, so as to keep itself licensed to
rob and plunder the people by authority of lazv
and by and zvith the consent of the President
and of Congress! And yet most church people
who profess to hate the traffic, uphold, at the
ballot-box, this accursed license policy!

Did Lincoln Sell Liquor?

Says Miss Tarbell (vol. 1, p. 95) : *'In a com-
munity in which liquor-drinking was practically
universal, at a time when whisky was as legiti-
mate an article of merchandise as coffee or calico,
when no family was without its jug, when the
minister of the gospel could take his *'dram"
without any breach of propriety, it is not surpris-
ing that a respectable young man should be found
selling whisky." But please remember, this
could only be true zvhen sold from a store fur-
nishing household supplies. Had he been keep-
ing a saloon he would not have been counted a
"reputable" young man, for saloons were usually
places where gambling and harlotry were fos-

9

tcred. Besides, saloons made a business of selling
liquors, whereas with these stores, the sale of
li(juors was merely incidental to the main business
and usually the tough elements did not frequent
these stores. And this made a wide difference.
But—

There is Xo Proof That Lincoln Sold

Liquor.

Dr.D.D. Thompson, editor of The Xorthzvestern
Christian Adz'oeate, one of the most careful and
painstaking' students of the life and times of
Abraham Lincoln and author of ''Abraham Lin-
coln the first American,'' in an article printed
in The National Prohibitionist, April 16, 1908,
says : "It would not have been surprising if he
'had done so (sold liquor), for liquor was a
'common article of commerce in all stores in his
'day, but there is no evidence that, either as a
'clerk, or as the associate of Berry, Lincoln sold
'liquor. On the contrary, Leonard Szvett, one of
'his most intimate personal friends, in his 'Re-
'miniscenses of Abraham Lincoln," (1886), says
'that "a difference soon arose between Lincoln
'and Berry in reference to selling liquor, Lincoln,
'opposing its sale, and the result was that a bar-
'gain was made by which Lincoln should retire
'from his partnership in the store." And Dr.
Thompson says : "^Ir. Lincoln not only did not
use liquor, even when a young man but he urged
others not to do so." It was clearly a matter of
principle with Lincoln, due to what he had seen
during his early life of the injurious and degrad-
ing eft'ects of alcoholic liquors on the drinkers he
had known. But to use the great name of Lin-

10

colli to bolster up their shameful traffic they have
heaped lies upon his good name, almost without
limit.

That "Hotki, License"

was not taken out by Lincoln. Miss Tarbell (v.
1: 9Gj says: "Lincoln's name to the bond of
Lincoln and Berry was signed by some other
than himself, very likely by his partner."

May Have AL^de 3.1 i stakes.
But no one presumes young Lincoln made no
mistakes. A young man's inexperience often
leads him to do regretable things, even when his
intentions are nprighf. Lincoln was then but 2-i
years old ; and what he didn't know about how
to conduct a "store" would have made several
books. Whatever his attitude toward the liquor
traffic then zvas, he made no monev out of it.
And from this time on there is every evidence
that he spurned the liquor traffic. Altho handi-
capped by poverty and debts and by the evil cus-
toms, then so common, yet he read and thought
and liz'cd himself out of harmony with his liquor
environment and differentiated himself from the
great mass of the people of his day and became
one of the foremost thinkers and speakers on the
liquor problem.

Lincoln Makes a Remarkable Address.

Let us now go into a thoro investigation to
see just where he stood on the liquor question,
both as to what he said and did. On February
22, 1842, we find him making a most remarkable
address before the Washingtonian Society of
Springfield, Illinois, wherein he predicted a ''time

11

zvhen there should he neither a slave nor a
drunkard in the land." And the following
paragraphs are selections from that speech.
And it contains many others, all showing him a
remarkably advanced thinker on temperance and
the liquor problem.

A Few Paragraphs From His Speech :

"Whether or not the world would be vastly
"benefited by a total banishment from it of all
"intoxicating drinks, seems now not an open
"question. Three-fourths of mankind confess
"the affirmative with their tongues, and I believe
''all the rest acknowledge it in their hearts.
"Ought any then refuse their aid in doing what
"the good of the whole demands?"

Sees Prophet's Vision of Twin Evies

Destroyed.

"Turn now," he says, "to the Temperance
'Revolution. In it we shall find a stronger
'bondage broken, a viler slavery manumitted, a
'greater tyrant deposed ; in it more of want sup-
'plied, more disease healed, more sorrow assu-
'aged. By it no orphans starving, no widows
'weeping. By it none wounded in feeling, none
'injured in interest; even the dram-maker and
'the dram-seller will have glided into other oc-
'cupations so gradually as never to have felt the
'change and will stand ready to join all others in
'the universal song of gladness. And what a
'noble ally this to the cause of political freedom ;
'with such an aid, its march can not fail to be on
'and on, till every son of earth shall drink, in

12

''rich fruition, the sorrow-quenching- draughts of
''perfect hhcrty !

"And when the final victory shall be complete
" — 7i'Iicu there sfiall be neither a slave nor a
"d run hard on the earth — how proud the title of
"that land which may truly claim to be the birth-
"place and cradle of both these revolutions that
"shall have ended in that victory ! How nobly
"distinguished that people who shall have planted
"and nurtured to maturity both political and
"moral freedom of the species !"

