The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-19
PROHIBITION In PRACTICE.
Gail HamiltOn's .lncisiye and Vigorous
Treatment of a Great Question.
Language that Politicians of the ST. John Glass
Can Easily Understand-A Few Re-
marks on Political Side Issues.
North American Review for July.

'he disgust resulting from political prohibition,
will not be wholly Instantaneous, if the oppor.
tunity be improved to scrutinize anew the sound.
ness of accepted principles, to reform lines OF
action, to discover and fortify positions that all
will defend, to withdraw from indefensibla
points. to utilize weapons in our armory. The i
danger to temperance today is from the Prohi- |
ton party. The advocates of temperance
should everywhere insist upon what
Dr.. Porter and Judge Davis insisted
so strenuously before election, and
which was so strenuously denied--that Mr.. ST
John and the prohibition convention do not rep-
resent the great prohibition cause The reason
for prohibition stands now exactly where it has
always stood, and it will be a bad thing if the
folly of a few foolish women and a few bad men
should blind us to the fact that the wise women
and the honorable men who compose the great
arm of Prohibitionists were as stanch to the
other principles of Rcpublicanism as they are to
temperance, and fought against the prostitution
of prohibition to the Democratic partyas Loyalty
as was ever fought the battle OF human rights in
any other form.
There needs no sense. no system, no concerted
action to do mischief To do good often requires
all three Skill and study, the wealth and the
toll of years, so. to the rearing of stately
edifce, which barbarous hands with little
dynamite, wrapped in ragged shawl may
destroy in moment For those whose only
aim is destruction, there is no occasion to
study principles or to take note of tendencies;
but those who desire the elevation of
character should watch progress and observe
carefully the result of experiment. for their own
guidance in further action. All who are in earn
est, making fight not for their own prominence
or emoument chiefly, not for love Of fighting,
but to remove temptation and 10 build up ma
tonal temperance cannot fail to discern that
there great many of their number who be-
lieve that all amendment TO the Constitution Of
the United States prohibiting the manufacture
and sale of alcoholic liquors would be utterly
futile il it were accomplished is purely visionary
ard impracticable, and is, moreover. too antag-
onistc to the spirit of the Constitution to be ser
ously attempted. While, therefore this is o
proper subject of argument and discussion, one
would say that it is not proper dividing line,
because 1t would divide the advocates OF temper
ance. What we want is line sharply drawn
between those who wish society to be self
governing and temperate. and those who wish Ii
to be the slave Of low vice and intemperance-
massing and marshaling all the forces OF the one
against all the temptations of the other
If a prohbtory constitutional amendment
be insisted on as the Issue, the cause of intern
perance will gladly accept it. and the victory Of
temperance will be indefinitely postponed Any
thing that calls off attention from present dan
gers to remote dangers will be warmly welcomed.
however serious the future danger may be. A
contingent national prohibition is not half 80
menaclng to a nuisance as an urgent, wellen-
forced district law. Many temperance men be-
lieve that while the government has q legal
right to prohibit in the District of Columbia and
the Territories, it has no moral right and it
would be stretch of power to the very limits
Of tyranny to do 80 while prohibition is not
yet enacted by the States If the sem
timent of the Territories is not yet ed
ucated up to the point Of prohibition for
themselves, it is more in accordance with the
American idea to await the development Of such
sentiments from within than to force prohibition
upon the Territory from without Angry and
disappointed Republicans should remember that
this question was ably argued during the last
presidential campaign by leading Prohibitionists
and nowhere more ably argued than by
ton at st. Louis. Leading Prohibitionists
male and female maintained against their own
adherents, that the American idea Of personal
liberty is a moro sacred trust than personal tenn
perance, and that man must be often left free
to do wrong rather than forced to do right
This can be made an issue in temperance action
as we'll as in temperance discussion; but as
such it will divide and weaken the advocates
of temperance, and give a longer lease of life
to measures that permit and promote intern
perance.
The intemperonce of some temperance people
is causing the Or element of the temperance
party to scrut' most closely the paths before
us, to see VIII, some that have seemed new
and narrow lot, really, disguised but direct
avenues into tne DID, broad, familiar ways that
lead to destruction. There are many temperate
citizens who believe that while we waiting
"in the use of means for all men to be educated
to selfrestraint, which is temperance, and for
public sentiment to widen sufficiently to enact
and to enforce that prohibition which individual
men may not be strong enough to enforce upon
themselves, society has the right, and neces-
sariy therefore, is under obligation. to protect
it's members by onactng and enforcing such
laws as it can command. and that it should re-
strain by the severest effective taxation trade
which it cannot yet wholly abolish. Among
these men are the most successful practical
philanthropsts of the day; yet against them
professional temperance men use language as
Incorporate as any that ever emanated from the
vat Of brewer or the worm of the still. The
Temperance Review, "a family newspaper"
thus speaks of a proposal to tax liquor sellers
$500 year:
Great divines, both Catholic and Protestant
make haste to sell the right 20 damn mon for S5OOs
per year. Men who profess to be COM
missioned to labor with Jesus Christ to destroy
the works of the devil, deliberately continue to
let the devil open his by-waSs to hell for $500
way. And for what purposef Every
drunkard shall have an opportunity to get drunk
and beat, MAIN, shoot and stamp. If for tho
privilege of making men insane they pay $500
cash. God says Thou shalt mott the great
lights of st. Paul (Minn.) say. Thou shalt for
$500 year,
1t is to be hoped that the editor of this family
newspaper wrote in the imbecility Of intoxca-
ton. 1t is far more appalling that a sober mind
should have produced these words with malice
aforethought than that drunken mind should
have hiccoughed them out half unconsciously
Inebriety would mean nothing but nebrety:
sobriety would mean a habit Of needless and
harmful speaking; a steady bent to total
depravity The leader of this class;
the presidential candidate of the Pro-
hibition party, evnced in his public
speeches the same fatal inability to SEQ facts to
comprehend the meaning and the use of words.
He averred that the Republican party desires to
make the liquor traffic permanent in this coun-
try. to the end that the States and Territories
may derive revenue therefrom." Only brain
sodden with liquor or dull from some congenital
defect could honestly mako a statement that