The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1882-07-27
Newark Americana
How Will YOu Vote Z?

llC lOS IL OI CfChto, d1lu hOo ouO
wishes Of politicians, determines what
questions shall be put in issue by po-
litical parties. Not all the wire
working politicians of the State can
prevent the temperance question from
being the important issue in the cleo
ton soon to take place in this State.
1t is question that many of them
would like to dodge But the evils
incident to the traffic have grown to
such enormous proportions as to force
the subject upon pub bile attention.
The time was when the politicians of
both the great parties then in opera
ton resolved not to agitate the slav-
cry question, and to discountenance all
efforts in others to do so. But the
more they resolved not to agitate, the
greater the agitation became. The
logic Of events, more potent than the
resolutions Of politicians, determined
that the question should be consider
ed,-just as it now demands the con-
sideration of the temperance question.
And it is just as impossible to prevent
this being the main question at issue
now, as it then was to keep the slave
ry question out of politics.
Every vote, therefore, cast at the
coming election, that is or is to be
anything more than blank, will
mean, either that the traffic in intoxi-
eating liquors shall be taxed as re-
pressive measure and prohibited on
the Sabbath, or that there shall be
free trade in whisky with no demand
even for restriction on the Sabbath
day. Hence the question for every
voter to decide for himself is, what he
intends his vote to say or mean on
that subject.
And it is we'll enough to remember
that it is not the practice of total alb
stinance nor professions of morality,
nor even of Christianity that counts
in this contest. 1t is the ballot that a
man casts that determines which side
he is on. The man who stands be-
hind a bar to sell whisky can repeat
platitudes on temperance as well as
the man who stands in a pulpit. The
story told of the old Dutchman rep
resents that kind Of temperance men.
He was in favor of temperance. He
did not like to see a man make hog
of himself;" but then he thought
'feefty or seexty glasses of lager a
day would not hurt anybody" OF
course he believed in temperance; but
he believed in it always according to
his own definition of the world.
The fact is, that the man who talks
temperance and then goes to the polls
and votes power into the hands of a
party that is regarded, the world
over, as being in sympathy with the
liquor-dealers that the Liquor Deal
ers National Association is pronfp5 te
regard as the friend Of their traffic
and so expresses itself by passing res
olutions in a public convention, pledg,
ing it a united support, has despica-
bly, mean way of showing his sympa
thy for the cause which he PROCESSES
to love. He amounts to just about
the same as an abolitionist.
A man who so votes is in full sym
pathy with the rum traffickers. HI
can count on their support. An(
they will like him all the bettelmf h,
makes pious pretensions and Ions
prayers; for their recruits from tn
churches are not numerous enough t.
, give them a very high standing il
that quarter. They are sorely il
r need, as the old Shareholders were, o
l support from those who make som
professions Of morality. They ar
. the fellows who have heretofore mad
n a practice of sneering at the idea tha
there are any such thing as morallt
Y in politics.