The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-01-08

THERE are three States in which the local
option method of treating the temperance
problem has been conspicuously tried-Ker
lucky, Missouri and Georgia. There are three
States in which so-called s'prohibition" has
been conspicuously tried-Maine, Kansas and
Iowa. In the first three States there is not,
and never has been, any question about the
result. In many localities the open traffic in
intoxicants has been absolutely wiped out,
and kept out by the force of dominant public
sentiment that has not been coerced, but
gradually and permanently educated and de-
veloped. The results have been such as are
noticed in Breathitt county, Kentucky, and in
question has never been partisan political
one Political parties have never been divided
upon it, and there never has been third
party movement, which is at once
the refuge of the impracticable, the
tool of the dishonorable, and the asy-
lum for the feeble, who, in their
honest disgust, have wearied with the strug
gle for better conditions and have gone into
voluntary retirement in political poor-house
In these three States parties have never been
strictly divided on the lines of temperance
legislation. 1t has not been Republicans on
one side and Democrats on the other. But
when the question of temperance legislation
is to be decided, men Of all parties are found
on either side, and with the result that what
ever the majority determines is not antago-
nized by the power and interest Of political
organization. In the last three States, where
the prohibition" method has been tried
there is and has been doubt and denial Of the
results. In Maine, where the law has been in
operation for more than thirty years, there is
not a unanimity of sentiment, while in Iowa
and Kansas, where the experiment is recent,
the differences are more pronounced
and aggressive. In each Of these States,
but particularly in the latter two,
public opinion is coerced rather than educated,
with the result of setting neighborhoods by
the ears, turning one class into sneaks and in
formers, and another into evaders and trick
sters. Besides, the great political parties
have been and are divided on the line-one
party favoring fair trial of the method, and
the other openly opposing it, thus arraying
the power and interest Of a political organiza-
ton against the enforcement of the law, and
against the creation and development of a
public sentiment that would strongly indorse
and sustain it. Every election that comes
around the people Of these States are COM
PEELED to face this question, to the exclusion of
others upon which political organizations are
founded, and upon which, in a healthy and
normal condition..of affairs, the people should
be and would be politically divided.
Now no one, not even candid Prohibition
ist, will attempt to deny that this is fair
setting forth of the facts respecting the re-
suits attending the two methods of treating
the liquor problem in the States named. The
question is, which is the more practicable,
more sensible, more effective more Demo-
cratic? What Georgia, and Kentucky, and
Missouri have done for public morality and
private sobriety under the operation of wise
local option law, with high taxation for
localities where the public sentiment declares
in favor of the existence of the traffic, can be
done in Indiana if only the friends of temper
ance reform, and those who have the material
and moral welfare of the State at heart, can
be brought to unite on practical sensible, adj
vanced legislation.
GOLD ST. the African editor of the Atlanta