Why Alcohol and Crime Are Related—Those who frequent the saloons that are open to all who are foolish enough to tamper with the deadly evil they contain, are following the path that leads to eternal death. They are selling themselves, body, soul, and spirit, to Satan. Under the influence of the drink they take, they are led to do things from which, if they had not tasted the maddening drug, they would have shrunk in horror. When they are under the influence of the liquid poison, they are in Satan’s control. He rules them, and they co-operate with him.—Letter 166, 1903. (Te 24.1) MC VC

Nature of Crimes Committed Under Alcohol—The result of liquor drinking is demonstrated by the awful murders that take place. How often it is found that theft, incendiarism, murder, were committed under the influence of liquor. Yet the liquor curse is legalized, and works untold ruin in the hands of those who love to tamper with that which ruins not only the poor victim, but his whole family.—The Review and Herald, May 1, 1900. (Te 24.2) MC VC

Houses of prostitution, dens of vice, criminal courts, prisons, almshouses, insane asylums, hospitals, all are, to a great degree, filled as a result of the liquor seller’s work. Like the mystic Babylon of the Apocalypse, he is dealing in “slaves, and souls of men.” Revelation 18:13. Behind the liquor seller stands the mighty destroyer of souls, and every act which earth or hell can devise is employed to draw human beings under his power. (Te 24.3) MC VC

In the city and the country, on the railway trains, on the great steamers, in places of business, in the halls of pleasure, in the medical dispensary, even in the church on the sacred Communion table, his traps are set. Nothing is left undone to create and to foster the desire for intoxicants. On almost every corner stands the public house with its brilliant lights, its welcome and good cheer, inviting the workingman, the wealthy idler, and the unsuspecting youth. Day by day, month by month, year by year, the work goes on.—Drunkenness and Crime, 8. (Te 24.4) MC VC