The sea coast echo. [volume] (Bay Saint Louis, Miss.) 1892-current, 1895-06-15
PROHIBITION AND MORALITY.

PROHIBITION AND MORALITY.
Elsewhere in this issue will be
found two able communications
dealing with the liquor question
as regards our city and county
and State in general. 1t will be
remembered that last week we
took occasion tie refer to this top
ic, because of late, owing to the
appearances of prohibition lee
turers, the subject has been agi-
tated to no little degree. A care
full perusal of the articles to
which we direct your attention
will demonstrate why Bay St.
Louis and county should not en-
act prohibitory laws.
Apart from the financial losses
which would result from having
prohlbltory laws statued, we will,
for a moment or two, deal with
the moral aspect of the question.
1t must be understood that the
liquor question is not one that
can be narrowed to an inconse-
quent stream, the course of which
can be checked at will; it is as
vast as the broad ocean the waves
of which will continue to touch
all shores. No sectional legisla-
tion will ever crush it, and it is
hardly probable that the govern
ment will ever take any active
measures against it.
One of our contributors very
aptly remarks that "whiskey will
be INDUCED in as long as there is
one grain of corn raised from
which it can be made" This is
an unfortunate truth and therein
lies the potency which will BATTLE
any and all attempts that will ever
be made to suppress it's maunfac-
ture. Our prohibition advocates
in their zeal preach a code of
morality which would be more
dangerous and degrading than all
the saloons operated in the clear
light of day could be. The mo-
ment you close the saloon you
pave the way for a secret grog
shop, and while the former makes
an honest drunkard the latter
makes him ''subtle, false and
treacherous," qualities which soon
reduces a man to the utmost
depravity.
Drinking whiskey may be an
evil, but there are countless evils
infinitely worse which, for eight
cen hundred years, the laws of
man have been trying to expunge,
and yet crime increases. Our
government may abrogate the
liberty of the individual by plac-
ing restrictions upon him, but
neither the government or any
other power can abrogate or regu-
late the intensity of human
desire, and as long as desire
fingers fulfillment will follow as
inexorably as night follows the
day. The effect of the secret
grog shop, or what is familiarly
known as the "blind tiger" will
also be extremely demoralizing to
boys and youths as they must nee
essarily learn to lie to conceal
their evil; the vice is bad in both
forms, it is true, but where is the
mother or father who would hest
tate to choose between the son
who is a drunkard but honest,
and the one who is a drunkard
but also liar?
Prohibition may sound all right
but it is a physical impossibility
and advocacy and sectional legis.
latlon against twill do more harm
than good. The intention ma,
be good, but the consequences ar,
to be dreaded as they would ado
burrows to the cheek of civiliza.
tlon, wrinkles to the brow of
morality and curtail the eniov
ment of a liberty which our con
stitutlon assures every individual
Haley and Caulfield, New Or
leans councilmen who waro :,