The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-02-07

DURING the late campaign the Journal very
frequently called the attention of the liquor
men to the serious if not fatal mistake they
were making in forcing the question of the
regulation of that traffic into partisan pol
itics, and in arraying themselves solidly
against the Republican party. The ground
assumed by the Journal, and still main
tanned by it is, that the question of the mode
of such regulation is not rIghtfully par
tisan question, and cannot be made so with
out peril to all interests. And particularly
is this so With respect to the liquor men.
They cannot afford to maintain themselves
in the position they have occupied and are
occupying. They cannot afford to- antago-
nize great political party, and through it a
possible majority of the people. They can
not afford to violently declare that the peo-
pie shall not exercise freely and without in
timidation of any kind clear constitutional
right. The Journal said that defeat by the
liquor league at the present time of the right
of the people to vote upon the constitutional
amendments would be the dearest vic
tory they could possibly have, and
we wish to repeat that statement in all
its length, breadth and thickness The
liquor-leaguers will yet see this question as
we have seen it, and will rue the day when,
blinded by presumed se1f-interest, they i'm
pertinently and impudently thrust their
traffic between the people and their rights.
We commend a careful and calm considera-
ton OF the following words from the Rich
mond Palladium upon the subject:
Some of the persons interested in the
liquor traffic are beginning to realize that they
counted without their host when they
threw their efforts, their money and their
votes into the scale against the Republican
party last fall in this and other States They
find that in eStranging and making enemies
OF large numbers of Republicans, who hereto
fore have been disposed TO tolerate q great
deal of their tyranny and arrogance and to
accord them the right to carry on their pro-
scribed traffic under proper regulations, they
(the liquor men) have worked against their
own best interests. They have sowed the
wind, and there is every probability that
they will reap the whirlwind They are now
almost Apon their Bonded knees implorlng
the Republicans in Congress to pass the bill
extending the bonded period for whisky-a
measure which, they allege, is vital to the
solvency of many of those interested i'll the
fiery fluid. If the Republicans aforesaid
were disposed to get little sweet revenge,
they might with propriety tell their petition
ers to go to- and utterly refuse to grant the
desired relief.
There is strong and growing sem
timent i'll the public mind in favor of fur
Their restriction of the liquor traffic. 1t needs
only the continued fuolishness and faulty of
those interested in this business, in making
political question of the traffic, to utterly
crush it out in numerous localities which
now forbear with it, and ultimately to
make prohibition national In opposing aud
helping to defeat the Republican party, the
liquorleagues and their friends are like
the ungrateful viper-they are biting a file
Should they force the Republican party to
make political issue of prohibition, the
fight may, like that against the twin relic,
slavery, be long and hard one, but it can
not in the end fail to result in the same way:
the extinction OF the obnoxious institution.
1t is for the liquor men to say whether they
wish to make permanent and imnlacable
enemy of the Republican party on this ques-
ton"