Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1893-10-24

ucNli, uClSHucu uS thouSh ehcy
were the very bulwarks and for
tresses of Personal Liberty, to
destroy which were to destroy the
sacred heritage handed down to
us by our forefathers. Is it not
indeed the devils masterstroke I!
One single sentence is enough
to refute utterly the plea made
for the drink traffic on the line of
Personal Liberty. 1t is this:
THE SALOON is A MURDER
Err. When a man takes an in
sentient axe to kill another, it is
the man and not the axe that has
committed murder. When a le-
galized saloon turns a loving faith
er into a maddened fend who
murders his own wife and child
ren, the saloon, or what it repre-
sents, is the real murderer, and
not the fiend who acted as its tool,
blind and irresponsible for the
time being as the cold steel which
he swung. We say the saloon,
or what it represents, for the sa-
loon Itself is but an instrument,
an insentient thing. The real re-
sponsibility lies back of it upon
those who, knowing what its re-
suits are sure to be, with clear
eyes, cold hearts, steady brains,
establish it, legalize it, protect it
and share in its gains. TO plead
for the continuance of the saloon
means to plead for the continu-
ance of murder, and to do so in
the name of Personal Liberty is
indeed to don the livery of heaven
to serve the devil in.
There has been a frightful cpl
demic of lynchings in our land.
Frenzied and beside themselves
with horror, whole communities
have risen to destroy brutes of
men who have committed mon
strous crimes. Time and again
we have seen it chronicled after
ward that the crimes were COM
mitted by brutes who owed their
brutishness to the saloons. Year
after year, during the civil war,
the negroes of the South stood by
the women and the children while
their fathers and husbands and
brothers were at the front in that
brave contest. Who ever heard
of an assault then by negro up
on white woman! Then they
did not have access to liquor. We
have made them free, and the
States in which they live, follow
ing the example of Northern
States, have legalized saloons to
make fends out of them. In Par
is, Tex, such a fend tore limb
from limb a sunny little maiden
of three years, and the rage of
the community rose like roar
ing flame to consume the criminal; !;
but the legalized saloons. live on
in the State of Texas, and part of
the money which was the price
paid for the crime went into the
public treasury. Men of Texas,
men of America, where in the
name of God is your manhood =!
One little sunny-browed girl,
crushed and manned and murder
ed by this traffic, ought to be
enough to rouse true man to
heroic action. Yet we sit day by
day, year by year, Indifferent,
listless, lifeless, while thousands
of such are yearly going through
cruel hell upon earth, defraud-
ed of their childhood, robbed of
their bloom, crushed beneath the
cruel treatment from parents
whom we, in the name of Person
al Liberty, have turned into de-
mons And the clink of gold and
silver, the price of the this worse
than barbarism, is in our pockets
and stiles the cries of misery
that arise . But no clinking OF
silver and gold can stife such
cries in heaven, and whatsoever a
man or a nation sows that also
shall be reaped. The Voice.
The following from the Demo
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