The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1884-05-09

1t license carries no sanction, but is only
prohibitive, then why not license prostitution !?
mo-" say the good men who are confound-
ing things that differ. "No that is sin
per &C." But what difference does it make
whether prostitution is sin per Sc, or sin
per circumstance, if the licensing it is simply
in the nature of tax, and merely restrictive !?
If the position of these men is correct, then
the licensing of prostitution carries no sane
tion and their running to shelter under &c sin
per Sc is blank cowardice and logical suicide
If their position is not correct, then licensing
the drink shop is formal official investment of
the drink shop, with full right to open it's
doors and proceed with its work of ruin
One horn of the dilemma or the other, gen.
| tlemen. There is no alternative save to wash
hands clean and forever of the whole business
of license.
I know the fallacies with which honest and
conscientious men strangely delude them
selves here. They get their chief expression
In this concentrated piece of wisdom, viz
that half a loaf is better than no bread at ALL
But is a half loaf better than no bread at all !?
If in getting the half loaf l must compromise
with iniquity, then let the bread go. 1t is
better to perish of hunger than do wrong
/ If in getting few saloons closed I must
sanction the saloon business by advocating IL
cense, high or low, then let my tongue cleave
to the roof of my mouth before it speak ap-
proval. I must not do evil that good may
come.
Listen now to some of the misleading anal
ogies by which good men seek to prop their
| judgment in this case s'If I have five chill
dren sick with some malignant fever, I will
save three if | can't save all" Yes, but that
father will do his utmost to the very last to
save all. He won't go into the license bust
ness with death. He will attempt to save
each with the same fidelity and persistence
with which he tries to save every other child
Anything short of that would be criminal
Now let him strive to shut all the saloons Just
as persistently as he would strive to save all
his children, and he is a prohibitionist Pro-
hibition seeks to do just that, and only that
but are not fifteen saloons better than
twenty" Let us see. Are fifteen murders
better than twenty? Certainly not, if in les
sening the number by five, the government
must issue its formal license TO commit the
! fifteen
! :" ut this kind of argument in the old
slave-holding days would have made it wrong
at the south to advocate law prohibiting the
sale of husbands from their wives, or any
other cruel feature of slavery" Not at all.
Such a law would not have been a provision
for licensing slave-holding but provision
for stopping one of its wrongs. Any honest
opposer of slavery living in the south could
have advocated such a law with a good con-
science. But suppose the question had been,
Shall the state issue annual licenses to men to
hold slaves, it being provided in the license
that they shall not sell husbands away from
wives? Or to make the case exactly parallel,
it being provided that the license fee shall be
$500? You see the difference, and you see
the fallacy
1t is the license feature in this business
the giciog the legal right to do a moral aoroag
that commands the protest of many good
men, and which we believe will command the
protest of millions more before the discussion
is through. The half-loaf- better-than-no-
bread theory goes to pieces against this rock
of principle
But do not the scriptures speak of times
of ignorance that God winked at, or over
looked? Did not Moses suffer divorce be-
cause of the hardness of the peoples hearts
Were not slavery, polygamy, and the taking
of human life, divinely tolerated or regulat-
ed?" Yes But the dim twilight of that
distant past is not the high noon of to-day.
The 8 times of that ignorance are not the
times of this knowledge. A fifteenth century
conscience before Christ cannot justify
nineteenth century conscience after Christ.
For blinded Israelite to be allowed to do
what he thought right, is no reason why an
intelligent christian should do to-day what he
thinks wrong.
1t is the action of man who acknowledges
the evil and curse of this saloon business,
that we are discussing. Shall he by voice
and vote favor law licensing the drink-shop
when he knows the drink-shop is everywhere
and always the prolific source of moral abom-
nations To put us under the liberation of
that distant, blind, cropping, patriarchal age,
would justify our regulating and licensing
Mormon polygamy, and letting back south
ern slavery. Jacob could not have had our
| light, and at the same time both kept his
wives and good conscience.
Emerson voiced universal truth in saying
"Men are strong in proportion to their con-
victions" The stomach and the pocket do
not rule the world. Ideas are more than all
moneys and appetites and armies and govern
ments Let US get the public mind once
seized with some definite and intense convic-
tons on this liquor question, get ii thrust
through with light and truth and fact, and
there is not power of legislative bribery, or
a possibility of political combination, or
enough bulking of capital, in any liquor
/ league on earth, to stand against it.
The supreme business of the hour, there
1 fore, is to make men see the truth about the
dram-shop; that there is no possibility of
Just compromise with it; that it is evil and
only evil and that continually; that licens-
ing it is bad policy and bad morality If
men say 1.-The state is not ready for prohibit
ton" let the answer be 1--WE mean to make
y -