The conflict between man and alcohol is as old as civilization, more destructive than any other form of warfare, and as fierce to-day as at any time since the beginning.
It is not an exaggeration to say that no other evil known in human history has been of such vast proportions and lamentable consequences as that of alcoholic intemperance. As the whole past of the race has been cursed by it, so its whole future is threatened with increasing calamity, unless there be a period put to its ravages.
It is a peculiarity of this curse that it is developed by civilization, and then, like the parricide, it destroys the source of its own life.
But although alcohol is his special foe, it by no means confines its dagger and chalice to civilized man.
Combining with the spirit of a mercenary commerce, this active essence of evil is hunting and extirpating the weaker races and indigenous populations of uncivilized countries from the face of the earth.
The object of this book is, if possible, to arrest the attention of the American, if of no other people; to place before them the leading facts which enter into the great debate now pending on our own and the European continents, and to assist man, however feebly, in this great struggle with alcohol for his life.
