Sword and shield. (Clinton, Miss.) 1885-1888, 1885-12-19
Prohibition and Popular Conscience.

| Our conservative uel8hDpf, Iue
Observer, is not yet ready to raise
the Prohibition flag, becaure as it
says:
No Prohiditory legislation can possibly
become general and effective unless the
mass Of the population cen be ma lie to feel
that the prevalent use Of intoxicatinf drinks
is an evil.
Our neighbor makes therein a
threefold mistake.
1. It is mistake to assume that
the mass of the population do not
know and realize the evil of the
rum-habit and rum-traffic. Knowl-
edge of evil has never since the fail
in Paradise, been limited by mems
abstinence from it. Nor can the
popular conscience be graded by the
low line of common life. The basis
for all moral appeals is in the fact
that the world knows better than it
does. In spite of prevalent intem-
perance the liquor curse is burned
into the popular conviction. The
churcher, in which 20,000,000 Of our
population are found every Sunday
ring with warnings against it. States
men frankly confess it in public doc
uments. Politicians are seeking to
graft some sort of temperance pro-
posals upon their dying parties, that
they may be reviewed by touching a
olive ISSUE" As a known fact,
drunkards and semi-drunkards by
the thousand dropped ballots from
hands halt-palsied with indulgence
to swell the temperance victory in
Georgia. The cry Of woe goes up
to Heaven from every side, and
everybody hears it. The misery
everybody sees. In which direction
is our neighbor looking? Has a
moral catalepsy fallen upon his
eyes?
2. Our neighbor is, moreover,
short sighted in the very direction
in which it is looking. For, grant
ing that Prohibitory legislation needs
the support of popular temperance
sentiment back of it, would not the
fact that such legislation could be
carried show the existence Of the
popular sentiment? This is our
grievance with many good men who
claim to be friends Of temperance
reform, that they are willing to stife
the expression of the popular senti-
ment. To oppose such legislation
on the ground that the people are
not yet ready for it, is to ''beg the
question:" to prejudge the fact, and
prevent its determination.
3. Were it true that popular senti-
ment is not preponderatingly on the
side Of temperance restraint, this
would be no reason for Withholding
temperance legislation. The growth
of civilization has followed the wis
dom of lawmakers who were in ad-
vance of the masses. It has been SO
from the days of Solon, who assumed
the legislative function only on con-
dltion that the people would leave
his laws undisturbed during his ab-
sence, and then knowing that the
people did not appreciate his code
and would be disposed to change it,
went into a long voluntary exile.
The disposition to leave legislation
At the level of the popular notion,
and to lead the crowd only as they
would be disposed to go were there
no leadership, is not that Of states
men, but of demagogue. Our laws
ought to be more than police regu-
ations they should win the popular
respect as sources Of moral educa-
ion, the preceptive models to which
The popular manhood has given
Itself. A people whose laws are no
higher and purer than the lives OF
5he lowest stratum of society is near
TO anarchy.
Our neighbor overlooks the tonic
influence which would come from the
passage Of temperance laws. There
IS majesty in the announcement Of
! popular judgement, like that in
Georgia, which sends thrill of en-
among temperance
workers throughout the world,
touches the marrow of the indiffer-
ent, and opens the eyes of those who
have been dreaming Of some distant
millennium to be brought in by
moral suasion. Let us have one
''long pull, and a strong pull, and
pull altogether" for Prohibition
and if we do not find that popular
sentiment is on our side, we will do
much to make it so.