Excerpt from The Second International Temperance Congress: Held at Zürich, Switzerland, in the Year 1887, A Review of the Official Report

Others expressed similar opinions, but not one of them appeared to be aware of the moral obliquity which their conception of consistency implied. As the writer felt no particular inclination to enter into an ethical discussion on this pointy he concluded that he had heard enough for his purposes.

Consistency in suppressing Truth, in distorting facts, in twisting out of their true meaning and intent the words and deeds of men, and in misrepresenting the meaning of events - this sort of consistency may be a policy, precious as a jewel to those who practice it for their advantage, but, whether employed in a good cause or a bad one, it does not deserve, nor does it ever elicit, the approbation of the righteous. It is true, unfortunately, that, exercised in this sense, it frequently is attended with success, but a success ephemeral in itself and tending only to pave the way to ultimate disaster.

This much, at least, the advocates of prohibition might have learned from their past experience, if they were not as consistently and wilfully blind to the signs of the times, as they are consistently stubborn in falsifying them. As they have done from the beginning, so do they now persist in either ignoring every event, no matter how closely related it may be to the question of temperance, which does not afford at least a semblance of support to their Utopian schemes, or in so coloring their representation of it as to give it the appearance, however flimsy, of such support.

This was the reason assigned for the publication of an epitomized report on the Antwerp Congress, and it is the raison d'être of the present review of the work accomplished by the second international meeting. In preparing the latter the writer had the incalculable advantage of personal observation, having been present, by invitation, at the Congress held at Zurich, and the further advantage of a personal interchange of thought with many persons foremost in the movement for temperance reform on the continent of Europe. Yet, all that is contained herein rests principally upon the official report.

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