Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1884-11-20
The Prohibition Cranks.

The money collected by the Demo-
cratic party from the whisky shops put
and kept that fraud, S.. John, in the
field as u presidential candidate, and
10000 Republican cranks in New York
cast their ballots nominally for him, but
really for the party of rum.
1t is time the truth should be told
about these cranks, who are "idiotically
blind as DR.. Hatfield, a prominent
temperance man, says of them. They
have stopped the progress of temper
ance, they have increased the power of
rum in politics, they have betrayed the
party which has advanced the cause of
temperance. They are cranks, but they
are responsible for their acts, and they
deserve the contempt of sensible men,
and, most of all, of genuine temper
ance people.
What they have done in Ohio is a
fair sample of the inevitable conse-
quences of their crazy logic. They
succeeded in getting a constitutional
amendment prohibiting the issue of IL
censes to saloons in that state. The
Scott law, fixing tax and not license
on saloons, was passed, and hundreds
of thousands of dollars collected by the
cities and towns to pay the expense of
police, jails and almshouses. rendered
necessary by the saloons. Under the
amendment secured by the Prohibition
lists, the Democratic supreme court
(whose election the Prohibitionists
aided has declared the tax unconstitu-
tional.
The taxpayers of the towns and
cities and counties will now be taxed to
pay the cost of the institutions which
the saloons render necessary and to pay
back the hundreds of thousands of dol
lars collected under the law.
The school teachers of Ohio are not
able to collect their salaries because this
decision has deprived the communities
of u source of public revenue No new
schoolhouses can be built, no additional
teachers can be employed, because OF
the increased burden of taxation render
ed necessary by this Democratic decis-
ion which is based on the measure Sc
cured by the Prohibition cranks.
Enlightment. education, only can
overcome the power of rum. and yet the
Prohibition cranks throw an obstacle in
the way of education while increasing
the burden of every man and woman
who owns home.
Under the free whiskey system, fol-
which the Ohio cranks are responsible
the saloons are multiplying in number,
and. of course, in political power, SC
that the difficulty of regulating them
becomes almost insuperable.
Nationally they have made more
stupendous blunder rs temperance men
Even if prohibition were anything else
than the dream of impracticable persons
the course of the St. John cranks would
have destroyed its every chance. The
only possible chance for prohibition il
in state limitation. 1t could never be $
national matter until the people of al
the states should become unit in it:
| favor, which of course could not be- Bu
Republicans who were in favor of The
state attempt at prohibition have beer
driven into contempt for the whole
business by movement which has per
haps defeated the only party that evel
did anything for tue cause of temper
auce, and placed the party of FIRE,
whiskey in power.
That the Republican party will eve
be whipped into giving any countenanc,
to the cranks who have taken from i
the votes of 10000 men in New York
is as insane n proposition as thes,
cranks have ever made. Niltrauke
Sentinel.
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