Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1885-05-08
Temperance not q Party Issue.


Immediately after the close of the last
political campaign, there was organized
under the name of the National Non-par-
tisan League" an association of temper
ance workers who announced their belief
that the temperance cause is not and can
not successfully be made party issue
The results of the campaign were such as
to make this an inevitable conclusion. 1t
is clearly useless for the advocates of tenn
perance reform to try to further their cause
by means of third political party.
The temperance party as such in this
country has probably played it's last poll
tical game as a partisan organization.
Hereafter it will work for its own proper
ends along its own proper lines of effort.
Such, at least, are the conclusions which
one would naturally arrive at who has
remarked the general disfavor with which
the temperance party has been regarded,
on account of the unsuccessful and I'M
fortunate part played by it in the last
political campaign. We find a valuable
contribution to the discussion of this sub
jectin avolume entitled 'Non craftsmanship
in Temperance Effort" recently published
! by Rev. DR.. Dorchester, president of the
National Non-partsan League. The
points taken up by the author are sensible
and well argued. He deals with the facts
of the case III spirit of fairness and i'm
Partially which cannot fail to win the re-
spect and confidence of the reader, hOwev-
er much he may dissent from the conclu-
sionS reached. DR.. Dorchester after
showing the utter uselessness and fulfill
| ty Of m L tp m rnforr,1 n mart iSan
issue, goes further, and charges that a
political temperance party intlicts Il funda-
mental injury upon temperance reform,
by removing it from its proper and neces-
sary sphere into the arena of State and
National contests. BY so doing, he says, it
splits the real temper ince party into two
divisions, having different plans of action,
conflicting with each other, and so neu-
tralizing the power of temperance senti-
ment. Furthermore it must necessarily
infect the work of reform with a bitter
partisan spirit, and while dividing the
forces of its adherents must greatly lessen
their common power.
| The Boston TruUcllGr, commenting upon
this point, says:
An illustration of this is furnished by
comparing the recent nOn-partisan tenn
perance vote in the States of Kansas,
Iowa, Maine and Ohio with the vote
thrown for "A distinctively third-party
ticket. In these States the question of
constitutional prohibition was in its
strctest sense non-partisan one, and in
recent elections in these States Gal, III
votes were cast in favor of this most rad-
cal form of temperance legislation. Of
these only 10, 157, or u little less than three
per cent, followed the fortunes of
] 4 Lob, DIV
paign. The third party movement is an
attempt to drive the g., 900 to join the 10,
600 who assume to themselves the credit
of being the only consistent friends of
temperance, In 1888 the no-license vote
in Massachusetts was 81, sos, or A. per cent
OF the whole vote cast on the license ques-
ton, while in 1884 but 81 per cent of the
total vote was cast for st. John, and "A
large portion of this small per centage was
made up of voters who We're not even pro-
feSSedly temperance men, but who would
not vote for either Cleveland or Blaine.
Contrasting the failure of partisan ac-
ton with independent, non-partisan effort
in temperance work, DR.. Dorchester shows
that whatever progress has been made
anywhere in the country, in the matter of
temperance legislation, has been made in
every instance, without partisan action
The third party" he says, after sixteen
years existence has never put IL temper
ance law on our statute books; and the
question of advanced temperance legisla-
ton has never been so complicated, EN-
barrassed, and hindered, as since it ha,
been brought into the antagoniSms and
prejudices of party strife by third party
action"
TlM secret which lies at the bottom OF
all this is not hard to discover The tenn
perance cause loses caste with the people
and arOuses needless opposition when il
lends itself to political purposes under tn,
hope of thereby gaining power. Reform
is something which men do not like to be
pushed into They can be coaXed, bu
not forced. This whole movement of the
st. John party was offensive to the grea
mass of public sentiment. 1t was a de
parture from the natural and legitimat,
means of advancing the doctrines of re
formation and morality, and it cannot VIII
permanent aud genuine success in tn,
future.