Song_of_fools

The saloon is the sum of all villainies. It is worse than war or pestilence. It is the crime of crimes. It is the parent of crimes and the mother of sins. It is the appalling source of misery and crime in the land. And to license such an incarnate fiend of hell is the dirtiest, low-down, damnable business on top of this old earth.” —Billy SundayShow more

The mighty preacher and man of God, Harold Sightler, lost his 9-year-old little girl when a drunk driver in Greensboro, NC drove off the road and ran over his daughter, killing her. The booze industry tycoons don't pay the price, innocent people do. God will hold evildoers accountable on judgment day for making and selling booze!

Alcohol is a much bigger problem than the beer companies and beer drinkers would like for us to think. There's an untold story. Every year, millions of people are victimized, one way or another, by alcoholic beverages. Children especially, are hurt because of booze.
I grew up in Chicago. My father was a Skidrow minister in downtown Chicago, directing the Chicago United Mission at 34 S. Desplaines for many years. Before that, he was the assistant director of the Christian Industrial League (another mission). My father often preached at the Olive Branch Mission and the Pacific Garden Mission, and I would tag along as a child, observing all that was happening.
My mother often played the piano. I would quote a verse or two. I simply cannot tell you how many men and women I saw lying in the gutter, literally, because of booze. I saw many dead bodies in my years growing up around Skidrow, and the police paddywagon that came to collect the bodies. Only God fully knows the amount of evil caused because of alcohol.
Listen friend, I can show you a few pictures and some statistics on my website, but you simply do not know the hellishness of alcohol until you've spent your youth growing up around Skidrow. I cannot possibly convey to you the images forever engrained in my mind of men lying drunk by garbage pails. I regularly walking over battered bodies in the doorway of the mission, of men drinking paint-thinner to satisfy their ungodly addiction to alcohol.
My father provided shelter for over 100 men each night, a bowl of soup, some bread and butter, and a cold floor to sleep on (but not as cold as the sidewalk). Men were provided with clothing to use for blankets. There simply weren't enough beds for a hundred people. Cardboard or old donated clothing was tossed upon the floor for the men to sleep on. There were some poor women too. It was a common practice for sleepers to cover their heads at night, because the rats would sometimes crawl over them on the floor. Rats were a constant problem in downtown Chicago. I've caught many rats in my time— “super-rats” as big as a full-grown cat! The one common denominator I saw amongst the poor in all my years of helping my father on Skidrow was ALCOHOL!
I've stood at my father's side during many funerals he was asked to conduct. It was just me, my dad, and the corpse! No family! No loved ones! The beer companies won't show you this. Alcohol will take you to a lonely grave and the pits of Hell! As Chicago's urban development came into force, they closed down most of the missions. There was no help for the poor where there was once help. As a result, hundreds of poor people literally froze to death on the streets of Chicago. Drinking alcohol numbs the body to the point that you don't realize you're freezing to death. Many of them didn't even realize they were dying. Alcohol has caused untold multitudes of victims to freeze to death. So you see, there's a very good reason why I fight uncompromisingly against alcohol—because I grew up around Skidrow and I know firsthand where the road of alcohol often leads!