The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-21

17J6s. while Nebraska increased 1906 per
cent. Nearly one-third of the counties OF
Iowa showed decrease in population.
In general prosperity the state has failed
to keep pace with its neighbors since the
prohibitory law was passed. The steady
decline of the Republican vote whenever
prohibition has been made the chief issue
of the campaign proves that public senti-
ment is gradually arraying itself against
the law. Boies. originally Republican,
left the party on the prohibition issue and
owes both his elections to his champion
ship OF high license.
The recent municipal election in Port
land, Me-, resulted in a Democratic vic
tory for the first time in twenty years.
This Democratic victory was due to Wig
orous attempt under the Republican mayor
to enforce the prohibitory law. The Port
land Press, the leading Republican organ,
says:
The result can be interpreted in no other way
than that the majority of The people who voted
yesterday are opposed to vigorous enforcement
of the liquor law. It 10 no use to attempt to dis
guise this fact
The Iowa Democrats have twice elected
q governor on platform calling for
repeal of the prohibitory law, and United
States Senator Allison and Hon. ]. 8.
Clarkson agree in the opinion that the
Republican party can never hope to carry
the state again until they unload
prohibition. The present prospect is that
if prohibition continues to be made
the leading issue in Iowa politics the DEM
ocrats will elect the next legislature, and
Governor Boies will succeed United States
Senator James F. Wilson, whose term e1-
pires in March, 1898.
The Republican party has lost ground
steadily wherever it has been stupid
enough to incorporate prohibition plank
into its platform. The regulation Of the
liquor traffic is only one of the ends of
good government. and by no means its
most important end, because in practical
temperate as it can to make men chaste,
economical. prudent, industrious or en-
ergetic. Whether prohibition or a high
license and local option measure is the
best method of dealing with the liquor
traffic is a purely practical question
of the application of means to ends upon
which men equally upright and devoted
to the temperance cause totally disagree.
For this reason it is utterly absurd to make
the acceptance of prohibition the crucial
test of Republican orthodoxy, for prohibit
tion is not principle; not cause: temper
ance is the cause; prohibition is merely
proposed means to the end of temperance,
whose worth or worthlessness, whose ex-
pediency or inexpediency, is question
not of principle but of practice. To drive
man out of the Republican party by
putting prohibition among the planks of
its platform is as absurd as it would
be for party to resolve, not simply
that there should be legal day of
rest, a Sunday, but to prescribe how this
Sunday should be spent; to enact that it
should be an exact reproduction of the
Puritan Sabbath.
The whole philosophy of prohibiting the
sale of all alcoholic beverages on the plea
that intemperance is an evil is as absurd
as it would be to prohibit the game of
whist because gambling is an evil; to pro-
hibit the acquisition of wealth or the dis
play of money and jewelry because the
love of money is the root of many evils
and peoples our prisons with thousands to
the hundreds that become convicts directly
or indirectly because of the abuse of
alcohol.
The Republicans of Washington and
Oregon have thus far escaped the incubus
OF prohibition; may they always escape it.
Compared with Massachusetts, which
has about 2,250,000 people in
her 5000 miles of territory;
Iowa has about 100000 in her $1,000
miles of territory. Iowa has q splendid
soil and climate. Between 1870 and 1880
Iowa increased SO per cent. in population
and Massachusetts, 2.35 per cent. Between
1850 and 1890 Iowa increased 17.6S per cent.
and Massachusetts, 1851 per cent.
For general observance of law and order;
for intelligence, temperance and civic
morality rural Massachusetts under high
license shows at least as good results as
rural Iowa. Compare Des Moines, Sioux
City, Dubuque, Davenport, Burlington,
Council Bluffs, Cedar Rapids and Keokuk
with Lynn, Lawrence, Springfield, New
Bedford, Holyoke. Salem, Haverhill,
Taunton, Ftchburg, Maiden, Gloucester.
Waltham, Pittsfield, Quincy, Northamp-
ton and North Adams, and high license
Massachusetts will not suffer by the side
of prohibition Iowa.