The freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1886-18??, 1886-05-12
the ground of Prohibition.

the ground of Prohibition.
If an individual is thus incident
ally deprived of what he regards as
an innocent indulgence, it is for
the all-sufficient reason that the
larger general good is paramount to
the Individual good. Society is a
system of compromises. lndlvl-
dual rights must yield to the pub
lie welfare. The surrender is in
dispensable to the good govern
ment, due regulation and we'll
being of society. For another to
blow up my house is not exact
ly the thing as between man and
man, but when it comes to staying
the progress of confagration, the
explosion under proper police
regulation takes on a perfect pro-
priety. If we may Danish even
useful trades simply for their OBJ
noxious smells, surely we may
Danish a perfectly useless trade,
which is the stencil Of modern
civilization, producing more de-
graduation and misery in the social
relation, and more pauperism, vag-
rancy and crime in the political
relation, than all other external
agencies combined.
". The right of Prohibition IN
Politics. The three precedent foot
paintings have made the way
straight and clear for our next
step, viz, the right of Prohibition
in politics. Ought it to have
place there? 1t is not so much an
oughtness. 1t is an inevitableness,
Ought Prohibition to be made a
political question? Will the
skeptic on this point tell US how
it can be made anything else ?
What is politics? The science of
government; the regulation of
State; the preservation of its
safety, peace and prosperity, and
the protection of its citizens in
their rights. Now think what the
saloon is, what values it .impairs,
what taxes it imposes, and for
what reasons, what crimes it en-
genders, what material and social
interests it blights, how it touches
society at almost every point where
legislation has a province, how it
enters by the very necessity of its
existence into questions of property,
questions of taxation, questions of
sanitary conditions, questions of
crime and pauperism and police,
questions that government cannot
exist without determining. Keep
Prohibition out OF politicst AS
well try to keep the stars out of
the sky. They are there by the
very swing of their nature. "But
this matter of drinking and
drunkenness is moral question"
Yes, that is one side of it and the
great body Of the men and women
who believe in Prohibition are
trying to heal the hurt on that side
by the remedial and only sovereign
ly efficacious agency of the Gospel.
But there is another side Of it
the liquor-traffic side, the drink
shop side, where the spirits openly
and lawlessly noatoraalize, and in a
way destructive of public order and
menacing to values and prolific OF
hurts that are open, public, civic,
national, pertaining TO property,
crime, health, life. For stopping
these hurts we must have Iaa0. The
legislation that will stop these
hurts must stop their cause. Such
Legislation is politics. And such
leg islation is RrobabjtionI
V. Our fifth and last point is the
method of Prohibition in politics,
We believe it should be, and will
be, by new party-a third"
party, if you please, to become a
second and FIRST in it's march to
victory. Here are the reasons for
the hope that is in us:
The issue is important enough to
justify party organization. There
is no question before the American
people so wide and deep. The
whole country has been arrayed at
the polls, with discussion at white
| heat to detarnoina whathar WIG