Drink Ruins Briluant and Warm Blooded.

He continues: "In my judgment, such of us
as have never fallen victims, have been spared
more from the absence of appetite than frc^m
any mental or moral superiority over those who
have. I believe if we take habitual drunkards
as a class, their heads and hearts will bear an
advantageous comparison with those of any
other class. There seems ever to have been a
proneness in the brilliant and warm-blooded to
fall into this vice." He said :

Thk Dkmon oe Intemperance
ever seems to have delighted in sucking the
blood of o^enius and srenerositv. What one of
us but can call to mind some dear relative, more
promising in his youth than all his fellows, who
has fallen a sacrifice to his rapacity? He ever
seems to have gone forth like the Egyptian
angel of death, commissioned to slay, if not the
first, the fairest born of every family. Shall he
now be arrested in his desolating career? In
that arrest all can give aid who will, and who
shall be excused, that can, but will not ? Far

13

"around as human breath has ever blown, this
''demon keeps our fathers, our brothers, our sons
"and our friends prostrate in the chains of moral
"death. To all the living, everywhere, we cry:
"Come, sound the moral resurrection trumpet,
"that these may rise and stand up an exceeding
pfreat armv ! 'Come from the four winds, O
breath and breathe upon these slain that they
"may live.' " (From Ezekiel's Prophecy of Val-
ley of Dry Bones).

His Persistent Opposition to Wrong. .
Says his friend, /. B. Mcrzvin: "The spirit of
Lincoln was one of persistent opposition to
wrong and devotion to the right. His greatness
was due to his fundamental, continuous fight
for right things, personally, and for righteous-
ness in the administration of public affairs."
And in support of ]\Ir. Merwin's statement, we
quote Lincoln's own words : "Let us have faith
that right makes might, and in that faith let us
dare to do our duty as we understand it." Also
this : '7 am not hound to zvin, hut I am hound
to he true. I am not hound to succeed, hut I am
hound to live up to what light I have." And
again he says : "Nothing morally ivrong can be
politically right." How different these utter-
ances from those of the leaders of the present
dominant political parties! And how different
from the declarations of the parties themselves,
which, for four decades after the war was ended,
have licensed and protected hy law-partnership,
this blackest of black crimes — the beverage liquor
traffic — which Lincoln regarded "a cancer in so-
ciety" and a greater tyrant than slavery.

14

Was Lincoln a Local Optionist?

Was Lincoln in favor of ''local option," for
negro slavery? Or for any other great wrong?
What said he in his debate with Douglas? He
would not consent that a "majority" anywhere
could make a wrong thing right. He rejected
"Squatter Sovereignty," that is, local option, for
slavery, and his unflinching adherence to principle
would compel him to repudiate it for the liquor
traffic as well. Lincoln said :

"Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical
''contrivances wherewith we are so industriously
''plied and belabored — contrivances such as grop-
"ing for some middle ground between the right
"and the wrong." See how that applies to the
various subterfuges used today to divert Prohibi-
tionists from sticking to their duty to build a
party into power to abolish the manufacture
and importation of alcoholic beverages.

Debate With Douglas.

In this debate Lincoln said : "Mr. Douglas
contends that whatever community wants slaves
has a right to have them." "So they have,"
said Lincoln, ''if slavery is not wrong. But if it
is ufTong he can not say a people have a right
to do a wrong." Hence Lincoln could not be a
local optionist, as to any great evil. And here
is one declaration of his which should rivet the
attention of every believer in Lincoln and every
Prohibitionist in all our broad land. Listen to it
carefully and thoughtfully, so as to get its full
import. He said :

"Whoever desires the prevention of the spread
"of slavery and the nationalization of that in-

15

''stitution, yields all when he yields to any policy
"that either recognizes slavery as being right or
"as being an indifferent thing. Nothing zmll
''make yoii successful but setting up a policy
''which shall treat the thing as being zvrong/'

So, according to Lincoln, the enemies of the
liquor traffic "yield all" when they yield to local
option or any other policy which recognizes the
liquor traffic as "being right or being an indiffer-
ent thing." He says we should set up a policy
which treats the thing as being radically wrong
and grant it no right. And since it is wrong,
per se, we have no right to grant it any life any-
where.
Liquor Trafi^ic Has No Inherent Right.

According to the Supreme Court decisions no
citizen has any natural or inherent right to man-
ufacture or sell intoxicating liquors for beverage
purposes. In the case of Crowley vs. Christen-
sen, 137 L^. S. 86, the Supreme Court of the
United States said : "There is no inherent right
in a citizen to sell intoxicating liquors at retail ;
it is not a privilege of a citizen of the state or a
citizen of the United States." In the case of
Mugler vs. Kansas, 123 \]. S. 205, the Supreme
Court of the L^nited States declares that "the
right to manufacture and sell intoxicating liquors
does not inhere in citizenship." This comes of
the fact that the beverage liquor traffic is recog-
nized by the Supreme Courts as "dangerous to
public health, public morals and public welfare."

