Mississippi leader. (Jackson, Miss.) 1892-1895, 1894-04-10

of that wrong. If the restrictive fea-
lures in the bill justified the wrong of
legalizing the traffic, what wrong is
there that could not be justified in the
same way? For ministers of the Cos
pei to argue this is to place themselves
along side of those who insist on lc-
Called prostitution under restrictions.
And indeed the analogy might be run
through the whole catalogue of
crimes.
1t is no excuse to say that the bust
ness has been licensed in Mississippi
before; that does not justify II lot of
eminent divines in working for a bill
to re- license it under new cOnstitu-
ton simply because there were re-
strictiOns in the licensing bill. The
licensing feature is there all the same,
above which Brother Blacks church,
in it's highest official capacity, has
said, "the players of Gods people for
its suppression will RISE" and beneath
which "the shrioks of the souls lost
through its agency will descend" Like
Baalam in his misguided zeal, the adj
vocatcs of the bill seem to seek to con-
suit the will of the Deity in their re-
strictive measures, and then to indi-
rectly teach the political Balaks of the
State how to cast stumbling block
before the people by encouraging with
license the very thing they had just
admitted before God to be great
wrong. And then like the army of
Amalek, for those whose cowardly
murders of the weaker ones of the Is
| A, IT,, IN, fbn xrillornncS Lie m la
race were afterwards eXterminated;
this bill simply favOrs the strong and
Expresses the weak. 1t is the help
less minorites in liquor-cursed COM
munities who are to suffer by this Ii
ouor~licensing bill provided as it is
with it's high and holy moral restric
! tons for moral communities. o, that
there could have been Moses found
on that occasion, with an Aaron and
Hur to stay up his hands while he
held up the emblem of justice; and a
Joshua had sprang up in the legisla-
ture to go forth and battle for the pro-
lection of these weaker ones. Broth
er Black, Gin as much as We did it not
unto one of these. we did it not unto
me- The license feature is in yQul
bill to curse somebody, and the curse
will fall heaviest on those who most
need protection. 1t is a poison that
no restriction can control, and that
can never work out its own destruc-
ton. Like all other poisons it con-
teammates and destroys whatever il
comes in contact with, and it is never
transformed into anything better than
itself.
Yes, this license feature in your
bill, Brother Black, is the wIndshake
in the building timber of it, that is to
sink the whole craft. tits the fly III
the ointment that is to set the whole
thing to sinking. 1t is the fatal de-
feet that makes rotten the whole SUI
perstructure, If to license the liquor
traffic sis SIM" which | presume
you will not deny, then to license II
with any sort of restrictions is to sub
scribe to that abOminable doctrine
"that we are to do evil that good may
come of it, If the licensing of the
liouor traffic is the beginning of the
end of the traffic in Mississippi, wher
and how is that end to come? BY
! continuing the licensing process unit
it destroys itself? Where and When
did vicious legislation ever correct tho
vicious thing brought forth and pro
tected by it? Then if this is an i'm
possibility, how is the licensing of thu
, LIQUOR traffic in Mississippi under any
sort of restrictions to prove the be
ginning of the end of the traffic? The
only way to end the traffic is to undo