The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1895-10-11
w. c. T. u. COLUr1N.
Why John q. Woolley is Party
Prohibitionist.


Erred IN MUSIC HALL, BOSTON,
SEPTEMBER is, 1895.
1t lis beyond debate that a man
ought to be true to himself; not
only true to his conscience, which
is the response of his unprotected
faculties to the movement of the
divine harmony, but also true to
conscience, which is the response of
his unprotected faculties to the
movement of the divine harmony,
but also true to his .judment, which
is the same thing vibrating at a
lower rate. That is my apology, if
any apology were needed, for being
a Prohibitionist and member of
the Prohibition party.
In the flush of a January sunrise,
after an awful night, nearly eight
years ago, conviction gripped me
that ought to go to war against the
liquor traffic. / did at daybreak,
and have never rested. 1t was no
desperate outreach after liveli-
hood; 1 left an assured position,
ample salary and a profession
which | loved, to become what you
see me, a wandering, uncreden-
tailed missionary to the voting
church. | believed the Democratic
party to be incapable of administer
ing this government, even in con-
ditions of prosperity and utter
quiet, and as to that my Judgment
has undergone no change. | have
learned since that southern democ-
racy is intelligent as it is brave and
loyal, but all to great devotion to
the theory of states rights, bred to a
craftsmanship too provincial to deal
with this unbounded and unlocal-
liable agency of evil, and by the
express declarations of it's national
platform, self-appointed defender
in ordinary of the saloon.
| believed the Republican party
to be the brainest thing in politics
thus far, best trained to rule and in
its ranks sentimentally an enemy
to the saloon but swamped past
remedy by bossism. Its "bloody
shirt" idiocy in Ohio, it's progress
sive degeneracy in Pennsylvania,
its moral insolvency in Maine, New
Hampshire and Rhode Island, it's
moral pareSis in New York, it's in
eXprssible infamy in Iowa, it's con-
centric conspiracies of conscience
crucifying candidature throughout
the land, marks the regal ruler of
''the sixties" the tlabby, impudent,
decadent of the ceutury's end. You
have it at its best in this state. The
Republican party in Massachusetts,
in its relation to the national con-
Germ, is an island of hopeful i'll
health in an ocean of pus. had
no choice but to leave it. / have
to be party Prohibitionist or be
false to myself,
A man ought to be true to his
country. This is republic, a gov
ernment of the people, for the peo-
pie, by the people. Once a year
the voter stands within the throne
room of the nations power and with
unabated breath and unbent knee
may speak his mind. | hold my
citizenship a thing so sacred and so
royal that every time election day
comes round, say to myself, "My
country wants to know my mind
to-day, and like an honest, loyal
man, | shall give her the best that
| have" To do less would be in
cipient treason, and what | say to
her | will stand to, even in the
shock and smoke, blood and cruely
of war, or that worse thing, the
jeers and cOntumely of maiOrities.
| believe the tariff. the financial
reforms, the recurring panics, to be-
trifies light as air compared with
the saloon in labor, commerce, pol
itics and law, and as to the Monroe
doctrine, about which we hear so
much now, upheld by a government
which derives one-third of its rev.
enue from the ruin of its own citi
zens and the degradation of its own
honor, | am at loss whether to
consider it bowling farce or paltry
brag.
n man ought to be true to his
Mine says Officially, that
the liquor traffic can never be
licensed without sin, in which case,
unless logic be ii Jack o'lantern, it
Is a sin for man at a general cleo
ton to be Methodist and a Re
publican. | have to be a party
lFNoh iI,if,A,snk