The only rights that vile traffic has today,
are such, and only such, as Rcpul^licans and

Democrats have granted. The Constitution of

16

the United States does not grant them any right.
All Constitutions, State and National, are in-
tended to protect the "public morals, the public
health and public welfare." But in the case of
the state ex. rel George vs. Aiken, 2G L. R. A.
345, the Supreme Court of South Carolina said :
''Liquor, in its nature, is dangerous to the morals,
good order, heaJtli and safety of the people, and
is not to he placed on the same footing zvith
ordinary comiiiodities of life, such as corn, wheat,
cotton, potatoes, etc.

Thus the traffic is wholly dependent upon the
corrupt, rum-ruled, grafting political parties,
for the privilege to manufacture and sell their
hell-broth in their vile mantraps and sinks of
iniquity. The entire business, and the laws upon
which it is based, form the most damnable system
of graft ever concocted by civilized legislators.

Lincoi,n's Fight Against Slavery.

On witnessing, for the first time, the slave
auction, Lincoln said : '"''If ever I get a chance
to hit that thing I will hit it hard." And to the
men who said slavery was wrong but kept on
voting the slave parties — Whig and Democrat —
into power, he said :

''We want the men who think slavery zvrong
to quit voting with the men zvho think slavery
right." And were Lincoln here today, he un-
doubtedly would say : "We want the men who
think the liquor traffic wrong to quit voting
with the men who think the liquor traffic right."
For, otherwise he would be false to his own life-

* See Arnold, p. 31, footnote.

17

long teaching of righteous principles. He hated
the liquor traffic as intensely as he hated slavery.
We have his own words and his own actions to
prove this. But to try to cast out slavery through
a party controlled by slave-holders would have
been as futile as the more modern effort of the
non-partisan movement, to try to cast the liquor
devil out through the parties which keep the
liquor traffic entrenched in law. It would have
been to play the fool in politics. Hence Lincoln
contended for a nezu party in power opposed to
slavery, as the only sane thing to do and events
have justified his course.

Joins Sons of Tkmperanck.

Lincoln did another remarkable thing — he
joined the Sons of Temperance — that was in
1852. How many of our old-party, present-day
politicians go over the state and denounce the
legalized liquor traffic as he did? Today such
politicians preach license, local option, regulation
and taxation, while he said there must be no
attempt to ''regulate the cancer."

Barrlcl Lifting Contest.

Dr. Browne, in his work : "Abraham Lincoln
and the Men of his Time," records one of Lin-
coln's earliest utterances upon the harm of intox-
icating drinks. The occasion was a bridge-build-
ing, when Lincoln was a young man. Lincoln
was challenged to take a drink of whisky from
the bung of a barrel by lifting the barrel with
his hands. He lifted the barrel upon his knees,
took a mouthful of whisky, set the barrel down,
ejected the whisky from his mouth, and said:

18

''My friends, you will do well, and the best you
"can with it, to empty this barrel of liquor as I
"threw the little part of it out of my mouth. It
*'is not on moral grounds alone that I am giving
"you this advice ; but you are strong, healthy, and
"rugged people. It is as true that you are so
''now as that you cannot remain so if you in-
"dulge your appetite in alcoholic drinks. As a
"good friend, without counting the distress and
"wreckage of mind, let me advise that if you
"wish to remain healthy and strong, turn it away
"from your lips."

"Major" J. B. Merwin, as he was commonly
known, by reason of his temperance work in the
army, had been identified with the movement, in
Connecticut, against the drink evil ; and was
called to campaign in Illinois, in 1854, for the
Prohibitorv law. And in that connection he went
before the Illinois legislature to explain the work-
ing of the Maine Prohibitory law and there met
Mr. Lincoln for the first time; and in printed
documents Mr. Merwin tells what occurred at
the close of his speech before that body. Mr.
Merwin says : "Lincoln ! Lincoln ! Lincoln !"
cried the members of the legislature, after I had
finished my speech on the Maine law, which I
had come a thousand miles to explain to them.
I did not know who Lincoln was, but following
all eyes to a low chair down in front, where sat
the most extraordinary specimen of a man I ever
saw. He slowdy got up, unfolding, like a jack-
knife, his arms and long legs. I thought him a
wild specimen of a westerner, but inside of fifteen
minutes he talked more temperance and Prohibi-

19

tion and more law than I had heard before in all
my life. And when he had finished he reached
out h.is long arm, tapped me on the shoulder,
and said : "Come home with me." What sort of
home, thought I, woidd such a man have? Be-
fore I dare accept, I asked advice of my friend,
who said: "Most certainly; if Mr. Lincoln in-
vites you, go." We were barely inside his door,
and even before he asked me to be seated, he
wanted to know if I had a copy of the ]\Iaine
law with me. T had, and spent until 4 o'clock in
the morning discussing its features. ?\Ir. Lin-
coln had studied the liquor problem for years.
He had written a pledge, now used by the Linc6ln
Legion — a well-known temperance organization —
which he presented to his friends and acquaint-
ances for signatures on every possible occasion.
He had devoted all his energies to combatting
the liquor power by force of moral suasion, and
now, he recognized the fact that the drink-maker
and drink-seller must be dealt li'ith as well as the
drunkard. He accepted the ]\[aine Prohibitory
law as the solution to the problem and spent
weeks in stumping the state in its behalf."

