Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1892-05-05

ii depends for its existence on legisla-
tive will and that only. Then If the
whole State must and has legalized il
in order that it may exist, the whole
} State should delegalize it in order that
1t may cease to exist. For a whole
State, in its legislative capacity, to
legalize and voluntarily bving into ex-
iStence universally admitted evil,
and then put the responsibility of get
ting rid of it on local communities,
through local option laws, is to reverse
all recognized principles in law, hu-
man or divine. aud thereby curse with
the worst of all curses rather than
protect its innocent minOrities. Such
Il false theory of local self-government
might well be compared to one subor-
dinating the deity to the devil in the
government of the universe, and then,
after making such concessions to the
devil, leaving the two to scramble for
supremacy in such localities as the
devil might see proper to favor. 1t Is
just what the devil proposes TO Christ
on the mountain, when he, like our
modern liquor oligarchy, ,lyingly assum-
ed to own the Kingdoms of the world,
but was willing to make Christ sec
ond in command if lie would first fall
down and acknowledge the supremacy
of his satanic majesty. Such is not Il
privilege of local government in
! matters pertaining to the welfare of n
community, but merely the barren
privilege of fighting off the evil re-
suits of Il self-impOscd curse. Liquor
manufacturers and dealers knowing
this, and knowing further that their
! business is now on trial before the
great court of Public Opinion, and
that the only way to protect and per-
petuate its existence is to keep its as
sumed right to exist recognized
! through fraud and corrupt legislation,
and that license laws coupled with
local option laws accomplish this by
deceiving and misleading the people
into the false idea that such mon
strOsity is a form of local selfgovern
ment, they are for such measure to
u an. To them such measures are
! like an undeserved boon to the con-
demned murderer, who accepts, in
stead of the gallOws, a pardon from
death and place in a rickity peni-
/ tentiary, from which his entire escape
is only question of time. Our court
of last resort bas condemned the sa
loon to death. License is grant of
pardon emanating from Congress and
| from State legislatures. Local option
ratiiies the pardon thus granted, and
| then enters into life and death
struggle for its own existence with the
criminal thus liberated.
DOES THAT LOOK LIKE A STEPPING STONE
TO PROHIBITION
Or is it as Mr.. Atherton says, one of
the best weapons with which to fight
it? Laying aside theory, let us see
how it works in practice. Of the
forty, fifty, or sixty local option coun-
ties in Kentucky, not one has elected
a representative to the legislature
who will dare to stand up like man
in the halls of legislation and attack
this licensed infamy and yet our
court says ''lt is matter of legisla-
tive will only" Hence not local
option county in the State proposes
to express its legislative will against
the principle of licensing or legalizing
the traffic. If the Prohibitionists in
every local option county in the State
had united politically aud sent a party
PrOhibitionist to the legislature, Mr..
Atherton, the liquor dealers president
or king, would not have to call in a
Daniel to read the early doom Of his
business in the handwriting on the
wall of Kentucky's capitol. Why has
this not been done Are we told
that if local optionists had done this
that the Democratic party in the State
would have repealed their local option
laws? If so, we answer back, my
| brother, You are serving the Demo-
cratic devil for n price, and sooner or
later lie will brOil you or your child
rem on the same saloon gridirOn that
you are now assisting him to broil
others on. How dare you give
your vote and influence to a party
whose hellish vengeance you thus
fear? Do You know that you are
"selling yourself for nausht," and
that if you continue to thus ''sow to
| the wind you must eventually reap
the whirlwind?" AS our dominant
political parties have legislated in a
way to turn the devil loose on the un
suspecting youth of the country
through licensed saloons, we may as
we'll bushwhack him with the weapons
used to defend him by his own en-
iisaries-local option--while we are
working to concentrate and crystalize
our forces with which to charge his
Congressional and State legislative
strongholds, and expunge from our
statutes the infamous laws that give
him his liberty. Butg.to depend on
local option to meet and permanently
combat the nationally organized, le-
galized liquor traffic, intrenched as it
is behind the two dominant political
parties of the country, is to initiate
the ignorant priests of the dark ages
who zealousiy labored to provide for
and take care of those suffering from
preventable diseases, but superstiti-
ously refused to interfere with their
causes for fear of offending the deity.
The local optiOnists who thus contin-
ues to act is helping the liquor oil
garchy to fasten the licensed curse on
helpless minorities, while he does not
better his own community, even
though they vote the curse away.
The thinking men of the churches are
now beginning to understand this
question, and hence, in their deliber-
ative bodies, they resolute and Issue
| their bulls against license. or the le-