Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1894-09-04
ART THOU THE MAN?
WHO Is RESPONSIBLE FOR THE
DRINK TRAFFIci
Bishop Fitzgerald of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church Hurls Out Some Thun-
derboIts of Truth Concerning This Great
Evil.

derbolts Of Truth Concerning This Great
Evil.
BY BISHOP FITZGERALD
The saloon is the chief and most auda-
cious lawbreaker of the age.
1t is the arch destroyer of all that is
dear to man.
1t is sleepless, relentless, Unsuitable,
mighty. There is but one power in the
land that is stronger, and that is the
church. If the saloon is to be overthrown,
the church must overthrow it. Will
sheS The question is one of purpose, not
Of ability. She can do whatsoever she
will in this all important work.
The service which the church has al.
ready rendered in antagonism to the sa-
loon is not, by any means, to be dispar-
aged. On the contrary, it is to be ac-
knowledged as well nigh invaluable.
More than all other agents, she has res
cued perishing inebriates and softened
the hearts of those who were forcing
their brothers down to drunkards' graves.
She, more than anything or anybody else,
has created the sentiment which rules
dramsellers out of respectable society
and places drunkard making in the list
of crimes. Nearly all of her denomina
tions have cried aloud against the drink
traffic and have denounced it in unmeas-
ured terms, and some of those denomina-
tions have SO legislated that none of their
members can lawfully buy, sell or use as
beverage the deadly liquid.
All honor to the church for her war
fare against the saloon! We give to her
great credit and thankful praise. I'm
questionably she has been and still is in
the van. Nevertheless we are persuad-
ed that before she can fully accomplish
the great mission to which we believe
God has called her she must take a much
longer step in advance and strike far
heavier blows. Her forces must be thor
oughly and permanently organized,
and combined with kindred forces must
constitute the opposition. The foes of
the saloon must unite against its friends.
The issue must be fairly joined. The
saloon has long carried the black flag.
Henceforth the church and her allies in
this particular warfare must carry it
too. The battle must be desperately
fought, and the field of battle must be
the field ofpolitics. This opposition must
enter that field just as did the opposition
to the extension of slavery, and it mustr re-
main therein until prohibition, like free.
dom, shall become an accepted doctrine
against which no party shall dare to
speak. From every organization that
sympathizes or compromises with the
rum traffic Christian men must separate
themselves and unite in an organization
every member of which shall at all times,
including election days, and in all
places, including the polls, and with all
powers, including the ballot, stand
against the giant evil of the day. The
voting clergymen and laymen of the
church must become unit on this great
subject at the ballot box-the point at
which they have been divided in the past
and are divided now.
Here is difficult problem. But it
could be solved, and it would be solved
were it not for the strength of old polit-
ical party ties, than which nothing on
earth seems to be stronger. In 1S60-65
many a man who thought himself to be
loyal to the nation to the last degree
became sympathizer with the rebellion
solely because of his love for political
party. And SO today many man who
thinks himself to be a true friend ofpro-
hibition becomes an apologist for the Ii
cense system simply because he fears
that the political party of his love may
be harmed if prohibition be insisted on.
Bishop Foster forcibly and truthfully
says: "The church of today, much more
the church of the future, must take to
its heart the duty of combining and
massing its forces against that gigantic
atrocity, that diabolical conspiracy, that
nameless monstrum horrendum of Chris
tian civilization-that mothers nine
tenths Of the woes and sorrows which
blight and curse our modern age-the
traffic in intoxicants, which hides its de-
formity under forms of law. How long
shall the face of our Christian age blister
with this worse than pagan shame? Has
the virtue of our time degenerated so
low that we do not even blush at the leg
islative traffic in the souls of our own
children-that by the very doors Of our
own homes and our temples an army Of
miscreants should by authorization OF
laws, made by Christian lawgivers,
prosecute a work of murder and deathS
How can we go to the heathen with this
cancer of worse than heather infamy
fostering in our bosom?"
What an arrangement is this? Can the
christian lawgivers" enter any plea ex-
cept that of guilty. and can Christian
voters fail to see that they are particeps
criminis? They unite. it is true, in de-
manding a prohibitory law, but they do
not agree in support of men to enforceit
or even to enact it. They readily de-
clare in favor of total abstinence for the
individual and legal prohibition for the