The state chronicle. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1883-1893, 1886-01-07
THE PROHIBITION PARTY.


To IHE CHRONICLE An old Northern
editor Graves the courtesy Of Your South
ern columns a brief space. In "A re.vnt
editorial, coaeomnlng the formation II u
Prohibition party ia this State. YOU said
II prohloltlon = ever s2ect SSful IL
North Carolina Il N!ll b-s secured through
the cooperation Of members OF both par
ties, not through the efforts of the rcc.ut
~ organized party.
But how shall members Of both parties
co operate. If not through a new party
Wal they all 60 over into Democratic
ranks. Will they become Repubhcansf
You may say | know. that they will
cooperate outside politics, and in a non
partisan manner. But they never do. They
never can. Local option bat makes two
new or temporary partieS,-or one of them
Is temporary. Local option shelves both
the old parties for time Atlanta proves
tins The adjectives Democratic and Re
publican were LAID aside there for weeks.
and the things they represent were as
much abandoned as if dead and buried
Two parties fought out political issue,
where all political issues must..be settled
at the polls They were splendidIy or
ganized, and one of them Will be perma-
nent. If the other gives up organization,
disintegrates back into the two parties
whence it came, Prohibition in Atlanta
will de, and Local Option South will be
come what IN the North through forty
years ii has been demonstrated wretch
ed failure.
You were right, sir in saying that mem
bers of both parties must co operate And
they must do it not only in getting Prohi-
bition, but IN making it suceessful-you
were right there. But a thing won by
party effort, must be maintained by party
existence. thing worth organizing po
litically to secure is worth organizing per
manently 10 keep. \ political factor,
the saloon yields only to political means
politically put forth, and in like manner
perpetuated. When temporary Prohi-
tio7rparty, such as Atlanta had, goes TO
pieces, and its elements resume their old
relation, they do it because they hold that
old relationship paramount to Prohibition.
The success of Prohibition, then, becomes
secondary to other considerations, and
natural laws of expediency control with
reference to it. Not a man of Atlauta's
ProhibitionistS, partisan as they were foI
a while, would become Democrat or Re
publican again if he did not hold the dear
old party dearer than the dear bought new
success; and the old party will sacrifice
the new principle every time its own life
stands in danger
will not abandon their new organization.
They may appear to, but only to deceive
Unless both the old parties do their~Wrr1,
one of the old parties will be i'll effect their
new party, and for lack of "a permanent
new party to oppose this it will undo all
that the temporary Prohibition party has
done. Your Democratic party of the
South will no more dare oppose an organ
ized Rum Power, than does our old Re
lpublican party of the North. Not opposed
tetthe polls, wherever and whenever men
congregate there this Rum Power will re
gain by the ballot what by the ballot it
lost thousand proofs of this, the
historic rule could be cited in New York
Massachusetts, and Connecticut where
through more than "a generation, Local
Option contests have been waged and vic
tories won to-day but to be lost next year.
The need of "co-operation" there became
evident long ago, and of lasting co-opera-
ton. 1t will be as clear in Georgia within
decade. You will admit it here. And
you will see how terribly mistaken you
were in supposing the liquor traffic could
be fought and beaten inside old party
lines. That never could be, never will be,
true, when both old parties have in them
portion of that traffic. And if this be
not the case, why does not one of the old
parties declare for Prohibition, and thus
permit the issue squarely to be fought
lout. Respectfully yours,
A. A. HOPKINS.
Greensboro, Dee. Both, 1885.