The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-21
TEMPERANCE AND POLITICS.
Dangers Of Making Prohibition a Cues
ton of Partisan Political Action.
The Situation Reviewed by Veteran OBJ
Server-What an Impracticable Minor
ity Are Capable of Accomplishing.


ment in Indiana addressed letter to an old,
prominent and distinguished Republican, ask
ing his views upon the propriety of the Re
publican convention of 1884 declaring in favor
of the submission of constitutional amend
ment for the prohibition of the liquor traffic,
and intimating that if such action was not
taken a third party would be formed, distinct
ly in favor of prohibition, which would cast
at least from 10, 900 to 90 900 votes. The let
ter did not ask a personal reply; but the gen
tleman to whom it was addressed prepared his
views, which are given below at length, and
to them we ask the careful consideration of
every Republican of Indiana, particularly Of
those specially known as temperance men;
THE LETTER.
MY Dear Sir-I fully agree with you as to
the evils which flow from the liquor traffic. For
fifty years 1 have endeavored, by such means
as seemed proper to me, to arrest them. But,
notwithstanding all my exertions, have no per
sonal knowledge which me that have
been instrumental in producing the permanent
reform of a single drunkard. My success, there
FORE in all these years, has been so little as to
leave me but slight grounds of hope that it will
be any better during the remaining brief period
of my life, unless there shall be employed some
new and more effectual instrumentalities than
those hitherto tried Whether prohibition
would prove to be of this character is question
entitled to the most earnest and serious con
sideration, if, for other reason, because you
and other influential and active workers are so
Jealous in its defense.
Some years ago we passed prohibitory law,
and the friends of temperance made the most
energetic efforts to maintain and have it en-
forced, 1 participated in these efforts. be-
lieved it,consttutional-a proper exercise of the
police power of the State-and my private opin
ion upon the subject has undergone no change.
But the Supreme Court thought otherwise, and
the people of the State, always law abiding,
have acquiesced in the decision so that it
has become the well settled law of the State that
an amendment to the Constitution is necessary
before another prohibitory law can be enacted.
Within the twenty nine years that have elapsed
since the passage of that law. the cause Of tenn
perance has not only not gained anything practi
caly in so far as legislation can influence it. but
has actually lost great deal; that is, we are
of intemperance than we were before the ex-
pertinent of prohibition was tried. Whatsoever
the causes may be, this is palpable fact.
Zone of the general causes has been, in my
opinion, the agitation of temperance as a pohti-
cal question-its introduction into party plat
forms. Whilst it is in some sense mi-political,
it reaches back to the moral conduct of each in
dividual to such an extent that the temperance
reform of communities can be accomplished
only by the reform of individuals And mas
much as it can not be truthfully said
that all the members of either party
the Republican or Democratic-are for or against
temperance, the introduction of the question into
party platform pre- supposes that political par
ties strong enough to compel obedience to
their mandates, even upon matters involving the
private moral conduct of individual members.
Our experience in this State has shown the i'm
practicabity of such efforts, and has brought
US to the point of being confronted by the fact
that the question is to-day attended with more
difficulties than ever before. And the conviction
that it is so causes me to believe that if intern
peranee is to be successfully grappled with in the
future, it must be done by more persuasive ard
popular means than the agitation of absolute
prohibition as party and political question
1.-THE prohibitory amendment was not di
rectly involved in the last State canvass. If
a majority of the people had then voted for it,
in such form as would have signifed its APP
prevail that would not have made it part of
the Constitution. To have done this it was nee
essary that it should have been approved by the
Legislature after submission to it, The only
no the people should be allowed to pronounce for
against this submission-not for or against the
amendment. To have denied them this right
would have been equivalent to withholding from
them the authority to manage their own affairs
in their own way Thus viewing the matter the
Republican convention declared in favor of sub
mission, that is in favor of having the amend
ment submitted to the Legislature. This could
not have been rightfully understood as either for
or against prohibition, inasmuch as many Re
publicans who opposed it voted for submission
as political question. How many Democrats
in favor of prohibition voted the same way it is
impossible to ascertain In my opinion there
were very few, as the result was that the Demo
cratic party carried the State, and the amend
ment was lost, because it was not submitted.
They succeeded in accomplishing this by persuad-
ing hundreds of honest voters to believe that
vote to submit the amendment to the Legislature
was equivalent to vote for prohibition and
thus carried with them large number of anti
prohibitory Republicans. To adopt your sugges-
ton, therefore, and declare now in favor of pro-
hibition, the Republican party would have to
change ground and admit that the Democratic
accusation against the last convention was true
that by declaring in favor of submission merely
as political question, it was intended to in
clude the moral question of prohibition also 1t
certainly did not so intend, as is evidenced by
the fact that it endeavored to have the question
submitted at special and not at a general cleo
ton, for the express reason that it was con
sidered desirable to separate the political from
the moral 0uestion.