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"We are glad . . . that great railroads and factories have concluded that men cannot be trusted with material interests and precious human lives who are addicted to intoxicating drink, glad that life insurance companies and mutual benefit societies have learned that all drinkers of intoxicants are deteriorated risks, and especially glad that the closing of the saloon on the Lord's Day has been effected in the great city of New York."—From the episcopal address, 1896.
"Public attention should also be constantly called to the economic side of the liquor business. While we stir the moral sense we ought also to arouse the financial sense of the burden bearers of the business world. The care for the dissipated criminal classes, spawned upon society by this ruinous business, falls chiefly upon the sober and industrious. The burden imposed upon the resources of the American people by the liquor business far exceeds the cost of maintaining all the armies of Europe. Once let the American people realize how they are held up and robbed by this highwayman and they will make short work of his arrest and execution.''—From the episcopal address, 1904.
"The prohibitory law has not been perfectly enforced, of course. For a century and a half the traffic in liquor was a perfectly lawful business, just as much so as banking and farming. Millions of money were invested. . . . Drinking was a popular social custom. . . . [The Prohibition law has resulted in] enlarged savings deposits in the banks, increased expenditures for legitimate commodities, decrease of crime, increased efficiency of labor, broken homes repaired, separated families reunited. . . ."—From the episcopal address, 1924.
"Where customs of long standing are affected by law . . . especially where there is involved the question of political power, commercial gain or personal restraint, the written law is not automatically effective.''—From the episcopal address, 1928.
Other items of Methodist activity last week at Atlantic City: ¶ Authorization of a campaign for $1,000,000 between May 15 & 30 to save the missionary, philanthropic and educational services of the church. ¶ A speech by Dr. Halford Edward Luccock of the Yale Divinity School deploring as "brutal and inhuman" the rise of U. S. Steel Corp. stock upon news of a 15% pay cut (see p. 51). Excerpts: "Every day that passes makes it more clear that there is nothing more futile than sending out to the Orient a religion which is not transforming the pagan forces which are so largely ruling here in America. The kind of a pagan world we live in is clearly pictured in the movement of the Stock Exchange quotations on Friday of last week. The headlines . . . tell the brutal and inhuman story: 'Steel Pay Cut Again; Stocks Rise Rapidly.' That is what we call a Christian civilization, a civilization which imagines that prosperity can be increased as human misery increases!"