There is an eternal conflict between the school-room and the bar-room. The school-room makes men, the bar-room destroys them.
We have seen the evil of the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors in our midst; let us try prohibition and see what this will do for us.
Yes, it is worse than thrown away, because every fair minded man must admit that the expenditure of this sum of money in the county for intoxicating liquor creates lawlessness, makes criminals, wrecks homes and brings trouble to innocent women and children.
The school-room sends men to the Legislature, to the bench, and the executive office. The bar-room sends them to the scaffold and hell.
I not only urge you to vote that ticket yourself, but I beg that you will persuade others to do so. Personal effort can accomplish a great deal, and I beg that you will use your personal influence with your friends to get them to go with you to save the boys.
I beg you to look at the promising boys and beautiful girls in your homes and in your communities, and then you will not put these temptations in their way.
I use the term bar-room to represent every means for the sale and traffic in liquor, and I earnestly appeal to the people to put an end to the traffic, no matter under what name or guise it may be carried on.
In the first place I remark that no human law is perfect in its construction or execution.
Men even contract the dirty, filthy habit of chewing tobacco, and when the habit gets a good hold upon them they are never satisfied except when they have a wad of the stuff in their mouth. So with drinking. It is largely a habit.
The people of one county can not be indifferent to the welfare of the people in another county.
The cry comes from the friends of the school-room, from those who would give the State a strong, great, noble citizenship, for protection from the curse of drunkenness. This cry should be heard and answered by every lover of his fellow-men, no matter where his home may be.
I beg you do not vote for stills and open bar-rooms in the county.
It has worked great good in other communities in the state where it has been honestly and faithfully tried, and I feel confident it will do the same in Pitt, if we faithfully administer the law, and that it will bring gladness and joy into the homes of the people.