Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 2

[215] to his men; famous doctors went drunk to their patients; the first lawyer in the Middle States was not singular when he held on by the rail in order to stand and argue, half-drunk, to the Supreme Court of the United States; rich men saw to it that every clergyman who attended a convention was plied with wine; and the preacher of the Concio ad Clerum was fed on brandy-punch to be on a more exhilarated level than his hearers. If a man caught sight of a grog-shop, he was as sure he had arrived in a Christian land as the shipwrecked sailor felt when he got sight of a gibbet.

Dr. Crosby then had every man, lay and clerical, on his side in construing the Bible; whereas now we are in a healthy majority. Then a few scattered Temperance tracts, like rockets in a night, only betrayed how utterly the world was in the desert on this subject; now a Temperance literature, crowded with facts, strong in argument, filled with testimonies from men of the first eminence in every walk of life, in every department of science and literature, challenges and defies all comers. Then the idea of total abstinence was not so much denied as wholly unknown; now, if New England were polled to-day, our majority would be overwhelming. Then all men held liquors to be healthy and useful; now seventy men out of a hundred, whatever their practice, deny that claim, and the upper classes, well informed and careful of health, lead the way in giving up the use. Then the medical profession waded in the same slough of indulgence and ignorance as their patients; now the verdict of the profession is undoubtedly and immeasurably against the use of intoxicating drinks at all in health, and but seldom in favor of it in disease.

We have driven the indulgence in drink into hiding places, and for the first time the legislature is obliged and willing to prohibit the use of screens to hide rumdrinkers