The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-04-26
Senator Hoar's Speech in Favor of
Prohibition.

ator said:
1--WE have been trying for fifty years
in Massachusetts to extirpate as much
as might be done by means of laws,
the one great cause of crime, of pow
erty, of disgrace and of disease of every
form. Dnring this so years, however,
the tide has been slowly though surely
gaining upon us. Poverty is growing
common amid all our wealth; ignorance
is growing amid our schools; crime is
fourishing alongside of our churches
and vice is fastening itself upon our in.
telligence. This has been going on
until $4,000 persons are seized by Off
GERS of the law every year, and nearly
10000 of them are committed to our
prisons and jails. We are asking for
100000 to enlarge our jails, and we
have 10 institutions for the care of our
insane.
awe are hearing something of the
experiences Of two States, the soil of
each of which was an unbroken desert
when the first temperance legislation
was adopted in Massachusetts,. In
those two States, Iowa and Kansas, one.
halt Of the jails are empty and one.half
of the criminal courts without a case.
Applause. When we have $4,000
arrests. they have 10000. These States
are settled by men of like passions, and
Iowa, with which comparison has been
made, is just about our equal in popula.
ton. They were settled by men Of
New England blood and breeding.
They are our sons, our brothers, our
cousins and our neighbors. How does
it happen where 10 youths become
criminals in Massachusetts but one be-
comes criminal in Iowa? How is it
that the jails in Massachusetts, are
crowded, while in Iowa they are empty?
1t is because the people of those States
have had the wisdom to secure Consti-
tutional Prohibition in one, and laws
which are its equivalent in the other.
Applause They have tried that ex-
pertinent, and I have been assured
within three weeks, by the men who
represent those States in the United
States Senate, that a majority of &c, 900,
which put Constitutional Prohibition
in force, would become a majority Of
$4,000 in one State and of 100000 in
the other, in case the question should
be brought before the people again.
Applause. Now, friends, we ask the
people of Massachusetts, to try the ex-
pertinent which in Iowa and Kansas
has been SO long successful.
CHOW, what is the alternative? Some
honest people differ with us in this
matter, but what do they propose to us
as an alternative? Can you find name
which has been published as opposed to
US, or leader of public sentiment any.
where opposed to us, who has put for
ward any plan whatever which he asks
you to believe will check the growing
crime in Massachusetts,? He brings us
only the tidings of despair-nothing Of
desire or of hope, nothing but to re-
peat the dreary and dismal history of
the past so years.
"Put this in the Constitution, and
every officer in the State is sworn
to enforce it when he swears to sup.
port the Constitution. They saw
this thing is out of place in the Consti
tuition. The people of Massac husetts
put into the Constitution everything
which they mean to put out of the reach
of the majorities at every election.
You say in the Constitution that you
shan't reduce the salary of any Judge
or the salary of the Governor, because
it is not seeming to make the salaries
attached to these important offices sub
ject to the will of every feeting major
ity. You say in the Constitution that
you shan't give any money to sectarian
schools. Applause. You shan't be
tried twice for the same offense; Won
shan't have your lands taken for
railroad, or any public purpose, with
out pay. Are these rights any more
sacred than the right to have your son
leave your home 10 the evening and
come back pure and stainless as when
he left it?
ut is said that this thing will impair
our reverence for the Constitution. I
have it on excellent authority that this
is the opinion Of the Suffolk bar. 1t
will impair our reverence for the Con-
stltution to put in it a section which
will prevent Massachusetts from man