The Durham daily globe. (Durham, N.C.) 1889-1894, 1892-11-04
TALKS PROHIBITION !
A Former North Carolina ParSOn
Does Not Mince Words.
He Reads the Riot Act TO the Deluded
in Great Shape.
SOUND LOGIC AND GOOD SENSE
All, 1t Gives Other People "A Chance
to Think 1t Over Also.

vote. 1t is not a privilege. 1t is not
right. 1t is duty. No human being
has natural right to vote in America
any more than he has the natural right
to sit on jury, or preside over court,
or be president of the United States.
The function of the ballot is placed in
his hands by the state and he can no
more decline to vote than the president
of the United States can refuse to dis
charge the duties assigned to his office
by law, or judge can refuse to hold
prescribed courts in his district, or
juror TO render verdict. They indeed
may resign or be excused, but how is
citizenship to be alienated except by
death or expatriatioI
Every christian voter must vote. He
is compelled to select from among ex-
listing parties the platform which is most
christian and the candidate which is
most christian. In other words he must
endeavor to discover for what and for
whom Jesus Christ, the christians S model,
teacher, friend and Master, would vote
if he were an American citizen, and that
ballot the christian voter is bound to cast.
The christian must think and examine
and study and pray. Each American
box, is as responsible for his vote as the
Gar of Russia is responsible for any po-
litical act he may at any time perform.
That comes of living in a republican. coun-
ty. A man who lives under an autocracy
has no political responsibility whatever.
Now | find in my country that the
most imperative political issue, i'm
mensely transendiug all others that have
ever risen, concerns a traffic. find %
that this traffic takes the lives of more
men than war or pestilence ever has
done | find (2) that it costs the country
more millions a year than any tariff ever
brought into the treasury and find (3)
that it is conducted by the worst class of
citizens, many of whom have been in
prison and a large number of whom are
believed by the best citizens to deserve
imprisonment and | find az that they
are the only traffickers banded together
to defeat the laws and to control the
government.
Then | find three parties, for one of
which it seems, ! must vote. The candi-
dates put forward for the presidency by
all the three parties | believe to be good
men and patriots, and of about equal
intellectual vigor. Two Of them have
been presidents-One under democratic
and one under republican conditions.
find that the country f1ourished equally,
so far as | can see, under both. The
third gives more promise apparently Of
making good president than either of
the other gentlemen did before his inau-
guration Then | must examine the
platform.
~ The republican platform mainly
su>tans the claim of making most goods
more costly to the people in general so
that it may advance the interests Of
American manufacturers. That is, it
assumes the right to decide that the
larger and poorer portion of the people
shall be made poorer, that the smaller
aud the richer shall be made richer, and
sets forth tariff plan which greatly in
jures other countries, while it does not
help the mass of the people in this coun-
try, that a smaller class may be made
richer Jesus of Nazareth, who is the
Master / must obey, taught system of
ethics in which he refused to discrimi-
nate between classes and countries. He
taught that | must love my neighbor as
myself. He taught that must love men
of another nationality-called in his day
"enemics'-and do them good" He,
whose teachings and life and death are
what have made constitutional freedom
in a republic possible today would seem
TO have been a radical free-trader, and
the legislator in any parliament or con-
gress who acts under him will refuse 10
enact a law which benefits old England
or New England at the expense of the
other. Whoeve- else might vote the re-
~
tainly could not.
The republican platform contains
number of other things, all of less i'm
portance than the tariff and on some OF
them evidently holds correct opinions,
but makes no issue whatever upon the
transcendent questions of the saloon.
The platform was plainly laid so that
any saloon keeper in the country could
stand upon it. The saloon is inficting
more misery as we'll as money loss on
more millions of people that ever slavery
had done before the civil war had begun,
the saloon has killed mole men since
that war closed than fell in all its en-
1agements and vet the rennhliran Mat