The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-12-27
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

Editor OF the Indianapolis journal.

To the Editor OF the Indianapolis J0uYnaI
There is thousand times as much good
sense in bio Lews's five-column TRADE
against prohibition as some superficial peo-
pie will at first allow, while at the same time
1t abounds with nonsense of the most trans
parent type. But it would not be Dr. Dio
Lewis without this strange compound. The
sense is found by careful search in his three
or four columns of words, which, cc-,i.,,en-
A. n "a. *Inrta is n de 80
" 4 80. Safference between vice
and crime, and the State may not legislate
against vice-that is the preachers business
but it may legislate against crime. Now,
there is nothing new in that, except that o
man who is good temperance man uses it
against temperance legislation. 1t is always
vice to get drunk but it is no crime except
under certain circumstances. 1t is not ne
cessarily vice or a crime to sell liquors, but
under certain circumstances it may be both
and the State for 300 years has assumed to
cay under what circumstances it becomes a
crime, but never has pretended to deal with
it as a vice. That it always leaves to moral
forces, and always should. The State
may not presume to deal with individual
vices, but it may and must look after schools
of vice, OF which tippling houses are chief, and
no prohibtory law in America ever attempted
to do more than this. or ever should, not
withstanding occasionally some lndiscrete
country Jakes have claimed more for prohi-
bition.
DIR. Lewis is rather unfortunate in his sta
tistics, his object being to d:sparage prohibi-
ton, which is an old song with him, often
sung, but with no effect except to please the
LIQUOR interest. He admits that after dill
gent search he found no public saloons in
Maine, but then there were II. sos arrests in
year for street drunkenness in that State.
OF course Prohibition does not pretend to
cure men of the vice of love of drink, but
it does pretend to lessen drinking by just so
much as places OF public tipping foster and
educate that vice, and in that it succeeds to
charm. And is not this glorious achieve
ment, worth all it COSTS even if some men
do get drunk? This argument
against prohibition from these fig
ures is of piece with the argument
of the Louisville Courier-Journal, few
weeks ago, to prove that life is more secure
in Mississippi than in Indiana. BY compar
ing the number of convictions for murder in
Indiana with the number in Mississippi it
was found that there were twice as many
here as there hence the laws and civilization
of Indiana render life less secure than there.
He forgot to say that such killings as that in
Copiah county are not called murders in
Mississippi, but would be here. If the In
dianapolis police would be as thorough as the
police IN Maine, we could beat the whole
State of Maine in arrests for drunkenness
One hardly knows whether to scold or laugh
at his Standardization over the result of the
crusade That some heroic women started
ont to pray in saloons the next day after his
address at Hillsboro, O., ten years ago, is
true. But twas very remotely connected
with his speech, and it took a direction that
he was no more the father of than he
was of the floods of last winter,
and it was grand success for few weeks
wherever tried. 1t was flank movement
on the saloon interest for which they were
not looking, and it threw them into a mo-
mentary confusion, so much so that some of
the women and Dr. Dio Lewis were about to
shout the millennium dawn. But the sa-
looms rallied in few weeks, and the women
saw that prayer alone was not enough to
suppress the saloon business, hence they or
ganized the W. c. T. u, the most effective
prohibltory organization in America, leaving
Or. Dio Lewis alone in his war upon prohi-
bition. He is old now holding
tenncously to his early convictions. There
is no discount on his plety but the women
of America beg to be not held responsible
for any of his notions about prohibition.
IT GOoDUTN