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. We
are wholly destitute of political power, by which it must be overthrown.
Anguished by the peril of fathers and brothers, husbands and sons, we
appeal to you to make good the oft-repeated assertion that the men of
the State represent and protect the women of the State at the
ballot-box. We beseech you to make earnest efforts to secure the repeal
of the license law at the next election, and the enactment of a law
prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors as a beverage.

"We are sure we speak the sentiment of the Christian people of this
State, and of all who stand for morality, thrift, virtue and good order,
when we say that the great State of Massachusetts should not take sides
with the drunkard-maker against his victim. If either is to be protected
by law, it should be the drunkard, since he is the weaker, rather than
the rumseller, who persistently blocks the pathway of reform.

"We know that we utter the voice of the majority of the women of the
State when we plead the cause of prohibition--and the women of
Massachusetts outnumbers its men by more than sixty thousand. It is
women who are the greatest sufferers from the licensed dram-shops of the
community--and we pray you, therefore, voters of Massachusetts, to take
such action that the law which protects these drinking shops may be
blotted from the statute book at the next election."

This appeal from the Christian women of Massachusetts is signed by Mrs.
Mary A. Livermore, President, and Mrs. L.B. Barrett, Secretary of the
State branch of the Woman's National Temperance Union, and shows the
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