Who Is This J. B. Merwin?
During the early days of our Civil War, Mr.
J. B. Merwin. with the approval of President
Lincoln and General Scott, addressed the soldiers
in the camps around Washington, upon temper-
ance, and was thus employed in the various army
camps during a large part of the war. The testi-
mony of Generals Scott, Butler and Dix and other
officers, to the value of Mr. ]Merwin's work is a
matter of record. When visiting the camps

20

about Washington, Major Aierwin was given the
use of Mr. Lincoln's carriage and was in close
touch with the President who frequently utilized
him as a trustworthy messenger to go upon
errands where he was unwilling to send his secre-
taries who would at once be recognized and
watched. Mr. INlerwin is still living and as he
knew Lincoln in his public life and home life,
probably as well as any other living man, his tes-
timony, as to Lincoln's speech and action toward
the beverage liquor traffic, is of great value.

Lincoln and Merwin Stump Illinois For

Prohibition.

As the result of a conference held by and be-
tween ^Messrs. Lincoln and Merwin, following
their speeches before the legislature, Mr. Lincoln
visited Richard Yates, afterwards Illinois' war
governor, then Grand Worthy Patriarch of the
Sons of Temperance, and arranged a series of
rallies which were addressed by both ]\Ir. Lin-
coln and Mr. Merwin. And at these rallies Lin-
coln made the most pronounced Prohibition
speeches possible for anyone to make. And Mr.
Merwin has preserved some of the more striking
passages and has had them printed. Here are a
few quotations from Lincoln's speeches at that
time.

He said: ''The legali::ed liquor trafHe, as ear-
"ried on in saloons and grog-shops, is the great
''tragedy of civilization The saloon has proven
"itself to he the greatest foe, the most blighting
''curse that ever found a home in our modern
"civilization, and this is ivhy I am a political

21

"prohibitionist. Prohibition brings the desired
"result. It suppresses the saloon by lazv. It
"stinnps and brands the saloon-keeper as a crim-
"inal in the sight of God and man.'' He con-
tinues :

"By licensing the saloon we feed with one
"hand the fires of appetite we are striving to
"quench with the other While this state of
"things continues, let us know that this war is
"all our own — both sides of it — until this guilty
"connivance of our own actions shall be with-
"drawn. I am a prohibitionist because prohibition
"destroys destruction." Mr. Lincoln also said :

^'The prohibition of the liquor traific, except
''for medical and mechanical purposes, thus be-
"comes the new evangel for the safety and re-
"demption of the people from the social, poli-
"tical and moral curse of the saloon and its in-
"evitable evil consequences of drunkenness." And
he said :

"The real issue in this controversy, the one
"pressing upon every mind that gives the subject
"careful consideration, is that legalizing the man-
"ufacture, the sale and use of intoxicating liquors
"as a beverage, is wrong — as all history and every
"development of the traffic proves it to be — a
"moral, social and political wrong."

Endorses and Circulates Radical
Utterances.
On January 23, 1853, the Rev. James Smith
delivered an address in Springfield, 111., on the
drink evil, which was a pronounced Prohibition
utterance of the most radical sort and at a time
when state prohibition was much in the limelight

22

in that state. Mr. Smith clearly pointed out "that,
not the liquor-scllcy alone, nor the officials who
granted the license, but as zvell all who aided in
the election of those who passed the law, knowing
that they would pass it, or who have voted for
any member of any subsequent legislature, know-
ins; that he would use no exertion to have it re-
pealed, must plead guilty to having aided in fast-
ening upon society a lazv, the working of which
has produced degradation and misery/^

On the following day several Springfield citi-
zens addressed to Mr. Smith a letter in which
they said : "The undersigned having listened
with great satisfaction to the discourse on the
subject of temperance, delivered by you last even-
ing, and believing it would be productive of
good, would respectfully request a copy thereof
for publication." The copy was furnished, the
address was published in a sixteen-page pamph-
let and on the title-page in the list of those sign-
ing the above request and superintending the
publication, appears the name of ''A. Lincoln."
And tradition says that Mr. Lincoln was the
prime mover in securing the publication. And
in this address which Mr. Lincoln thus endorsed,
Mr. Smith said :

"The liquor traffic is a cancer In society, eating
out its vitals and threatening destruction ; and all
attempts to regulate the cancer will not only
prove abortive but will aggravate the evil. No,
there must be no more attempts to regulate the
cancer ; it must be eradicated; not a root must be
left, for until this is done all classes must con-
tinue exposed to become victims of strong drink,

23

7

and the woe in the text must abide upon us :
"Woe unto him that givcth his neighbor drink,
that putteth the bottle to him.'' He also said:

'"The most effectual remedy would be the
passage of a lazu altogether abolishing the liquor
traffic, except for meclianical, chemical, medical
and sacramental purposes, and so framed that no
principle of the Constitution of the States or of
the United States be violated."

"If, however, such a law cannot now be ob-
tained, let every friend of temperance frown upon
all efforts at regulating the cancer. Any license
law however stringent must eventually increase
the evil." How prophetic these utterances made
fifty-eight years ago !

Prohibitionists Have Been Abused
because someone has quoted Mr. Lincoln as say-
ing : *'H prohibition of slavery is good for the
black man, the prohibition of the liquor traffic
is equally good for the white man." And altho
the editor of Collier's pronounces this quotation
a forgery, yet he gives no evidence that it is a
foroferv, and since it is in line with Lincoln's
known sentiments, we have no reason to doubt its
truthfulness. Besides it is in strict keeping with
a letter he wrote to his young friend, Pickett*,
afterwards the famous Confederate General, in
which he said : "The one victory we can ever
"call complete, will be that one which proclaims
"that there is not one slave nor one drunkard on
"the face of God's green eartli. Recruit for this
"Victory."

