And I went on and told him how she and her relations had suffered
from want of rights, and how dretfully she had suffered from the Ring till
I declare talkin' about them little children of hern, and her agony, I got
about as fierce actin' as Serepta herself, and entirely onbeknown to myself
I talked powerful on intemperance and Rings, and such.
When I got down agin onto my feet I see he had a still more worried and
anxious look on his good-natured face, and he sez: "The laws of the United
States are such that I can't do them errands, I can't interfere."
"Then," sez I, "why don't you make the United States do right?"
He said sunthin' about the might of the majority, and the powerful
corporations and rings, and that sot me off agin. And I talked very
powerful and allegored about allowin' a ring to be put round the United
States and let a lot of whiskey dealers and corporations lead her round,
a pitiful sight for men and angels. Sez I, "How duz it look before the
nations to see Columbia led round half-tipsy by a Ring?"
He seemed to think it looked bad, I knew by his looks.
Sez I, "Intemperance is bad for Serepta and bad for the Nation."
He murmured sunthin' about the revenue the liquor trade brought the
Govermunt.
But I sez, "Every penny is money right out of the people's pockets; every
dollar the people pay into the liquor traffic that gives a few cents into
the treasury, is costin' the people ten times that dollar in the loss
intemperance entails, loss of labor, by the inability of drunken men to do
anything but wobble and stagger, loss of wealth by the enormous losses of
property and taxation, of alms-houses, mad-houses, jails, police forces,
paupers' coffins, and the diggin' of thousands and thousands of graves
that are filled yearly by them that reel into 'em.
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