We have no ability to cope with this most formidable enemy of virtue, prosperity and good order.
"A long and bitter experience compels us to say that the most untiring efforts to reclaim the drunkard have, in many instances, proved unavailing, because his demoralized will has been powerless to resist the temptations placed in his path by the sanction of the State.
"Worse, if possible, even than this--the licensed dram-shop is instrumental in creating a new generation of drunkards.

For thither resort our young men, the future hope of the country, who speedily fall before the seductions of the place, their habits of sobriety are subverted, their moral sense is blunted, their will palsied, and they drift rapidly into the appalling condition of habitual drunkenness.

The licensed dram-shops are recruiting offices, where another army of drunkards is enlisted, to fill the ranks depleted by dishonored deaths--and the great Commonwealth extends over them the aegis of its protection, indorsing them by the sanction of law.

The people of Massachusetts drink annually twenty-five million dollars' worth of intoxicating liquors.

_Only God can furnish the statistics of sorrow, poverty, disease, vice and crime, begotten by this fearful consumption of strong drink._ "Under these discouraging circumstances, men of Massachusetts, we appeal to you! The licensed dram-shop is the creature of political action.