The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-10-11
AN EXPLANATION.

The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, yes
terday, in an editorial upon the returns of
the Ohio election, says;
Republican gains do not appear as ex-
pected in the country, and there are cases of
loss it is difficult to account for. We are in
formed that the best Republican news they
are getting at Columbus is from the large
towns, which is just what was not ex-
pected."
We think this phenomenon easily ac-
counted for. What does it mean that the
Republicans of Ohio have gained the most
largely in cities, and have not gained so
largely as was expected in rural districts?
Why, certainly nothing more clearly
than that the great body of con-
sentative, practical business men have
emphatically Endorsed a plain, sensible,
practical method of dealing with a very
vexatious question; while the vote that
was expected from localities where a high
moral sentiment, commendable as it is, is
not confronted or modified by the presence
of an existing state OF facts that city men
must meet, did not materialze. The Scott
law, taxing the LIQUOR traffic Justly and
squarely, bringing two millions of dollars
into the treasury, adding largely to the poor
fund and to the general expense fund, was
the strength of the Republican party in Ohio.
For thirty years, under a mistaken
notion, Ohio has had unlimited
free whisky. No tax has been paid by the
liquor traffic; not a dollar of revenue has been
collected from it; but the saloon has -four
ished just the same, drinking has gone on,
criminal and pauper expenses have been laid
upon real estate and personal property and
upon all other business, but the saloon alone
has escaped any legal restraint or regulation.
In rural populations the saloon problem is
not the same as it is in towns and cities and
among large aggregates of people. Facts
must be taken as they exist, and the prac-
teal judgment of the people of Ohio,
speaking through the Republican party,
formulated the Scott law, compelling the
saloons to contribute reasonable share of
the expense they were such large factor in
creating We think the increase of
the Republican vote in cities % should
not have been unexpected. That is precise
" where any philosophical study of the
canvass would have led Republicans to ex-
pect their largest increase, and the result of
the ballot shows such an expectation would
not have been misplaced.
We are not arguing the merits of pro-
lDoI;
matter for the individual conscience and
Judgment; but it does seem to be too plain
for cavil, that in the present state of
the public mind, in such states as Ohio
and Indiana at least, when the liquor
question is forced into politics the
only. practical thing is regulation and
restriction, more or less severe as the senti-
ment of communities VARIES and the only
impractical thing is prohibition, that will
tolerate nothing else, except it be free
whisky. What is wanted in dealing with
the liquor question, so far as parties and
politics must deal with it at all, is to do the
very best practical thing in the interest Of
public morals and public safety and not as
has been the case in Ohio for a third
OF century, usher in an era of
free liquor under the very thin
guise of negative prohibition 1t is no
secret that many, possibly thousands, of sa-
loon men voted and worked for
the prohibition amendment just as
they supported, thirty years ago, the
existing clause of no license in the
constitution, because they thought its adop-
ton would relieve them from the burdens
and restrictions. OF the Scott law
We are saying nothing against prohibition,
and nothing against the most urgent and
persistent moral agitation of it among the
people by its advocates. The Journal has
repeatedly said that there should be the
largest liberty and liberation upon this
and upon all other like questions which
lie outside of political party divisions and
political party action. But we cannot under
stand why any true temperance man. pro-
hibitionist, or local optionist, or advocate of
license, or what not, cannot heartily and
earnestly unite upon some practical measure
for the restriction of the confessed evils
resulting from the sale of intoxicants and
for the mitigation of the expense that in
evitably flows from it, facts which are and
have been recognized for hundreds of years