The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1870-09-08
From the Columbus Journal.

From the Columbus JOuEudis
A Political Temperance Party
The dispatches announce that Wen
dell Phillips has been nominated for
Governor of Massachusetts upon the
Prohibition ticket, and that MyrOn H.
Clark has been nominated for Cover
nor by the Temperance party of New
York. The effort to put temperance
ticket in the field we notice has failed
in some other States. While we are in
full sympathy with the temperance
movement, we cannot see that the or
ganization of a general temperance
political party is advisable. 1t can
only cause division in the Republican
party, for the temperance men who
would vote the ticket are nearly all
Republicans, and thus give power to
the Democracy, which is notorious fol
its avoidance of an "moraI' issues and
questions in politics. If there is an
anti-temperance party in the country,
that party is the Democratic. OF
course it is not so ostensibly, but it is
so in effect. The temperance men
therefore, defeat their object by tenn
perance party. We do not question
the propriety of refusing to support 6
drinking or an anti-temperance man
who may be nominated upon the Re
publican ticket, but we oppose an or
ganization which becomes so genera,
in its operations as to include a whole
State. It is claimed by the temper
ance advocates who favor a temper
ance party, that this is the only effec
tive method of compelling the ruling
party to prohibitory action, and to tht
nomination of temperance men fO
office. This is of course an extrem,
view. The way to purge the party o
intempcrate officers is to refuse to sup
port them when they are nominated
The Republican party is now probabl!
as strongly in favor of prohibition a
any general political party can be made
and where it has had the power ha
1 in many of the States enacted prohib
itory laws. The difficulty is general,
recognized to be not in the law but il
! its execution. These laws, it is ais
generally recognized, can be executor
} only where the public sentiment j
! sufficiently strong to demand it, an
certainly they will not be any bette
executed under Democratic rule. Th
New York excise law was a Republi
can measure, and under a RepubIica
police system was faithfully executed
The result was a great decrease i
crime and the suppression of on
= hundred and fifty grog-shOps from th
sheer loss of patronage, within shOl
time after it went into effect. Sine
the Tammany Democracy, howeve
have changed the system, the law
not executed, liquor is sold on Sunda
when men are not employed and the e
= feet has been great increase in Grim
The recent epidemic of murder in II
metropolis Is traced by New Yor
journals to the fact that the police sy!
tenn has been 90 changed as TO ope
= the liquor sluices again upon the cit
The Republican party Is not only
!, sentiment but in practice, as strong
Temperance party as can be organize
= and put in power. The Democrat
,, gave It a descriptive and accurate d
u nomination when they named it Il
"God and morality party" and tho
temperance men who expect to furth
their cause by any movement whit
will divide it are egregiously mistake
and impracticable.