* Life and Works — Letters and Telegrnms^(iii, 36),
Centennial edition.

24

It is recorded by several authors that Lincoln,
while yet in his teens, wrote a strong article on
temperance, thus showing- his actual knowledge
of the evil effects of alcohol on the drinker. And
there is no lack of evidence, of the highest sort,
including his own declarations, that Lincoln was
a total abstainer all his life.

Says Noah Brooks, in his ''Abraham Lincoln"
(p. 95) : "Lincoln never, even to the day of his
death, could be persuaded to partake of spirits or
wine. He set out in life surrounded with drunk-
ards and moderate tipplers, determined that he
would resist the temptation to drink of these in-
sidious beverao"es."

Leonard Swktt. in his ''Reminiscences of
Abraham Lincoln,'' declares that Lincoln told
him, about a year before his election to the Presi-
dency, that he had never tasted liquor in his life.
And upon being asked if he meant just that, re-
plied : ''Yes, I never tasted it."

William O. Stoddard, one of Lincoln's pri-
vate secretaries, says : "Mr. Lincoln is strictly
abstinent as to intoxicatinof drinks." This state-
ment is recorded in his book : "Inside the White
House in War Times/'

Senator Shelby M. Cullom, in an interview
in The Record Herald, on May 16, 1908, quoted
Lincoln as having said to a committee of which
he (Cullom) was a member: ''Boys, I have
never had a drop of liquor in my whole life."

Refusks Liquor and Serves Cold Water at
His NoTiEiCATioN Meeting.
On the occasion when he was formally notified

25

of his nomination for President of the United
States, Mr. Lincoln decHned to allow liquors to
be served. Liquors had been provided by offic-
ious friends to be served in his home, but instead
he pledged the members of the committee in cold
water. And a letter from Mr. Lincoln to Mr.
Haight, as well as the story told by an eyewit-
ness, attests the truth of this statement.

Also Carpenter, in his book: ''Six Months
in the JVhite House with Abraham Lincoln,"
gives the following report of what took place on
the occasion of the meeting when he was offici-
ally notified of his nomination for President of
the United States. He says :

"After the ceremony had passed Tthe notifica-
tion and Lincoln's reply), Mr. Lincoln remarked
to the company that as an appropriate conclusion
to an interview so important and interesting as
that which had just transpired, he supposed
good manners would require that he should treat
the committee with something to drink, and open-
ing a door that led into a room in the rear, he
called out, "Mary ! Mary !" A girl replied to the
call, to whom Mr. Lincoln spoke a few words
in an undertone, and, closing the door, he re-
turned again to converse with his guests. In a
few minutes the maiden entered, bearing several
glass tumblers and a large pitcher in the midst,
and placed them upon the center-table. Mr. Lin-
coln arose and gravely addressing the company
said :

''Gentlemen, we must pledge our mutual
"healths in the most healthy beverage which God
''has given to men. It is the only beverage I have

26

"ever used or allowed in my family and I cannot
"consistently depart from it on the present occa-
"sion. It is pure Adam's ale from the spring."
And taking a tumbler he touched it to his Hps
and pledged them his highest respects in a cup of
cold water. Of course all his guests were con-
strained to admire his consistency and to join in
his example."

Shortly after Mr. Lincoln's formal notification
as above recited, Mr. J. Mason Haight, an early
Prohibitionist of California, wrote Lincoln a
letter wishing to know whether liquors were or
were not served on that occasion. In reply he
received the following letter :

"Private and Confidential.

"Springfield, 111., June 11, 1860.
"J. Mason Haight, Esq.,

"My Dear Sir : I think it would be im-
proper for me to write or say anything to or for
the public, upon the subject of which you in-
quire. I therefore wish the little I do write to
be held as strictly confidential. Having kept
house sixteen vears and having^ never held the
cup to the lips of my friends there, my judgment
was that I should not, in my new position,
change my habit in this respect. What actually
occurred upon the occasion of the committee
visiting me, I think it would be better for others
to say.

"Yours Respectfully,

A. Lincoln.''

Lincoln on his Way to be Inaugurated.
In 1861, when Lincoln was on his way to

27

Washington, D. C, to be inaugurated as Presi-
dent of the United States, and when stopping oft*
at Cincinnati, he was offered wine, but the Xa-
tional Prohibitionist (Feb. 11, 1906, p 6), re-
ports that he declined, saying : '7 have been a
temperance man for thirty years and I am too old
to change nozv."

Grand Division Sons of Temperance Call on

Lincoln.
This champion falsifier, called ''Pair Play,"
bases his assertion that IJncoln was a "can
rusher." on a fake story that during the battle of
Shiloh, Lincoln and a JVashington Post tele-
graph operator received reports from the battle
ground and drank beer, one night, till midnight,
from a can. But about a year and a half after
the battle of Shiloh, that is on Sept. 20, 1863,
President Lincoln, himself, crushed that lie, for
on this date a deputation from the Grand Divi-
sion of the Sons of Temperance of the District of
Columbia, waited upon President Lincoln in the
White House and submitted to him certain re-
commendations concerning temperance in the
army. In reply ]\Ir. Lincoln said : "\Mien I was
''a young man. long before the Sons of Temper-
"ance, as an organization, had an existence, I. in
"an humble way, made temperance speeches, and
"I think I may say that to this day I Jiaz'e never
"belied ivhat I then said." Comment here is not
needed.

