The Indianapolis journal., 1886-01-05
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE.
What Docs He Mean2

/ mean!
To the Editor of the Indianapolis Journal:
There are a good many good things in Brother
Conner's article on the temperance question.
The only difficulty is TO tell what he is driving
at He says as bad things of the liquor traffic as
anybody, but it is hard to learn what he intends
to do about it. He speaks favorably of local
option. Nobody but the traffic is opposed to To-
cal option, and that fights it as bitterly as it
fights prohibition in it's most pronounced form.
Some very sensible men believe that prohibition
is right in the abstract, and attainabe and prae-
teal They do not oppose local option: believing
as they do, they work for what they think is
best, yet bid Godspeed to those who are doing
their best to prohibit where it is least needed;
and there is no need of falling out about that.
Local option is good thing as far as it goes Let
those who think it the best thing possible
not slacken their energies. They may count on
the hearty CO operation of the most ultra prohi-
bitionists in everything but the high-lcense ac-
compartment. That has been tried and has
never been known to diminish the amount of
drinking or wretchedness. It sometimes dimin-
ishes the number of Saloons but makes those
that do business that much more profitable,
Besides the thing is impracticable in Indiana.
The Supreme Court, in the case of Sweet VS..
City of Wabash AL Ind. u decided that a city
tax or SOU was prohibitory land therefore un-
reasonable and unlawful" J" and that it becomes a
question Of fact for the jury to decide whether
prohibitory ornot While there are some excellent
temperance men who still linger in the high
license epoch, the prohibitlonists will never
touch it, while they will be glad to hail any step
in the right direction if it prohibits in only
county in the State Meanwhile, let
those who see any good. il it is
only money for the wretched wives and
families of the drunkard in high license, with or
without local option, work their measure for all
that is in it. They will do good. They will con-
solidate the liquor traffic and put it in avowed
hostility to any man or any. party that favors it,
and that will be big thing. Republicans have
not been in better plight for years than last au-
tumn, when they resolved to tax the saloons $58
more than they had been paying, for they were
bitterly assailed by the solid liquor vote as if
they had proposed to hang every saloon keeper.
Let US bring on the engagement; and the sooner
and fercer the better. Let Brother Conner
threaten them with high license and local option
that is as good as prohibition pure and simple
to make them solid; and let Judge Stotsenberg
threaten them with practical, advanced temper
ance legislation, without defining what he means
that is just as good anything, for they don't
propose to advance one peg; and then let those
impracticable prohibtionists insist their ideal
Among all hands we will consolidate the traffic
Of course, for the time, this will work into the
hands of the liquor-selers, and they will chuckle
over. their temporary triumph; but the right can
afford to wait, and people who in heart despise
the traffic will come some day to Judge Stotsep-
bergs platform practical, advanced temperance
legislation" and the saloon will GO and SO will
also the cowardly trimmers who think to appease
the traffic by throwing tufts of grass at it; for
the American people are in no proper mood to
lie down and let handful of liquorsellers, most
of them foreign,born. rule over them.
TT r, SEE