Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1888-09-12
HOW TO DEAL WITH TIE SALOON
The Course OF the Temperance Rspubh.
cans Of Maine vindtcated.

Rev. DIR. II. L Wayland of Philadel-
phia, brother of Prof. Francis c. Way
land of Yale College, presented last
week before the American Congress of
Science paper In which he seeks not TO
formulate and present any favorite and
personal theory as to remedy, but to
seriously inquire what means may best
stay the undesirable ravages of the rum
traffic. DR.. Wayland says, first, that he
thinks the State must aim, not at an ideal,
but at an actual. "a carpenter who
should say, Il will not build till have an
ideal edge, perfect straight line would
never build says DIR. Wayland, and adds :
If am acting all by myself, and have no
one to consult or to conciliate, l may aim at
the ideal, though even then | chance TO fall
a little short of it. But when | am acting
| as one of a society of hundred thousand
then must be satisfied to do the thing for
which can demonstrate a working majority,
| 1t the same time trying to bring the msJorit!
| up 10 nv standard. | do not forget what
one of the wisest and most brilliant OF Ameri-
cans, Mr. Lowell, has said Il am one OF
those who believe that the real will never
find an irremoyable basis till it rests on the
ideal"
1.-THE State, asserts DIR. Wayland, ''does
not concern itself with religion; the State
is secular; it deals with the temporal well
fare of the citizen Celebrating this
proposition, he questions, docs the State
make itself responsible for all the evil
which it does not prevent" On this piv-
otal question turns the entire temperance
argument. Rev. DIR. Wayland shows that
expediency, in its first sense, must be the
ruling of the State; expediency in the
sense of effectiveness. II have no doubt
at ALL" he says, 'about the right of the
State to deal with the saloon, by way OF
regulation, restriction, taxation, repres-
SION He has as little doubt about the
unmeasured evil Of the saloon. So the
question comes as to what is effective eX-
pediency? DR.. Wayland notes the three
who would remove all restrictions, and they
who would favor law to reduce the
number of saloons and the hours they
may be open. In his own city of Phi adel-
phia there is the latter ruling, and the
number of saloons has been reduced to
about % per cent of the former number.
| He finds the influence of the saloon re-
duced, and that 1900 are hardly so bad as
are 5000, and he notes that the saloon linn
its itself, those that are licensed watching
the unlicensed. He argues that to tax
the saloons, close them on Sunday, forbid
them to sell to minors and drunkards, and
make them civilly responsible, is the most
expedient way. DR.. Wayland closes by
saying that slavery was not overthrow
by the idealists, and that "if in 1860 the
Chicago convention had adopted a plat
form demanding immediate and universal
emancipation | affirm my conviction that
on that platform the Republicans would
not have carried single State" First
came the restriction of slavery, and res
friction is the halfway house to prohibit
ton. "Ideals,' truly says DR.. Wayland,
'are excellent stars to steer by, but none
the less must we take into account the
winds, the waves, the rocks, the shoals
and the currents"
DIR. Wayland's presentation of the sub
ject is striking for its calm and lucid APP
peal to common sense and the consciences OF
the temperance men and women of the
land ,and it deserves to be extensively read
and its views adopted.