The freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1886-18??, 1888-05-30
A WONDERFUL MEETING.
CROWD THE NEW YORK
METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE.

|
METROPOLITAN OPERA HOUSE. ,o
A New York Mass Meeting of Prohibit
tionists Eclipses the National Anti
Saloon Republican Convention-Rain
Could Not Quench the Enthusiasm.
"Many waters cannot quench love:
neither can the great foods drown it. !" q
These were the words uttered by Gen.
Fisk as he stood facing one of the largest
audiences ever assembled on American
soil. He had just received an ovation
which had swept young men and old,
staid old ladies and prim maidens wild
] with enthusiasm. Cheers and the wav-
ing of handkerchiefs had been kept up for
fully ten minutes, and only exhaustion
put stop to it.
SOutside drenching rain was falling,
but through it thousands of the best
people of the metropolis had waded, BRAY
ing the elements, to hear and cheer to the
echo the most radical cold water gospel.
Such meeting, such songs, such
speeches have seldom been known. ~"
Col. Eli F. Ritter of Indiana, DR..
Leonard of Ohio, DIR. Hamilton of Massa-
ehusetts, DR.. Creighton of Nebraska,
Professor T. Dickie of Michigan, Gen.
Fisk of New Jersey and DR.. Satterlee
of Minnesota were the speakers, and
until after II o'clock they dealt sledge
hammer blows at the liquor traffic, at the
high license iniquity, and at the party
allies and slaves of the rum power.
And yet while the metropolitan press of
both parties gave lavish space to the anti
:. u l. L.
politicians and the shame of the handful
of delegates present, they grudgingly give
few lines to report a meeting of pro-
found interest to hundreds of thousands
OF people throughout the nation, and a
meeting which is destined to be recorded
as national event in the history of the
swift coming reform. Shame that news
papers should so pander to craftsmanship
Space will allow of but few of the
flashes of the electric light of truth which
were thrown upon this subject during the
evening. DR.. Leonard said:
."There are just seven words in the adj
dress of the Methodist bishops that must
be our motto till the last rum shop is no
more: 1T can not be legalized without
sin According to the logic of that ad-
dress any legislature which legalized the
liquor traffic is sinner against God and
man. Every legislator who votes for the
enactment of license law is sinner
against God and man. And as the legis-
latures today are the opponents of parties
which propose in their platforms to
license the traffic, according to the logic
of the bishops, every man who votes for
such party is q sinner. So the minister
of the general Methodist Episcopal con-
ference, accepting this doctrine of his
bishops, who refuses to go out into the
world and preach it is not worthy minis
ter of the Gospel under the bishops
"Agitate. That is what produces the dis
Indignation which will separate the good
metal of prohibition from the dross of
regulation by taxation or license; and the
more you intensity the heat of agitation
the sooner will be overcome the power of
cohesion, and the good metal of prohibi-
ton brought to its only legitimate place
on earth, in Prohibition party"
DR.. Hamilton said II am one of the
crop reaped sun dry in 'S4 had been
life long Republican-had carried a gun
and if there was anything under the
heavens hard to do it was to, on a single
occasion, put off the old party. But when
in that year the Republican party went
down | didn't go down with it. 1 read the
discipline of my church and find it said
that Methodists should not permit them
selves to be controlled by parties managed
in the interest of the liquor traffic There
| stand on that platform.
Dr. Creighton told what high license
was doing and failing 10 do in his own
state of Nebraska.
Said Professor Dickie: "If see a pois-
onous serpent poised with head erect
ready to strike my child and l kill the
snake, that is prohibition. But if drive
the snake away and into my neighbours
garden to strike and Stay his child, that is
local option. Even if you make license
high enough to amount to practical pro-
hibitlon you cannot defend it.
But may we not, then, seek for pro-
hibition through the old parties? If I
were stanch Republican 1 would say
to the Republican party, we are not fit
to settle this question. Some of us are
for high license, some for low license,
some for prohibition. We are hopelessly
divided Let US pass resolutions deplo..-
ing the evils of intemperance promise to
submit amendments, come within one or
two votes of passing them and then we
can say to the temperance people, eff you
Will try US once more we'll do it next
time" and whisper to the liquor power,
"Well, we didn't submit it very much
after ALL
But outside of this question of the
| suppression of the liquor traffic the in
terests of the people demand recon-