The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-11-17

Inc Seape 0oaks
The Chicago Tribune signalizes the first
day of it's return to republicanism by an
editorial on the temperance issue, entitled
prohibition a Ruinous Policy" This phrase
is significant Of the purpose of the article,
but a few extracts will make its spirit and
the Tribune attributes the recent defeat of
the republican party to its temperance
policy. 1t says:
More than third-termp rattle, more than Butler
Jobs and Sanborn contracts, more than granger
ism or any other ism, Prohibition has steadily
and swiftly wrought the defeat of the republican
party, and placed its opponents i'm power in
every state where it was made a political issue.
us mischlevous influences commences In the
states of Ohio and Indiana had been the center
of the most active efforts of the prohibitionists,
which resolved themselves into the shape of
woman crusades, and were attended with the
most reckless invasions of private rights.
The Tribune goes on to tell how the ex-
element increased, and how the temperance
people, by threats OF a third party move
ment, got control of the republican organiza-
ton. The result was the detection of large
numbers of republicans, while temperance
democrats stood firm:
Thousands Of republican sa'oon-keepers. re-
publican brewers and vendors, and republican
consumers of beer and wines, of foreign descent,
regarded this unwise action OF the party as a
direct personal blow at them, and they at once
Ieagued themselves with the democracy in a
contest for personal rights. which they con-
of the republican party in the "off-year."
Dwelling with eloquent indignation on
the woes of this class of people who were
not only cut off from their liquor on Sun
day but on every day and night in the week,
the Tribune asserts that the overwhelming
defeat of the republicans became inevitable.
All the saloon influences organized against
them, and even in Massachusetts, the great
party of moral ideas went down under the
weight of its excessive goodness. This is a
rather strange confession to make, to-wit,
that the party has won by alliance with the
beer saloons and has lost by its war upon
them. Certainly politics have fallen to a
low state if this be so. The conclusion of
the Tribune's article is worth quoting at full
length:
1t is almost superluous to moralize upon these
facts. The election tables of October and No
vember are silent, but suggestive proof of the
publican leaders have permitted themselves to
be d~ragooned into making, and If any further
DTOOI Oh I'LL SOII ~ nCcutQt 4 may UC lOuUU III
abundance in the political records of Chicago
during the past two or three years. The only
safety, for the party Is to let sumpdtuary legisla.
made a party principle. IL Ii is made a law it
can not be enforced. In Wisconsin, Iowa, Yer
mont, Rhode Island, Nebraska, wherever the |
republican party has ignored and refused to |
have anything TO do with this folly, 1t has re-
tanned its power, To persist In bolstering up this
mischievous, and insane movement any longer /
Is simply suicidal Prohibition must be prohi- /
bited In the republican party, lift seeks for sue
Jess. /
And now the Sentinel wishes to present
briefly and bitterly its own criticism on this
stuff which may be taken as a sample of the |
comment of the whole republican press on
he late election. The doctrine of the re-
publican party on prohibition was unsound;
,ut the party leaders adopted it because they
imposed it was popular; and now after the
contest is over they come out and acknowl-
,dge with unparalleled %effrontery that they
we're hypocrites all along in the advocacy OF
To protect the many political
'~illainies of the party they make a scape-
,oat of an attempted reform. They have
or months denounced the honest advocates
If a license system as 'apostles of free rum,'
'panderers to vicious sppetites' and "cham-
,ions of the vilest classes of society" and
low, after wearing these airs of moral supe-
iority SO long as they had anything to gain
oy them, these pious gentlemen come down
DOLLY to the level of those whom they have
,een denouncing. There has been about
of this kind of thing. 1t is time for
republican journals to fling off all puritan
cal pretense about being better than their
leighbors, or else stand to their pretense in
oul weather as well as fair. If they are
enlistin what they nave been calling
service of the devil, let them put
IF the livery of heaven at once. Let them
IS a preliminary step throw aside all that
counterfeit temperance, piety, n morality
With which they have wrapped themselves
Is with a cloak during the past six months.
Let these pseudo saints moreover beg the
,ardon Of the sinners whom they have been
n~aliciously lying about in their role as
The Sentinel is perfectly willing
these journals should assume a
roper position in regard to sumptuary
egislation, but it wants it understood that
hey change their base like a set of hypo-
rites and liars, unless they make ample
apologies for their past ISLANDERS upon con-
that were either wiser or hon.
than themselves in dealing with the
prohibition question.
One subject has been under discussion this
DL;1oJolrb;o vrb;oI, io Il, No 1aroo.I