The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1890-06-20
Friday, June 20, 1890.
The Pennsylvania High License
Law.

Law.
A wear ago the Brooks high license law Of
Pennsylvania-and not so very high either
was dandy, just the law to promote
Temperance and morality;' declared so by
all the whiskey subsidized papers in the
State. And the judges Of The cour! were
the very men to handle the licenses. Now
everything has changed. The law is little
better than farce, 1000 'speak -easies" in
the city of Philadelphia alone, and the
Judges are not the proper persons at al! to
have the granting of license; there ought to
be special license board, appointed by the
governor or some other power. So argues
the whiskey papers in long windy editorials
Such commission could be manipulated
by the liquor power to do its bidding and
nothing sh ,rt of this will satisfy the whis-
key interest. II ought TO be plain TO all
persons who are capable of learning from
experience many times repeated before their
eyes, that the liquor traffic cannot be con-
lTOlIeu, IeSlIiCtSu VI " lSSoi
rules. 1t is an Ishmaelite, whose hand is
against every man, and it is high time that
our christian, moral, INTELLIGENT people
should lift their hand against it,, and cease
expedients by which its gains may be shar-
ed, while avoiding its crimes. The blood
money. that is raised by license can never be
Il. a. -, tha A ~; &
will not wash out the damned spot that
marks the States palm, or the county's
palm, or the city's palm that receives license
money for the privilege of placing the
liquor business beside other lawful avoca-
tions.
There is but one remedy for the whiskey
crime anil moral contagion, which is entire
isolation. The State must quit granting
license to give the trade right to exist
and then stamp it out from its hiding place
with no law to protect 1t wherever found.
Either the Democrat or Republican party
could stamp out the traffice in any State OF
city, if it went honestly to work, for either
of those parties that honestly meant it would
draw to itself the whole temperance vote
and completely isolate the liquor power and
vote. But the liquor power is In control o.
both those old parties. The machinery o.
party organization is in the hands of the
whiskey men. Our public officers pretty
nearly all are drinking men and many o.
them, especially in the cities, are saloon
keepers, brewers ana distillers. The nom
mating conventions, municipal, county
stale and national, are largely made up Of
this class and hence the morale of the parties
takes its hue from the distillery, the brew.
cry and the saloon.
This fact is so plain that wayfarer
though fool may see it, and yet in the very
sunlight of these truthes we see tens o.
thousands of temperance men, processing
temperance to the radical line OF prohioi-
bition. stultifying their principles, shaming
their professions and voting solidly to keep
this whiskey element in control of every
public avenue, and ministers of the gospel
garbling the scriptures to justify, or at least
to excuse. the license system and the liquor
trsde. Men whom we call learned, moral.
religious, continue to bear human sacrifices
to Moloch and wreathe with flowers the
head of Bacchus, for the sole and simple
reason that they fear their favorte political
party will lose the whiskey vote if they
should show manhood enough to vote
against and talk against the organizations
that are In the hands Of the liquor element.
The cowardice or venaiity of this element
of society which poses as the refined, cultur
ed class, allowed the whiskey interest, in
significant though it be, of this county to
bulldoze the Legislators from the county TO
give them an opportunity 10 overturn the
law which bars out the saloon, and re-
establish that dispenser of crime and all
manner ofevil again in our midst. We
trust that every voter who ma kes profession
OF temperance principles will show that hi.
professions are honest by speaking and vot
ing against setting up the whiskey shop
again in Cecil. Any man who votes fo
the saloon under any excuse or plea what
ever is in favor of drunkenness and tn,
demoralising reign of liquor in ou- politics
To such an extent has the whiskey trafi
degraded our politics that decent maj
fels obliged to make some kind of al
apology for taking part in political affairs
and every office holder is suspected of bein,
in some way friend of the saloon and
whiskey guzzler.