Wichita eagle., 1889-12-07
PREACHERS OR POLICEMEN, wH1cHs

Tobacco is as much zee Of life as coffee is:
Meth r one Is put o1 3h are e I
extensively used. The iaborer, the mechanic. the
lay out portion OF their earnings In tobacco Just
as they do coffee Therefore, tax which increases
rect tax upon the people and repeal Of such tax
would be direct relief to them. President Harri-
tax is wise and patriotic The revenue is needed
and should not be collected 1t is no more right to
keep tax tobacco than it would be to impose a
fax on coffee or tea.-Emporia Republican.
Hold on there Mr.. ti-Resubmission-
Pro-Constitutional-C Convention cham
pioD. 4 prominent member of the Pro-
hibition party announced to us, but the
other day, that in Kansas the next thing
that must go was your tobacco, that
nasty, notwithstanding weed, which is
consuming the hard earnings of almost
every laborer in the land. Why should
men be permitted to use the vile growth
at the expense of wives and children
who do not use it? The man who de-
clared this was not a day laborer, but a
minister, and when he asked US why the
use of tobacco should not be prohibited
by law, we could only answer that if the
theory of prohibition is sound and right
there is no reason why everything
deleterious to health, OF obnoxious to
the neighbor, to the wife or to the child,
should not be prohibited. For that
matter the government of Russia-as
have other governments-in the moral
interest of her subjects, not only enforces
the strongest kind of prohibitory laws
but makes religion obligatory and COM
pels worship. Still, somehow, or in
some way, the sneaking notion has in
the course of years been instilled
into the average American breast, that
this is a country of moral and religious
liberty. This foolish notion has been so
persistently cherished and so long and SO
complacently winked at by those whom
we are forced to elect to govern us. that
the people had got an idea that, without
reference to age, sex or previous condi-
ton of servitude, personal liberty was a
kind Of right inhering on this side of the
ocean, that it was birthright peroga-
tive Of every child who on American
soil first opened its eyes to the light of
day.
But again, dear old man, Eskridge,
and before you are compelled to give up
your tobacco, wherefore education, if
law is equal to all immortality? and there
fore, wherefore preachers and churches
if man can be legally forced to worship
God acceptably?
Just think, dear governor, of the stom-
achs in this Misrepresentation land, of the
horrors by day and the Nightmares OF
agony by night, for which tobacco and
coffee and deleterious pies and cakes are
alone responsible; and then our grave
yards filled with youths, instead of rip
ened age.
Governor, all these and many other
abuses coming from the depraved human
passions and appetites must,
or ought to go. If the
police commission can do away with
them more rapidly and surely than moral
training and religious education; if Muir
ray laws are more effective than the pull
pit and the rostrum, why, then, in the
name of humanity, cease preaching and
teaching and double the police force.
Finally, dear governor, some, aye
great number, in fact, and the EAGLE is
among them, still desire to cling to that
delusion, if it be delusion, the preacher
and the pulpit, the teacher and the ros-
trum and all those moral, mental and
spiritual forces and elevating influences
which stand for self-conscious respect
and for appealing to true manhood and
womanhood rather than for an aggrega-
ton of people brought to bay by police
commission. Or vilely cringing beneath
the menace of the policeman's club.