Merely a Lincoln Witticism.

When, just before the fall of \'icksburg, a
certain committee urged Lincoln to remove Gen-
eral Grant because he drank too much whisky,

28

Lincoln is said to have replied: "If I knew
where Grant gets his whisky I would send a
barrel of it to every general in the field." Of
course no sensible person takes this other than
one of Lincoln's racy rejoinders. No commander,
except when liquor had muddled his brain, or he
was near kin to a fool, would recommend to his
generals the use of liquors just when leading his
forces into battle.

Always and Eve:rywhe:ri: a Total Abstainer.

Mr. J. B. Merwin, previously quoted, says, in
a circular letter, in my possession: "Mr. Lincoln
was always, and everywhere a total abstinence
man. It has been denied," he says, "but I knew
him from 1854 until the day of his assassination.
Not only was he a total abstainer, hut the last
thing he said to me at 2 o'clock on the day of
his assassination, zvas: 'After reconstruction,
the next great, moral movement will be the sup-
pression of the liquor traffic by law.' "

Mr. Merwin also says : "These facts as to his
status on the question of total abstinence and
Prohibition, have been so entirely ignored, or so
carefully veiled in, by his numerous biographers
that they seem like a new revelation to the present
generation." And he continues : "Mr. Lincoln,
in a face-to-face study of the problem of intem-
perance, zvas led to see hozv futile all efforts at
permanent reformation must he, while the traffic
has the sanction of lazv, the appetite of the
drinker and the greed of gain on the part of the
saloon-keepers behind it."

29

JwlN coign's PKUlliJ31TiON SpKKCHKS IgNORKD.

Altho Lincoln's leading biographers speak of
his temperance and total abstinence speeches, yet
they are dumb as oysters as to his many speeches
for statc-mide Prohibition; and most of them fail
to mention his refusal to Jmve liquors served when
formally notified of his nomination for President.
And not one word does any of them say about
his radical utterances against the licensed liquor
traffic and his statement that he was a political
prohibitionist.

"But,"

They say, ''he signed the liquor revenue bill."
What of that again? You and I do things we
despise when we can't help it. Lincoln was not
the Republican party, and that party had no anti-
liquor policy to govern it. And, like all sucli
parties it was a thousand times bigger than the
President or any other "good man" in it. // you
zi'ant any great evil eradicated, in this country,
you must elect a political party opposed to that
evil. Lincoln strenuously opposed that bill and
he had the help of Senator Wilson and others,
Wilson saying he had rather see slavery continued
than that our nation should license the liquor
traffic. But the liquor men wanted their business
legalized and were powerful and the exigency of
war was such that Lincoln zvas compelled to yield
to his party's bidding.

But President Lincoln could not be induced to
sign the bill iintil he was assured that it wa^
purely a war measure and zuoidd be repealed as
soon as the war zcas over. And he had this re-
peal in mind zvhen, on April 14, 186 j, about 2 p.

30

m.j he held his last conversation with his friend
Merzvin, who, as already stated, had often been
employed by President Lincoln as messenger.
And, as General JJutler had suggested the em-
ployment of colored troops in the construction of
the Panama Canal, Major Merwin was called
to the White House to carry a paper to the great
editors and molders of public opinion — Horace
Greeley of New York and McClure of Philadel-
phia— with a view to secure their aid in for-
warding the project, and Mr. Merwin tells the
story as follows :

"A/lr. Lincoln gave me the papers with final
directions and then, in a tender, tremulous voice,
said:

"Merzvin, we have cleared up a colossal job.
''Slavery is abolished. After reconstruction the
"next great question zvill be the overthrozv and
"suppression of the legalized liquor traffic, and
"you knozv that my head and my heart, my hand
"and my purse zvill go into the contest for vic-
"tory. In 1842, less than a quarter of a century
"ago, I predicted that the day zvould come zvhen
"there zvoidd be neither a slave nor a drunkard
"in the land. I have lived to see one prediction
"fulfilled. I hope to live to see the other.
"Good bye."

Mr. Merwin concludes his recital of this last
and most significant interview with President
Lincoln, as follows :

*^We shook hands and I left for Philadelphia
and New York. That night the bullet of the as-
sassin sent him into the eternal silence."

