Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1894-01-04
WHAT TO DO WITH THE SALOON.

ES-ALSN arc oASSt " u NAoeluf aItoEOo
which the method begets. On the one
hand il decreases the number of saloons. |
makes them more respectable, and |
brings them more easily undIr police |
surveillance; but on the ether hand the
large booiywhich is covered into the pub
lie treasury, silences and make scallous
the public conscience, the element of
responsibility brings the temptation into
closer touch with the better classes OF
society and imperils the very strength
Of the nation, and the concentration of
the business in a few hands means
monopolistic profits with which to push
the business by securing official non
interference, by the purchase of legisla-
tioD, by the bribing of courts aud other
secrets aud foul means known to the
''trade."
?. Local option. This means that
each locality shall have power to deal
with the saloon as it sees fit. 1t is
proper and right that the locality
should have this authority and if it
issues in the abolition of the saloon the
result is good.
But Local Option may be classed
with Prohibition, as the end sought for,
and the means used, by temperance
people are the same in both cases. A
first weakness of Prohibition is due to
the fact that not all temperance men
will act. There is great sluggish, in
| different middle zone. The motives of
their inactivity are moral apathy, per-
sonal interest, and hopelessness.
Moral apathy: Their moral sensibili-
ties are not awake, they have 10 feel
ing when they stlrd in the presence of
the grossest violations of justice aud
morals, they are unmoved by the suffer-
ings and destituticn and crime caused
by the liquor traffic. Personal interest:
They are AFRAID that their business
would suffer if they give their support
to the Prohibition movement. Help
lessness:-It Is utterly useless to fight
against the saloons They have no
faith in the maxim that truth will pre-
vail" This middle zone gives languid
support now to anti-temperance, now to
temperance, or aroused by the temper
! aIy success of a concerted and vigor-
GUS temperance onset they join the VIC
torious forces, unturl their banner and
sound the paean. But an artificial zeal
is short lived, and at the first repulse
they sink back into their state of in
difference and throw up their hands and
exclaim, 1T is no use.
In the second place Prohibition does
not sufficiently recognize the fact that
saloon exists potentially in the deprav-
ity of the human heart, in a conscience
less greed and a morbid appetite and a
craving for the low associations which
accompany the saloon. All saloons
may be swept from the earth, and if the
force which swept them away be with
drawn, they will be reproduced in three
weeks time. The work is not done,
therefore, when the law is passed or the
constitutional amendment is secured, or
when election day is over, the battle is
only just begun. The contest must be
waged necessarily until the saloon is
destroyed in its potentially, until that
inhuman type of greed and indulgence
ar5 eradicated from the human heart.
This means a courage and persistence |
and patience and sacrifice which only |
heroic souls possess. Hence cities and |
towns are voting no license one year |
and license the next. This will account |
for the reactionary movement in Iowa |
at the present time, which threatens |
that state with the loss of its prohibition |
legislation. If they keep their legisla-
tion and persist in enforcing it, their
task will grow easier each year; if they
yield now, the work must all be done
over when they want prohibition again
High license is unsatisfactory even to
its advocates There is no hope in
many states of even securing a trial u
Prohibitions and where it is in opera
ton, it causes endless harassment and
perplexity
Earnest temperance men are there
fore seriously enquiring whether there
may not be some other method of deal
ing with this horrible human curse
which infests our civilization. The ex-
periments already undertaken and
others contemplated, show how wide
spread is the conviction that some in
termediate step between our present
state of national drunkenness and the
ideal state of sobriety is needed. The
most conspicuous example is The method
adopted in South Carolina where the