The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1873-09-12
THE CITY COUNCIL AND LICENSE.

| siderations, finance and reform, which
prompted your action have not, alas
for human effort, been realized. AS a
financial measure, it docs not seem to
have replenished the treasury with that
alaerity which your political sagacity
in vain predicted. 1t appears to have
been one of those unfortunate expert
ments in political economy which bur
dens the consumer without correspond
ing advantage TO the revenue.
Considered as a missionary efforts
prompted by your practical piety and
zeal, we have scarcely words to speak of
the enactment of the great "pint ordi-
nance as we feel it deserves. When
you beheld men whom yen wished to
reform, and who could hardly preserve
their moral equipoise on rotations of q
gill, you remembered how o skillful
pilot, when his bark rides high seas
under short canvas, calls on all hands
to make sail and steady the ship, and
with unfiinching teroism you called
on all hands to the "pinG ordinance. "
But this mastery stroke of policy was
unavailing, and your melancholy dis
tress was only aggravated when
you saw the sufferers from the
gill hopelessly struggling with the
imposibilities of the pint. We
sympathized with your virtuous indig-
nation, and we abandoned ourselves to
despair. What more, in the language
of the Roman, Senaca, "could wisdom
devise, or patriotism dare" We had
but partially comprehended the aug
terity of the great custodians of the
public morals and finance. While less
comprehensive minds have been BROOD
ing over the disasters and discourage
ments of defeat, you have inauguratd
q plan, based on another principle of
political ethics, by which you expect
to meet all the financial and moral ele-
lants in the ease and cure all our
woes. .aas-
Perceiving with the instinct of true
genius that the salient point of the
great "pint ordinance was, that while
the quantity of whisky allowed to be
sold was wholesale, the price charg-
ed the drunkard mandatory was re-
tail, you had anticipated that the moral
advantages OF the plan would be great,
whilst the financial benefits would be
somewhat limited; but with that noble
disregard of selfish motive which has
always distinguished your officialeareer
you preferred to sacrifice the pecuniary
to the moral interests OF the city. But
since the practical working of this ar
rangement was not satisfactory In
every particular, you have now invert-
ed the plan, and propose to charge the
manufacturer of drunkard a whole
sale price, but restrict him to q retail
quantity of whisky. There is great
deal of shrewdness in this arrange
ment, for whilst the harm done may be
supposed to be retail affair, therefore
Insignificant, the revenue comes in by
the wholesale; it is filtered gently in
small rills into your agents pocket,
and then by bold flank movement is
scooped into the public treasury. Great
as Is our respect for you individually,
as law-givers, philosophers and moral
lists, we cannot conceive that a project
so replete with wisdom and beneyo-
lence, land involving such abstruce prob
lens in political science could have
been successfully grappled by single
mind. No, gentlemen; this project
bears the indellible impress of null
tiplied genius, and although it is
probable that some leading spirit first
caught the inspiration and led the
way, the honors of its final consumma-
ton must be shared by you all.
Let US invoke the power OF the i'm
agination and endeavor to call up be-
fore our minds the scene which was
presented at the advent of the great
inverted ordinance"
You were assembled in solemn con-
claye in the great hall of the capitol,
which has so often rung with forensic
eloauence on the great bond question
and COW ordinance. Within these
walls had been perfected those plans of
commerce and manu- facture which
have poured into our city the Injuries
of every cline and the industry of
every art. Here, in far less important
crisis, you had given your high sane
ton to the wagon and foundry institu-
tons; and still later you had bored fof
coal. These old arches had but recent
ly echoed the frnitless appeals for q
hotel ordinance, and still reYerberated
the mournful whispers of the scrip
buyers. The chief magistrate, himself
a tower of strength in all questions Of
moral reform, presides over the august
assembly, clothed in the vestments Of
his office. The great Protestator rose
pregnant with the idea of the hour
and bowed with the weight of respon-
sibfiity. After an elegant exordium
on the complex respons ibities of legis-
lators in an age of progress, on ques.
!. tons where votes were to be gained or
lost, whichever way they may turn, he
declared his high resolve to put himself
so clearly on the record on This grea
occasion, that no enemy could ae'
cuse him of being the friend or the op
ponent of the whisky ring. And now
like the war-horse, that scents the ad'
vancing columns of the en- envy ,he gath
cred himself up for the charge. HI
plunged deep into the tortuous depth
! of cork-screw logic, and emerging, res
: high on the wings of podauger rhet
oric- kindling with the enthusiasm o
, the hour, he seized the t'iron truupe
! of his mother tongue''-the good ole
Paddy English-and blew bngl
5 blast that shook tine walls to thei
? foundation. As the peroration wa
concluded Minerva lowered over tn
: scene, and amidst parturient efforts tn
: great inverted ordinance" was born
When we remember the uncertainty
: OF all hnman effort to accomplish grea
designs for the elevation Of the race
4 We cannot divest our minds of som
lingering skepticism as 20 The final tri
5 umph of yoHr plan, but we know yO'
: VIII continue to struggle to the las
And If in the mysterious ruling G
it Providence it SHOULD finally be decree
e that in spite of pIety, and Weldon, an