31

Who Killed Lincoln and McKinley?
Listen : It was the common murderer — Gov-
ernment Licensed ALCOHOL ! Hear me : The
official trial records show that the plot to assas-
sinate President Lincoln and his cabinet was
hatched in Mrs. Siirratt's Government-Licensed
Saloon, fourteen miles south of Washington City ;
that there the assassins drank the liquid poison
that inspired the plot; that all the conspirators
with the possible exception of two — Mrs. Sur-
ratt and Dr. Mudd — were confirmed inebriates,
and that Dr. Mudd frequented the bar of Mrs.
Surratt; that Booth was a heavy drinker and
that he and the others designated to carry out
the plot, had just made the rounds of Washing-
ton's licensed saloons where they drank the alco-
holic poison that nerved his hand for that fatal
shot and made the rest too drunk to do their part
successfully. And remember that McKinley also
was a victim of our Government's licensed liquid-
poison traffic. I have a picture of the saloon kept
by the father of Czolgosz, where, in a rear room,
the boy, Czolgosz, heard the vile speech of the
anarchists who met there, and later he worked in
the Stroh Brewery, East Cleveland, and when he
went to Buffalo to assassinate McKinley he was
harbored in John Nowak's Government Licensed
Saloon. And remember that all over the world
the chief instigator and incentive to crime is
ALCOHOL!

Lincoln's Purpose to Fight for Repeal.

And now, to come back to Lincoln's declared
purpose to fight for the repeal of the liquor-rev-

32

cnue law, as he so tersely stated it to his friend
Merwin, we may be sure that had Lincoln lived
until reconstruction of the seceding states had
been effected, there would have been lively do-
ings, if not in the White House and in Congress,
then elsewdiere thruout the nation there would
have been stirring times to secure the repeal of
this most withering, blighting, damning liquor
revenue measure, which he so reluctantly sign.ed
in 1862.

Lincoln a Great Pre:ache:r oi^
Righteousness.
In ante-bellum days, the days just preceding
our great Civil War, when slavery was rampant
and ruled our nation as a tyrant rules, and as the
liquor traffic rules our nation today, then most
preachers looked askance at Lincoln. But he
was a truer preacher of righteousness than they.
He better observed the Golden Rule than they.
It may be news to many of the younger genera-
tion when I say that Lincoln complained openly
of the preachers of his home city. After Mr.
Lincoln was nominated for President the Execu-
tive Chamber of the Illinois State House was set
apart for him and here he met the public during
the seven months of his campaign. Lincoln's
friends had made for him a canvass of Springfield
to learn how each elector intended to vote.
Nothing pained Lincoln more than to find pro-
fessed Christian teachers opposing him and up-
holding slavery. And he called, from an adjoin-
ing room, the Superintendent of Public Instruc-
tion, Mr. Bateman, to go over the list with him :
and Dr. Holland in his ''Life of Lincoln" (p.

33

236) reports that "with a face full of sadness,"
Lincoln then said to Superintendent Bateman :
"Here are twenty-three ministers of different
denominations and all but three are against
me." Thus twenty '•' out of twenty-three bowed
the servile knee to the slave god ! Some of
Lincoln's biog"raphers have discredited this
fact but here it is in black and white by
the best possible authority. And my own knowl-
edge of the ministers of my own city, state and
nation, confirms my opinion that far more than
nine-tenths of our ministers, today, crook their
servile knees to, and fawn upon, and lick the
hands of the political parties which enthrone the
damning liquor traffic in law and thus enthrone
hell in politics and everywhere else in our Nation.
And Avhat I knew of the preachers in 1860 and
what I know of them now, assures me, that while
there are now, and always have been a small
number of them who proved themselves true and
loyal to Christ, yet even in the North, not less than
nine-tenths of them, by vote and influence, aided
and abetted human bondage, instead of preaching
Christ and His Golden Rule ! Why' do ministers
play the diplomat and cringe and cower in the
presence of legalized iniquities? Why do they
trample the Golden Rule under foot? Is it not
because they are Christians in name only? Why
do ministers today, give their votes and influence
to keep the accursed liquor traffic licensed and
entrenched behind iniquitous laws? This traffic
is worse than war, pestilence and famine all com-

* See "Lincoln the Liberator" (a footnote), by French
(p. 161), and Carpenter's "Inner Life of Lincoln,"
193.

34

bined. What answer can they give to this im-
peachment? Ah, if Prohibition were only popu-
lar almost every mother's son of .them would
hurrah for it. But like some prophets of old,
they ''prophecy smooth things," for revenue only.
They are not leaders for Christ and humanity,
but are seekers after place and public applause.
Is that like Christ? Not if the Bible is reliable.
Will our preachers longer listen to the lying
liquor politicians?

Nekd Great Leaders eor Christ and
Humanity.

O God, give us great leaders in our pulpits,
true to Christ and humanity ! By giving us such
questions as slavery and the liquor traffic to deal
with, God is sifting out the hearts of his people,
he is testing their loyalty to duty and the princi-
ples of Christ. With Lincoln and with Christ
there could not be two standards of morals. With
them, if a thing was wrong at the time of the
spring election, it would be equally wrong at the
time of the Presidential election.

When Lincoln saw, with his own eyes, the
enormity of slavery, as the auction-block revealed
it to him, it was natural for him to sav : ''We
zvant the men zvho think slavery zvrong to quit
voting zi'ith the men zvho think slavery right/'
because he had accustomed himself to be sruided
by right principles and because he loved the
oppressed and hated oppression. And this is
why he hated slavery and the liquor traffic —
These are the great oppressors, robbers, murder-
ers and degraders of the people. And unless
those zvho say the liquor traffic is wrong, quit

35

voting with the men and the parties which, for
gain and for pohtical power, pretend to think the
Hquor traffic right ; unless they Cjuit voting the
same party tickets as the dram-maker and the
dram-seller ; unless they quit electing Presidents
like Taft who sends his friend, Adolphus Busch,
the king brewer, a specially designed $20 gold
piece as a present ; and like Bx-President Roose-
velt who sent him a loving cup, both done in
honor of Busch's Golden Wedding, on which oc-
casion the presents are said to have been valued
at $500,000 and when Busch crowned his wife
with a diadem of gems and pearls valued at
$200,000— all of which he had pillaged from his
millions of deluded victims, their wives and their
children — I say unless these people quit voting
into power the bosom friends of this hellish traf-
fic, then our cause is hopeless and our Ship of
State is on the rocks of perdition.

