The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-12-27
The Prohibitionists Organizing for a Ffgor
GUS C~ampaign-Dr. Halls Attitude-A
Split Among the Sellers of Beverages.
An Unseemly Quarrel Among Members
of the Grant Monument Committee.
New and Novel Fashionable Scandal-Sluggel
Sullivan Astonishes the New York Public
by Keeping Sober a Whole Week.
WAR AGAINST RUM.

A Coming Struggle Which Drives Profess
sional Statesmen to Distraction.
Special to the Indianapolis Journal.
New YORK, Dec. 26.-With the opening of ths
New York Legislature, next week, what will prob
ably be the hardest of fights for and against run
will begin. 1t will be characterized by struggles
between factions on each general side, and tho
professional statesmen are distracted by the in
tricacies and difficulties of the situation. Tbs
issue can hardly be put aside, because the Pro.
hibi:ion vote defeated Ira Davenport, the Repub.
lican candidate for Governor in the last cleo
ton, and the Prohibitionists, thus encouraged,
are organizing for further destructiveness
They have established a Prohibition lecture
bureau as a means of furthering their cause.
and the scheme is new, novel and curious
Total abstinence orators are to b
provided in abundance, and these will
not be mounted on the political stump, nor re-
served until a political campaign. but placed ON
the lyceum platforms, in pulpits and anywhere
else that intelligent audiences can be reached
To this end. circulars have been sent to all the
churches, young mems associations, fire COM
panies. Grand Army posts, and other organiza-
tlcns likely to require lectures. A list of speak.
es is given, and some of the names are very at
tr~active, while the prices are much lower than
those named by the regular lecture bureaus, and
often merely nominal; but the theme is always
temperance, In some phase or other. though in
many instances the title hardly indicates it. The
calculation is that. by this system, effective ad-
vocates of prohibition will be heard in every city
and village throughout the State, and that their
doctrines will get a lodgment that will stand
against subsequent campaign removal.
In the meantime, the temperance movement.
the use but not-abuse principle. is gaining q
powerful backing. The Rev. DR.. John Hall.
pastor of the wealthiest congregation in Ameri-
ca, has made a speech declaring that wine is q
good thing TO drink in moderation; that 1t 10
cowardice to admit that you cannot be temper
ate without abstinence, and that it is by no
means the duty of anybody to refrain from rea-
sonable drinking because somebody else is a sot.
That is the view set forth by the Episcopal
Church Temperance Society, by the Rev. DIR.
Crosby's Society for the Prevention Of Crime.
and by Beechers Plymouth Church Temperance
Union. These influences are back of the really
powerful movement for a high-license liquor
law, the bill for which is drafted to make the
fee a thousand dollars for distilled beverages
and only a hundred for wines and beer.
The Prohibitionists deem such a measure per-
nicious and wicked, and will oppose it with all
their might and main. Thus the great army
arrayed against intemperance is divided against
itself, and the feeling of the factions is exceed
ingiy bitter towards each otker. Every Sunday
sermons are preached in this city on the subject
from the one or the other stand point, and the
s:o-r ~-1 - IL z-.:-zA
ton reform as against the evil that both seek to
abate. Committees from both sides will 60 to
Albany and stay there until the Legislature ID
brought to vote on the question.
The beverages trade is split as widely as it's
enemies. The keepers of prosperous bars.
especially those in the hotels, desire high license.
and would like to apply it to beer saloons as we'll
because they wish to drive out a good proper.
ton of the ten thousand drinking places in town.
The distillery interest is dismayed by that
proposition, which would give beer a tremendous
advantage, and they therefore have engaged q
lobbyist for Albany, with a fund to beat a dis
eliminating Their organization is no
richer or me tive, however, than that of tho
brewers, WI ) determined to help along the
measure [ high license for whisky and
comparatively low license for beer.
Frederick Mex. Loesser will be
the Albany manager for the whisky men. and
Henry Katzenmeyer for the brewers; and it ID
understood that each will have command of az
much money as will be requisite. 1t will thus
be seen that, strangely enough, a big Doodle
will be there in the practical interest of the Pro.
hibitionists. to defeat a discriminatory high Ii
cepse, and another for the aid of the church
temperance party, to further the same measure.
What degree of utilization there will be is ~conject-
ural, but in all its aspects the position of the
State politician. from the smallest grabbing as.
semblyman to the most ambitious seeker of the
presidency, is fraught with the keenest interest.