St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1884-09-11
ST. cyuhnsburp Galedunian.
The Prohibition Movement.

Each days advices from the west
point with more certainty to the poll
ing of an astonishing vote for the pro-
hibition ticket in that part of the conn
try next November. No year since the
prohibition party was organized has
been so full of promise for the reform
it represents.
We do not believe that the people
of the east realize to what proportion
this movement has grown. The pro
fessional politicians hereabout have al
ways affected To despise it. The party
press has left it severely alone. Even
the independents have given it but its
scant dues. 1t has remained for a few
papers published exclusively in the in
terest of the prohibition cause to convey
to their readers full information of the
progress of that cause III all parts of
the union.
We have, in former articles, sug-
gested some points of likeness between
the prohibition movement aud the alb
clifton movement. Both find their
chief opposition i'll the conservative
spirit which dctcrs people from set
ting any great revolutionary enterprise
in motion till the results can be pretty
well forescen. The abulitionsts had
this to contend with for twenty years.
Humane men aud women were ready
to acknowledge that slavery was at
tended with many wrongs. but 10th to
resort to radical aud violent measures
for getting rid of them. The prohibit
tionists make war upon drunkenness
and its Incidental evils by much the
same process as the abolitionists made
war upon the evils of slavery de
stroying the social conditions which
have made those evils possible. They
know no halfway station ut which to
stop. They Scorn restrictions on the
liquor traffic, and demand its total cN-
tinction. In all this they bear out
their likeness to the abolitiOnistS. In
the old times there were good men in
the south, Shareholders like their neigh
hors. who recognized some of the
abuses of the system of human bond
age, and who would have been glad to
see certain wholesome changes effected.
1t they had had their way, they would
have thrown the sanctions of the law
around the marriage of slaves, forbid
den their indiScriminatc sale, permitted
their education 10y their masters, and
perhaps provided for the emancipation
of those who had done faithful service
for given term of years. But the
motto of the abolitioniSts was "No
Compromise" They declared that
they could afford To wait. but they
could not afford to give up one iot or
title of their claim. They did wait.
Their numbers grew with each fresh
campaign in which they took Il part.
At last they conquered. The opposi-
ton split into factions in the summer
of 1850, and the iactional spirit was so
bitter that sort of cut-throat canvass
was carried ON, resulting IN the trl-
umphaut election of Lincoln.
e 1t is even to this point that some of
the prOhihitioniSt prophets predict the
continuation of the parallel, and,
certainly, historical comparisons give
force to their assumption. In 1860
there were four tickets in the field,
corresponding in ii general way to the
Cleveland, Blaine, Butler and st. John
tickets which we have this year. The
Lincoln ticket WAS the only one that
represented Il progressive moral idea,
Just rs that of Ex-Governor st. John is
the only one now. The Bell, Brcckcn-
rage ana Douglas tCktlS SIOOu lOl so
many varying phases of topics we'll
worn in partisan controversies of the
past the Lincoln ticket meant u rcvO-
luton.
We are curious to see how far the
prohibitioniStS will be able to follow in
the footsteps of the aholtionists with
the conditions in the present favorable
state. 1t is too much, we dare say,
To approve the faith of the more san
guine of them. and look for their entire
success but certainly there never WAS
"A time when they threatened to play
more mischief with the old party
maiorities They are determined this
year to show their strength, for there
may never come another such oppOrtu-
nifty. We are not of their organization.
We have a candidate of our own chooS-
ing on another. But we feel compelled
in Justice to our readers, who demand
of us an impartial statement of the
truth whether for or against our choice,
oadmit that the anti-liquor movement
is playing bigger part in the I'M
certaintlrs of the pending canvass than
any of the managing politicians Sus-
pcct.- Syracuse Evening Herald.