George W. Clark to Frederick Douglass & the New York legislature, March 3, 1857

FOR FREDERICK DOUGLASS' PAPER.

THE LIQUOR TRAFFIC---ITS PROHIBITION.

To the Legislature of the State of New York:

GENTLEMEN:—For the last few months I have traveled somewhat extensively in this State, and have thereby had ample opportunity to witness the fearful increase of grog-shops, and the alarming spread of intemperance, with its concomitant vices and crimes. The pernicious traffic in intoxicating drinks, so repeatedly and emphatically condemned by the people, and at length prohibited by law, was fast disappearing, with its horrid effects, especially in the rural districts; and thousands began to cherish bright and cheering hopes of deliverance from the terrible evils and bitter woes of Intemperance.

But the fatal decision of the Court of Appeals has opened afresh the floodgates of rum and ruin, of idleness and vice, of pauperism and crime; and the appalling resutls fill the mind of every friend of morality and religion, every well wisher of our great and growing commonwealth, with the most fearful forebodings. The traffickers in these vile and destructive liquors are multiplying their drunkeries in every direction, and the hand is being literally inundated with drunkenness. Bar-rooms are filled with blear-eyed, lounging sots, belching forth the most obscene language and horrid oaths—while young young men and boys at the age of fourteen, sixteen, and twenty years, instead of spending their precious time in our ample schools and colleges, are fitting themselves for usefulness to their State and county, are drawn by thousands unto these gate-ways to the pit—are corrupted and ruined, and go forth reeling, staggering, bloated drunkards, to corrupt and ruin others in their turn—to be a burden and curse to themselves and to society, instead of a help, an ornament, and a blessing. Our poor-houses, and our work-houses, our prisons, and our penitentiaries are being again filled with the miserable victims of this wicked traffic; and our daily police reports reiterate the same sad tale—drunk! drunk! drunk!

The people are anxiously looking to your Honorable body for some thorough and de-

cisive action on the subject—for some law that, instead of licensing and thereby legalizing this criminal traffic shall effectually prohibit it, and protect the people of this commonwealth against, not only the heavy taxes accruing from the pauperism and crime it produces, but from that fate more terrible and more to be dreaded than death itself, to which it exposes their sons and daughters and the untold moral, social and political evils it entails upon every community where it rears its Hydra head, and is suffered to prolong its death dealing existence. Had I time to circulate a petition to your Honorable body, I could get eight-tenths of my neighbors and fellow-citizens to unite in the prayer I now send you for the prohibition of this pauper and misery making traffic in intoxicating drinks, and the protection of the community against its indescribable evils. As a man, as a citizen, as a father, I beseech your Honorable body, as you value and would protect and promote the social, moral, industrial, commercial, agricultural, educational, and political interests, prosperity and honor of our great and glorious State, to prohibit the traffic in intoxicating drinks as a beverage.

Yours, most respectfully,

GEORGE W. CLARK.

ROCHESTER, March 3, 1857.