Rich a student at the Theological Seminary, writes his brother, Charles at Harvard, discussing news and the fact that he voted the straight prohibition ticket and with his thoughts on Temperance:

"Dear Bro. Charles,

... This morning I voted the straight Prohibition ticket. State - Senate - Judicial - County - Assembly- Alderman - 15 men in all. The Hill & Tom Platt tickets were too rank for even Uncle S help this year. Heretofore we had made up a combination ticket from all sides. The Saloon is outlawed in 10 states now. The law against no crime stops the crime; but that is no reason we should license crime. It always seems silly to me to think that it is any less a sin to legalize a drunkery in return for a good deal of blood money than to license it for less blood money. If 40,000 men go down to drunkard's graves in this country annually, their blood cries out on all the men who have not the moral courage to stand up and vote the only ticket that makes any pretence of wiping this curse out of legal existence..."