The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

t'oto tbe liquor (raffle Pap?

T HERE is one standard of value in the business world
of our country, by which all things are measured.
WAhatever meets the requirements of this standard, the
capitalistic community endorses, and it finds its way to
popular favor, even when repulsive and undesirable in
itself. Whatever is short of these demands, when measured by the business standard, is condemned, even when it
possesses intrinsic worth. "1Will it pay? " is asked of any
enterprise that comes up for adoption. "1Does it pay? " is
the searching inquiry propounded to any new business that
has been inaugurated. If, after a fair trial, it appears that
the cost of the business exceeds its profits, and that this
must be its permanent status, never to be remedied, it is
abandoned. We say, "there is no money in it."
This evening, I propose to measure the liquor traffic of
the nation by this one standard. It calls itself grandiloquently, "1the largest and most profitable industry of the
United States." Let us see if it can make its boasting true.
"Does it pay?"1
In the first place, what does the liquor traffic cost the
country in money? The Chief of the National Bureau of
Statistics at Washington is a United States official, who is
appointed by the national government, and whose facts are
facts, for he is sworn to tell the truth. From this department, we learn that the drink bill of the United States is
nine hundred million dollars annually. That is, the people
of the country drink alcoholic liquors, every year, to the
amount of nine hundred million dollars. This statement is
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