Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1886-09-20
ST. John Said so.


| last Saturday afternoon to a full house,
the majority of whom were ladies.
Some of the Prohibitionists came con-
siderable distances to hear him.
He said he would begin by giving the
Republicans some whacks and then go
for the Democrats; but, although he
threatened the Democrats several times,
that he never got around to hit them.
The Prohibition party has little inclina-
ton TO fight the Bourbons.
In trying to show that the Republican
party in the North had not given the
country all the temperance legislation,
St. John mentioned that there was a
| prohibition law in the state of Nevada
(among other states) before the Repu6li-
can PARTY aOas born. Now, the region
now included in Nevada was a part of
Utah until 1861, and was not admitted
as state until 1864. So this is not a
truthful saint.
He said the Republican and the Demo-
cratic platforms of this state are just
alike on the liquor question; but this is
not true; the Democratic plank is only
their old cry of ''sumptuary legislation"
by which a Democrat means any inter
ference with free whisky.
The Kansas saint read the plank of
the Wisconsin Republican platform
which says that laws not sustained by
public sentiment tend to bring all laws
into disrepute, and attempted to ridicule
1t by imagining God on Mt. Sinai being
careful not to get his laws in advance of
public sentiment. Almost everybody,
except third-party man, can see some
difference between the situation of a state
Legislature and God as a law-maker.
The legislature is not the creator of the
people, but their creature, with all that the
term implies. A Legislature which at
tempts to ignore public sentiment at
tempts to be despot and can succeed
only when the people are slaves.
In the character of Republican, lit
tie boy, he asked why, if the Republican
party was not going to suppress liquor
selling and liquor-drinking, temper
ance man should vote the Republican
ticket. Last summer he might have
asked if the Republican party was going
to suppress the drouth, and if not, why
any farmer should vote for it; or if the
Republican party is going to suppress
the ague on the Mississippi bottoms; and
if not why any man who likes good
health should vote the ticket Any pol
itical party can just as easily suppress a
drouth or Il malaria as to suppress the
use of liquor while the appetite for it re-
mains among men.
In reading the plank of the Republi-
can platform relating to the liquor traf-
fic, st. John became highly facetious
when he struck the word ''but." He
backed off and butted up against it sew
eral times in manner intended to be
exquisitely humorous. But greater men
than St. John and immense numbers of
common people have discovered many a
time that but is the hardest word in
the language to get over. This world
might be a paradise and all of US angels,
| but
| Mr. st. John also told his hearers
about the man who didn't ''vote as he
prayed" prayed 364 days in the
year that intemperanee might be abol-
ished, and on the 365th day didn't vote
| for the Prohibition candidates for Office
and intimated pretty strongly that this
man was a fool or a hypocrite. His
hearers had probably heard of this man
once or ten times before. 1t is stock
| Prohibition argument, but it doesn't
settle the matter. A man afflicted with
a disease may sincerely pray for its re-
moyal and yet refuse the prescription of
a quack doctor. So, possibly, there
are many men who sincerely deplore the
evils of intemperance, and yet, without
being fools or hypocrites, consider Mr.,
St. John political quack and his pre-
tended remedy no remedy at all, but
only peddled for profit.
Finally Mr. St. John told his hearers
he was going to talk to them an even
hour and half and if he could stand it
every day, they ought to stand it once.