The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-02-09
AGAINST A THIRD PARTY.
Rev. 7. A. Goodwin Tells the Prohibition
Club Why They Are Very Foolish.
What the Third-Party Men Came Near Doing
Last Fall-If You Can't Get ALI,
Get the Best You Can.

The Prohibition Club of Indianapolis invited
Rev. T. A. Goodwin to visit their rooms and tell
why he, lifelong prohibitonist, was opposed
to the third party movement. The following are
his reasons given at their meeting last night:
To beard the lion in his den is proverbially an
act OF boldness, even when you take the hon by
snrprise but when he has prepared for You and
has given you special invitation to walk into
his paror, it is sheer recklessness to accept the
invitation. l am here, at your invitation, to tell
you to your faces why j am not now and never
EXPECT TO be member of the Prohibitory party.
This may be bit OF recklessness, but this is the
exact situation. am to beard this lion in his
den on the lions invitation.
It is due alike to myself and to you
and to the cause We love that, first OF
all we ascertain how far we agree, and
where and why we part for here are good men,
with whom | have worked in harmony In the
temperance cause for more than forty years, but
with whom | cannot go into this party move
ment. Let me say, then, that am prohibi
zionist of the most ultra type so far as relates to
places of public tipping, but no further; unless,
IN order to gain this it shall become necessary to
strike the entire traffic in every form. with the
bosom OF destruction. If that becomes neces-
sary, am for that Such are my convictions of
the magnitude of the social, moral and economic
evils of the tippling house that regard its abso
lutte suppression as paramount to all other
questions now before the people Of America, and
such as to demand the entire police power of the
State, il need be, in its accomplishment To
think of permitting it to live one hour because
it pays revenue, big or little. into the treasury,
is not to put the price of blood into our Golfers,
as some fanatcal temperance disclaimers state
it, bnt it is to sell for money the most sacred in
ferests of home and of life itself. 1t would be
mercy to kill the victims of the dram shop out
right and suddenly by an assassin's dagger,
rather than to doom them to the miseries of
which they are relieved only at death. 1t is the
price of violated conjugal love and parental af
lection and care, and of the ruin Of domestic
happiness, not to say q very Insignificant con-
tribution TO the enormous expenses it entails
upon the State itself. Even more reprehensible
than all this is the cowardice and selfshness
which constitute the warp and wool of the
alternative proposition called local option"
That assumes that if the friends Of humanity
are too feeble to enact or to enforce prohibition
IN any given locality, the victims of the tipping
house must be abandoned to their fate Our
brave fathers did not reason thus eighty to a
hundred years ago. when some feeble settlement
Eecame the victim of Indian barbarties. No
man was coward enough then to propose local
option. Yet no Indian barbarities, from the
massacre at Wyoming to the battle of Tippeca-
noe, were ever half as cruel as the barbarities of
the tippling-house. Even State lines were no
boundaries to their common humanity. It was
enough to know that somewhere Indians were
hostile, and the brave baekwoodsman left
his own cabin in the wilderness to
fight a foe hundreds of miles away.
And 30 1t shall be in this crusade against the tip
pinRh house. before long. l agree with you.
further, that this question is in politics and must
be voted upon, and it has come to stay. 1t has
been in politics more than thirty years so far as
the tipping house is concerned, and it will re-
main hundred; or 80 long as there can be found
q r@sitical party that will agree to do the bidding
of the tipping house for the sake Of the votes
it controls But here we part company. Here
you have left me- and tens of thousands OF the
best of prohibitionists to form political party
in the interest of prohibition, in spite of ourpro
tegts. You are wrong, and am here to tell you
to your faces why you wrong. 1t may not
be very agreeable to you to hear it but it affords
me wucA -slessure to peform this duty.
First, let me say that you are wrong in de-
manding that every body must fit your bedstead,
or be stretched or clipped till he does. Be little
more accommodating. my brother. We were
not all cast in the same mold. and some Of US are
too old to be nodded over Why ultra as am on
prohibition as the only absolutely right thing, if
[ shall be member of the next egslature, which
MY heaven forbid-and / am quite sure that
heaven will shall introduce an anti-dram- shop
bill, and do my best to put it through; but if
there shall be also high-license bill, or a low
license bill, local-option DILL that has single
twist IN it that is not in the present law. l
shall vote for every one of them as they come
UP, not for the revenue that may be in the
one or the very little temperance that may be in
the other but because it will torture the traffic a
little. IL can't suppress it want to keep it
mad. Besides, these may be outposts which it
may be necessary to take before we take Vicks-
burg But we are on our way to .Vicksburg and
don't you forget it
am opposed to your party movement; not, as
some say, because there is not enough in it to
form the nucleus of party, for there is more in
it than in all other questions combined that de-
mand the attention of Congress and the legisa
lures. More of national wealth and individual
prosperity and domestic happiness is in
volved in the dram-shop question to-day
than in silver, or tariff. or banks
or even in the question who shall have the Offices
But am opposed to your movement because it
circumscribes our influence, and often leads to
absurd and suicidal proceedings. See the mar
row escape the city made last November through
your folly You ran q Prohibition ticket when
could be in the question whether or not Glad
stone should be returned to the headship of the
British empire. There was, however, a practical
local question at stake, and the Republicans put
themselves on the right side of it. both in plat
form and candidate. and for the time, at least
as squarely antagonized the liquor power of the
city as your party dared to do. Yet
by your nonsense you came within an ace of
eleeting the representative of the Liquor League
TO the chief Office of the city. There would have
been some apology for this if the Republicans
mad taken no notice of the issue or had proposed
to play the neutral in the election, as they did
last year in Ohio and New York To me it looks
suicidal to see q hundred or so good men vast
ing their political ammunition on an abstraction
when their brethren are engaged in life and
death struggle with the enemy, if it be only an
insignificant outpost that they are storming
Yet you did your best to put this representative
of the Liquor League into the mayors chair
But you failed. and l cannot believe but
that you are glad that you did
fail. Any other supposition would
be a reflection on your good sense that l dare
not indulge in at your own table. In spite of
your organized opposition. that election was more
than prohibition triumph; it was pointer as
YELL The man elected is not prohbitionist in
ny proper sense, but he arrayed himself man
July against the demands of the dram shop so far
h the dram shop could demand at city election.
Abraham Lincoln in 1860, was no Aboiitionist of
my type. and the Republican platform was wishy-
Tashy on the slavery question, and crineea be-
core the slave power; but voted for Mr.. Lincoln
shesrfuliy, and stood on the platform firmly. be-
cause there was square issue between them and