The Press., 1892-04-07


 whig parties, hated slavery as intensely as did Phillips or Garrison, and had he at the beginning of the rebellion declared the slaves free he would have met the wishes of most of his own party, so far as principle goes, but with him they would have regarded such move as criminally unwise without the sanction of practi- cally united north.
 Slavery might have been ended earlier, perhaps, by one of two methods. By force, as per the Phillips plan-if that were pos sible with pro-slavery majority in the country-or by the plan of compensated emancipation, proposed by Elihu Burritt, 8 man beside whom Wendell Phillips was 8 mere pigmy as to size of brain and heart. But this last plan would have been of the nature of "fatal dalliance." :"
 As to Wendell Phillips-we all concede him to have been the marvel of the age in ''silver tongued" oratory, heard with de- light by those who regarded his views as impracticable. We doubt if he ever gave unqualified sanction to any act of Presi- dent Lincoln's. If he has carried his earthly nature to a perfect world he is to- day unhappy because there is nothing to scold about.
 The parallel between the abolition fight and that now waged for prohibition is not the same to all eyes. To us it ap- pears as if many Phillips, Garrisons and Fosters were to-day fancying that they were Lincolns, Stewards, Summers and Greeleys
 The country does exist and prosper un- der license, and under it 8 temperance sentiment Is growing that is more and more restricting the liquor trade. The drink evil is not worse to-day than fifty years ago, which is much to say when we consider that much worse type of emil grants are pouring in upon us now than then, and in such greater proportional numbers as to make assimilation more difficult, Temperance has made and is making progsess. The liquor trade has grown more disreputable. In one sense this is an evil, as the interruptions seller can do the greater harm, but then, we have always had the interruptions ones, anyway The better class of men who sell rum to-day speak of the business ap- ologetically, and the proportion of the bet ter to the worse class is rapidly diminish ing. We believe that work is being done for temperance, but almost all of it is outside of political work. The W. c. T. U., the Bands of Hope, and such societies as the Temple of Honor, s. of T. and Good Templars ale in it. A sentiment is grow ing up that it is disgraceful to drink and almost criminal to sell, even under I- cense All good temperance people will advance the work by educating them selves, their neighbors, and above all the children, to look upon rum as an in- sidious foe to good government, to moral ity and to national prosperity, an inciter @< 4Cr nf hI1r af fo that must be borne by those who have no part in their creation The battle can be fought successfully by union rather than division of forces. The people must be educated; they are being educated. Each generation is wiser than the past. Given only those who were in this country twenty yeals ago and their descendants to work upon and we should see 8 different state of things, but a crude material is pouring in upon us and constantly becom- ing cruder. Legislation must come as a result of a better education. It cannot be forced upon people who, by large majority, oppose it. The Press and The Home are widely in divergence in views treating of this subject. We believe that license is better than unrestrained rum selling, high license better than low li- cense, prohibition better than high license. we AlSO DSll0VS budt bltoO dI0 successive and progressive steps.
 It suits the conveniences of all who hate republicans to charge each republi- can administration with debauchery. Thus President Harrison's dinner service becomes 'twine service" ;" Vice Presi- dent Morton owns a hotel in Washington. and we presume 1t contains bar. We are sorry he owns it. He should do as did the lady who. felt that sther iewelry was dragging her down to hell, and so took it off and gave it to her sister," Sec retary Blaine allowed the beer makers the privilege that he could refuse to no legalized industry, to use the consular service to gain information of the con- sumption in foreign ports of their prod ucts. He did not legalize that business, nor could he lawfully discriminate against it. He showed it no favoritism, gave it no privileges it had not the same right to demand that the flour makers or pork packers have. Like MT. Lincoln we re- gret that the business has those rights, but the majority of the people desire that they should have them, and the proper thing to do is not to scold about it, but to lift up the people to a better mind.
 The liquor journals quoted by MT. Lin coin, we doubt not. prefer local option and high license to prohibition, but we doubt if they prefer those conditions to low license or to free rum. And when they denounce the prohibitionists is it the Lincoln or the Phillips class that they mean to decry? ... : ..
 ''Garrison's Liberator made the Tribune possible!" Well,-each reader of The Press can grapple with that assertion fol