Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-03-17
ICommunicated.l
CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT.
The Ospzregatiouali.t A.touishes Many

The Oo1Eregafionalist Astonishes Many
People By Questioning Its Advantages.
The Congregationalist, one of the leading
religious papers of New England, and
mouthpiece OF denomination which has
been supposed to be strongly in favor of the
Constitutional amendment, astonished
many people the past week by long edi-
torial, which we reprint, and which, in
general way, indicative of strong opposi-
ton to the amendment. Coming from the
source that it does, the article will provoke
still further attention. 1t bears evidence of
careful preparation. The editorial may
therefore be assumed to represent the
matured judgment of the paper. Such
stand, taken by so prominent member of
the religious press, will give aid to the op-
ponents of the amendment from an unex-
pected quarter. This Is the editorial:
@'Our constant, careful and candid readers
do not need to be told that, from the begin
ming of what is known as the temperance
reformation, this journal has firmly and
steadily advocated the duty Of total ab-
stinence from all beverages that can intoxl-
cate, except when taken under medical ad-
vice. This, not because it has been clear
that moderate indulgence in them always
and necessarily is in itself sin, but on the
far higher ground of the great apostle that,
we're such indulgence innocent, it would be-
come the duty Of the philanthropist, and
pre-emlnently of the Christian, to abstain,
because none of US liveth to himself, and
it is, therefore, good not to eat flesh, nor to
drink wine, nor to do anything, whereby
thy brother stumbleth.' We have also ha-
bitually and earnestly insisted upon the
duty of employing every wisely efectual
measure to diminish and put stop to the
sale of intoxicants, and particularly to
cleanse our streets from the manifold and
intolerabIe temptations of the saloon.
"For many years we had great faith that
the most stringest possible prohibitory law
would prove, for these purposes, absolutely
effective. And we still believe that in ho-
mogeneous population, well leavened with
morality, and where a decided majority
heartily favor it, such law must prove
sufficient. But experience has constrained
us reluctantly to doubt whether in old es-
tablished communities, made up largely of
persons of foreign birth, training and taste,
and wherein great vested interests already
exist to be disturbed and overthrow by ab-
solute prohibition, such q policy can at
present make itself adequate and prove it
self triumphant. We have accordingly felt
willing to have the experiment Of what is
called high license thoroughly tried; the
more that, if it failed, that failure, it would
seem, must react to cause all who sincerely
desire the abolition of the liquor traffic to
revert to prohibition as the only remaining
alternative; thus, perhaps, securing to it
that decided preponderance of public senti-
ment, in the absence of which it cannot be
depended upon to drive the drink curse
from among US.
"We have ever, moreover, held that the
education of young and old, through school
instruction as aided by the admirable text
book movement of the W. G. T. U.-pulpit
persuasion, and perhaps, above all, social
example and endeavot, to regard the use of
intoxicants as a beverage by persons in
health as being in all cases to the last de-
gree unwise, if-not positively sinful, and
so, for individual safety and the general
good, to be always and everywhere frowned
upon, must be our main and ultimate reli-
ance-since in that blessed moment when
nobody wants to buy, nobody will be able
to sell.
"We make conscience of all this. And
were we convinced that prohibition is, for
us here in Massachusetts, at present, the best
remedy for those ills of intemperance which
all deplore, we should be still further en-
barrassed by the faet-which may be the
result of an understanding-that we cannot
regard it as the safest and surest way to
serve the cause of prohibition to make it
exceptionally a part of our fundamental and
organic law. 1t is easy to anticipate con-
tingencles in which harm might result from
a prohibitory clause added to the Constitu-
tion, while a prudent and practically ef-
fcient law, not based upon Constitutional
provision, would be at least equally useful.
Were the Legislature to neglect to enact
the statutes requisite to carry out such
provision if adopted-as might be the case
if the popular majority did not heartily side
with the law-our last state surely must be
worse than the first. The experience of
Rhode Island-with its social conditions
more nearly like our own than those Of
some interior commonwealth which have
tried the experiment with success-which is
reputed to be already moving for the repeal
of such an amendment, is not reassuring.
"We frankly recall these considerations
here, because we are anxious to use the ut
most good faith with our readers in regard
to this proposed amendment. With our
present light, and with the eager desire to
see the demoralizing curse of the saloon
banished forever from our streets, we are
not able to share that confidence which so
many, whose public spirit and enlightened
philanthropy we profoundly respect, feel in
the salutary results Of the adoption of such
an addition to our Constitution. We shall
not oppose it. We most highly regard the
purity of motive, and the general wisdom
of many Of our good friends who are as sure
that the sun will rise tomorrow, that it
contains in it the strength and salvation Of
the State. Almost they persuade US against
our better judgment.