Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1893-05-16
WORDS FROM BOTH SIDES.
ProhIbItIoI "a Il ropuIist Views Of the
Coalition scheme.

movement, as we'll as in the political
history of our country.
For the republican party TO go before
the people again upon the tariff issue
would mean certain defeat; while if it
should retreat from the position which
| it has 50 loudly defended in the past,
public confidence in the ability and in
tegrity of its leaders would be shaken,
and disaster would follow. So that the
republican party is out of power; has a
record of crushing defeats in the past,
and has no issue upon which it can go
before the people with any hope of sue
cess. Therefore it is dead and will rap
idly disintegrate, and there will be re-
adjustment of political lines in the near
future.
The leaders of the peoples party will
make mighty effort to have financial
reform the slogan of the new party.
Their issues are popular with large
class of people; they have not been in
the field as long as we, and they have
the prestige of having carried several
states and of having destroyed political
calculations in a number of others.
, Furthermore, the liquor men, seeing
the crisis, will undoubtedly contribute
large sums of money to the peoples
party; vote with it to a great extent
and endeavor to make the financial is
sue so prominent that it will absorb
public attention and become the issue
upon which parties shall divide in the
near future, and thus use the peoples
! party and the cry for financial reform
to avert the impending danger of a di-
rect fight between the saloon power
and the prohibition forces. This is
| their method; they have used license or
tariff as subterfuge in the past; they
/ do not defend their business, they sim
ply try to keep the public mind occu-
pied with some other question. They
are consummate politicians and will do
verything that money and ingenuity
can accomplish to get the temperance
forces fighting among themselves upon
financial questions, as the king of Per-
| sia endsavored to keep the Greeks
fighting among themselves.
VIII we be outgeneraled at this crit
ical hour? The destiny of the Repub-
lie and Of future millions depends upon
the reply. Onr supreme effort should
be to force direct fight, and TO COM
pei an immediate reformation of polit-
ical lines with prohibition as the battle |
cry.
There could be no greater disaster
than the success of the peoples party; |
for it is almost certain to become a |
sectional and class party, having its |
main strength in the West and South, |
and to be bitter uprising of the poor
@ha -taI
marked the beginning of the end of
the Roman nation. 1t would be an
indiscriminate mixing of the good and
bad elements of society, and conse-
quent extinction of the influence of
the moral element of the nation.
But prohibition being great moral
issue, will appeal with equal strength
to the good men of all sections and
classes. 1t will be the massing of the
moral forces of the nation into one
party, so that true and patriotic men
may be elected to Office, and the gov
ernment administered according to the
best interests of all The prohibition
party could then proceed along the
progressive but safe lines indicated in
our platform to accomplish needed fl
nancial reform. Dobyins
1t would be a good thing if the per-
sons who compose the peoples and pro-
hibition parties could get together into
one organization. am not in favor of
any attempt to put the two parties to-
gether, but 1 am in favor of all sensi-
BILE attempts of the people who COM
pose them to get together. believe we
shall present consolidated front in the
next campaign. believe that time, the
changes of material circumstances, will
do great deal to bring us together.
believe Interchange of honest thoughts
will do more. am a peoples party voter
and worker, yet perfectly friendly to
the object which prohibitionists seek to
| obtain.
There is but one serious difference
between the two parties Let US see If
we can not reach common, medium,
sensible position. / believe that both
parties could unite heartily in the fol-
lowing plank:
THE beverage traffic in intoxicating
liquors is an evil. As American citizens
our sympathy is with every honest at
tempt to abolish it, but we believe that
all such attempts will be largely futile
until the ballot is equally the right of
men and women. We believe that the
immediate steps which should be taken
for the abolition of the traffic are that
all sales of intoxicating liquors in each
state should be conducted by the state
through local agents, thus giving the
state unobstructed control of sales; and
that the electoral franchise should be
extended to women on the same quail
fications as 10 men,"
think that do express the feeling
of the great bulk of the peoples party
when say that we differ from prohibi-
ZIONIST simply in this. that we think it
a waste of time and energy to attempt
to prohibit or very greatly curtail the
public beverage liquor traffic SO long as
men only are voters. and that all at
tempts toward that end under the pres
ent circumstances will prove very large
ly futile. While we keep our eye on
the goal, we must not forget to go more
resolutely to work than prohibitionists
have yet done to change the circum-
stances. If prohibitionists and others
had made more of dead set for ex-
tension of the suffrage-put as much eff
| fort on that as on the other-we should,
] believe, have had both that and the
other long ago. We were all very much
afraid of ''long-haired women" and