Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1885-10-08
Abolition and Prohibition.

Nothing Is so encouraging to the
champions of weak cause and nothing
so we'll calculated to bring them converts
as plausible comparison between the
movement dear to their hearts and some
other great cause which began as for
lorn hope and ended in triumph. This
is probably the reason why Prohibition
lists are so fond of likeniDg their third
party movement to that of the aboli-
tionists. There is no doubt that the
comparison fastens itself strongly upon
many minds and leads to numerous i'll
founded hopes. A few Republicans
fancy that they stand now where the
Wings were in the ffties, and some of
them desert their party solely through
ambition to gain an early place in the
coming organization. The analogy is so
captivating that they are blind to its
falsity. In reality there is very little in
common between the movements against
negro slavery and the political party war
upon the liquor traffic. The one is, as
the other was, directed against great
evil, and both started in weakness and
derision, but that is about as far as the
likeness goes. To be sure there is some
similarity in minor results. Both, in the
beginning, filled small number of en-
thusiasts with the ardor which glories
4, oDD0S;t;op opd bpomc M oom ioa
with the foe. Both began by damaging
most the great party from which the
evil attacked derived least support, and
in both movements there were soon prom
inent leaders largely moved by personal
spite and am oitions. But these are points
of comparatively little moment. and the
differences are world wide. Slavery was
an evil sustained by law against the will
of those who most suffered from its hOr-
rors, while intemperance aourishes In
spite of law through the fierce desire of
its victims. The one could not exist for
an hour without the support of law; the
other runs riot wherever and whenever
the law is neutral. Slavery was artiti-
cial, and liquor drinking is natural. The
former was local; the latter is co-exten>
sive with the human race. Slavery could
not exist openly and in the day, while
drunkenness hides in secret places and
in the night. Involuntary servitude bad
one form and one material, whereas in
temperance has numerous guises. To
crush slavery was to repel an invader.
while to legislate the traffic in intOxicat-
ing liquor out of existence is to eradicate
large element of a country's own peo>
pie. In the one case a field was to be
cleared of one giant tree, but in the other
the weeds springing thick from mex
haustible and imperishable germs are to
be kept from coming up. Slavery could
be killed once for all, but intemperance
will never wholly die while the human
race fails of perfection. And yet men
and women say that we see a second abb
clifton movement, and that st. John is
another Wendell Phillipsl Whatever
else may be said of the Prohibition party
movement this is nonsense. Let its sup
porters glorify it to their hearts content
on its own merits. but let them cease to
borrow the splendors of a totally distinct
and dissimilar crusade against great
evil. Reformers cannot afford to be un>
fair, and it certainly is unfair to call
prohibition and abolition twins in nature
or in possibilities. Cleveland Leader.