But when these people will act sanely and do
what they knozv is right — quit their wicked com-
plicity with this demon — then, and not till then,
will our victory be near and certain. Yoii know
that Prohibition is ri^ht. But vou lack con-
science. You lack faith in God and the right.
Such are only half-baked Christians. Why not
listen to Lincoln, who said : "Have faith in God
and in the Unal triumph of right." Dare to stand
alone. Said this immortal Lincoln : ''Stand with
anyone who stands right. Stand with him while
he is right and part with him when he goes
wrong." And this means : Stand with any poli-
tical party while it is right and part zvith it when
it goes wrong.

36

Friends, you are called upon by the spirit of
Lincoln, by the spirit of Jesus Christ, by the
spirit and teaching of Almighty God, and by your
own sense of civic and religious duty, to get out
of these corrupt liquor-licensing, grafting parties;
you are called to come out from among these pre-
datory liquor lords and these saloon-and-brewery-
kept politicians and newspaper men, and aline
yourselves with some clean political power that
is pledged to "stand firmly for the right." And
then when the church shakes off her spurious
Christianity the liquor-trafhc will die and go to
its own place.

Friends, will you not strike, nozv, today,
against this power infernal? Strike — where?
— At the ballot-box. Strike— for what? For
some clean political party — I care not what its
name — that is pledged against all this infernalism
— a party that like Lincoln, swears eternal fidel-
ity to righteous government and to the interests
of all the people and to crush out of power all the
predatory classes — including, root and branch of
the beverage liquor crime ? I warn you my hear-
ers, that any other course is imbecility — glaring
imbecility to vote your county or your state "dry"
and then elect a "wet" political party to enforce
the law. Such a course is treason to common-
sense and treason to Christ. It is to trifle with
High Heaven. All these makeshifts, these half-
hearted, non-partizan, local option, restrictive and
regulative measures are the children of the liquor
devil, designed to fight off the real thing and will
all fall still-born, except to prevent progress.
They are "Standpatism" on the liquor question.

37

They are the Hquor men's ''only hope." Local
option and regulation mean perpetuation of the
liquor curse. Anything less than National Pro-
hibition spells defeat for our cause and perpetua-
tion of drunkenness, crime and race degeneracy.
It was true of Slavery, it is true now and nnll he
true to the remotest ages, that no question ever
zvas, ever can be, or ez'er will be settled, until it is
settled in harmony with the everlasting principles
of righteousness. All corrupt and tyrannical
capitalistic greed, of which the brewers and dis-
tillers give us the most infamous example of the
degradation and ruin of our fellows, must be
driven, by law, out of their God-dishonoring and
man-degrading occupation.

Compromise: With Wrong ]\Iust Forever Fail.
Lincoln never was guilty of using compromis-
ing methods. When he sized up Slavery he knew
it was National, not sectional, and must have a
National party in pozver opposed to it, to deal
with it. And when he saw the liquor traffic na-
tionalized, in 1862, he planned to make a national
tight to repeal that law. Friends, will you not
strive to catch his spirit ?

O EOR His Faith and Courage !
Listen ! He declared : "If ever I feel the soul
within me elevate and expand to those dimensions
not wholly unworthy of its Almighty Architect,
it is when I contemplate the cause of my country,
deserted by all the world besides, and I standing
up boldly and alone and hurling defiance at her
victorious oppressors. Here, without contem-
plating the consequences, before High Heaven
and in the face of the world, I swear eternal fidel-

38

ity to the just cause, as I deem it, of my life, my
liberty and my love."

O what grand and inspiring words ! His loy-
alty to the people and to the oppressed and un-
fortunate, glorified and immortalized him, as it
glorified and immortalized the Son of God.
Friends, let these noble and sublime examples in-
spire you and may God help you and help us all
to be true and loyal to these millions of poor,
degraded victims of the lust and power of these
beings in human form who batten and fatten by
reason of the licensed liquor crime — this cancer
eating the moral heart out of the Nation which
Lincoln loved and served with such devotion and
distinction.

39

WHO SMOTE LINCOLN IN 1865?
AND WHO SMITES HIM TODAY?

This Booklet says to Every-
one: '"Be sure you read me
carefully from cover to
cover. I am a mouthpiece
for Abraham Lincoln. I will
tell you many facts about
him which you have not
known. I will repeat many
of his best sayings and doings,
of which most people are
ignorant. I also ask you:
Who killed Lincoln ? And
who killed McKinley? You
think you know^ and pos-
sibly you do know, but the
chances are you do not
know. To be certain as to
who the guilty culprit is,
you should inquire within,
for I can tell you. But to
understand fully w^hat I say
I request that you read me
from start to finish.'^