I have spoken freely of the evils wrought by our border troubles; but
now we had to realize that, taking all the men murdered in our early
feuds, and comparing them with the men murdered by strong drink in the
city of Atchison, counting man for man, there have been more men
murdered by strong drink than by all our border troubles. There have
been more women that have had their hearts broken, more children
turned into the streets, more fortunes squandered, in the single city
of Atchison than in all the Kansas war. But there is another point of
comparison. The men who wrestled with each other in that early
conflict verily thought they were right. They may have been mistaken,
but they thought they were in the right; they therefore maintained
their own self-respect. But those who have died in this battle of the
bottles and the beer glasses have lost everything--self-respect,
reputation, honor, everything; and they went to the dogs and their
souls went to perdition.
I have been a somewhat voluminous writer on many subjects now for forty
years, but all this would scarce exceed in amount what I have written in
Kansas newspapers, during a series of years, on the single subject of
temperance.
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