The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-11-18
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE.

Most people go straight across lots to moral
truth and mora! action intuitively. 1t is well
that this is So If they waited to find the way
by logical steps aud exact processes, right moral
action would be delayed long after emergencies
had arisen, and the world would get on with new
movements after a very laundering fashion.
But occasionally sincere people, having right
perceptions of moral truth, fall into mistaken
views Of personal action. If intelligent and un-
prejudiced, they can always be turned right by
logical processes, reaching back and discovering
the paths and angles over which others
bounded to right conclusions by intuition. To
some, taxing an evil" is a moral problem
Licensing, in the sense that privilege is thus
created or sustained, is a misnomer, and do not
use that misleading phraseology.
III their assumption of premise is admitted, it
would truly be q problem but wrong conclu
sions respecting moral action from wrong prem
ises is just as inevitable this as upon all other
questions. In respect to this matter the wrong
premise is in the assumption that the saloon and
the liquor traffic is institution created by law.
1t need not be wondered at that, if such was the
fact, the moral sense should rebel at it, as is
noticed by those who seem to believe it. But
a
Islander on our civilization. The fact of all his
tory and all observation is that there never was
n statute in any way relating to saloons or
the liquor. traffic until saloons and the
traffic were an entity, just there was no
heaven till the fall, hell till there were sin
ners, prisons till there criminals, nor
statutes against crime until crime called these
into existence l say these are facts in all his
tory. all observation and are logically true. No
statute against any phase of evil or crime ever
he a
crime or evil suggests the need of it. The legis-
laton on the liquor traffic question In Indiana is
open and plain to every one who desires to
know the facts. The people of the State
free it was hurtful, long before
they had law to restrict it. Then it is not
true that law created it and made it civil insti
tuition. That must be very plain The moral
sense was in time duickened as to move the
people of the State to pass statute to restrict
and put the evil under the ban of law. Until
then it had existed a right as the selling of
dry goods. Up to this date some such restric-
ton, putting more or less the stamp of illegti-
macy upon it, has existed. 1t is not, never has
been and never will DE the function of law to
create and establish this or anything
else. The emergency arises and then
communities act, whether in depressing evils by
restrictive legislation or encouraging legitimate
pursuits by protecting and promoting them. And
so falls the assumption that saloons and the
liquor traffic were created by law and
tanned by law. And SO falls the deductions from
the false premise-that the saloon and the
liquor traffic are political and civil institutions
so created by law-which is libel on our civiliza-
hon.
Thus it is seen that the object of law is to re-
strict evil, not create it; repress, promote it.
If there is lingering doubt in the mind of any
fair man In this regard let him ask himself this
question: Should our license law be repealed
would the liquor traffic cease2 The facts on
this point are the best answer. Without any law
w fhapo
were only two under her license law of several
years ago.
Now, it must be said that from our present
standpoint the restrictive law has not been
adequate. But the public found the evil
IN the land, and what they did was
out the expression Of the best concep-
sion of the majority What is any
law against any wrong but just that and no
more That law has been far better than moth
ing To have left it free after the moral sense
rebeled ct the evil would but have debauched
public morals. Does any dispute thisl Is
not Popes philosophy the consensus of the world
in respect to vice which,
Seen too oft, familiar with its face,
We first endure, then pity. then embrace
Is that not the situation in Ohio to-dayq With
no law to restrict, tax, burden and put it under
public condemnation, it runs riot has debauched
public morals by reason of equal footing and
legitimacy with all other business This very
fact that it is left free has in SO far made
it respectable there, as that it is not
only endured. but embraced" Common sense
well as all history show that to be true of all
evils left untouched by restrictive law. In the
early days OF American slavery, the institution
was condemned by the best thought of the South.
But through its continuance and freedom, and
by personal contact, the moral sense of that Sec
ton became so debauched as to declare it di-
vine institution, even from its church pulpits
Endured. pited, embraced. There never was a
truer philosophy. Apprehending this, the faith
ers did the best thing they could with the liquor
traffic, and so we doing to day.
Now is it wrong to do the best thing affair a
ble2 Every man has his idea in church or in
state His moral sense makes his duty plain
in the advocacy Of his ideal. 1t is not only his
right but his privilege to influence all whom he
can to see the right as he sees it. This right and
privilege, If not dnty, never ceases But the
hour for more than advocacy more than indoc-
trinating, comes For action is consummation,
and not ideal advocacy, and is, therefore, more
than the latter. Ones advocacy may or may not
influence others to right thought and purpose,
but ones action actually does contribute to
good or bad government 1t is something
accomplished; the other is an inspiration
to something It ought not to be
hard to distinguish between a thought
and an action. One may affect nobody, the
other inevitably and vitality touches society.
Few are harmed by thought, idea, for as
yet 1t has no EXPRESSION in act touching any
one But ever ~ vitality touches many and
does good or hal,A. So to refrain to act right is
sometimes equally as harmful as to act wrong
In civil government tho individual is the unit.
These units may rightfully preserve their indi-
viduality to the moment of action, and when
that comes they are morally bound to act for the
best it presents itself; not refuse to act or to
'act on ones own ideal ground, for that is the
Kind of action over which the worst trumphs:
and no man can be guiltless who does not in such
emergencies stand in the line of battle and
fight. and thus stay the worst
I recognize the awful evil of the liquor traffic
and hold TO my own ideal as a final remedy-ts
extinction-whether by more fully developing
me moral sense. that each individual shall
put it away from him, by stern law for the
contamination, or both. There is a world of
sgood philosophy in Carlyle's words that "he is
true reformer who first begins and perfects ref
orlnation on himself So far AS we may in
woke law, 1t seems to me, after the experience of
the past four years, the only thing. left to be-