The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-10-29
That Sunday Saloon Riot Good
Thing

To the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
That bloody ARRAY in a saloon in the resi-
dence district of North New Jersey street
on Sunday not an unmixed evil. We
are apt to estimate thing or an event by
it's present pleasure or pain, forgetting its
possible If not it's certain beneficial out
come There is a much-needed education
on the saloon business that can be acquired
only through such schooling as that, and
no class of men are more in need of it than
some who live in the near vicinity of that
saloon. One man, whose children have to
pass that dangerous place every day in go
ing to school. unless directed to go around
it as they would go around a case of small
pox, refused to sign the petition to exclude
it and others from the specified residence
district because the Liquor League of the
city had threatened a boycott on all who
did, and he is a representative of scores
who tremble at the beck of the saloon
power. This event alone may not have
changed his mind as to what he owes his
children, for there was nothing unusual in
it, except that nobody was killed. and if the
killing had been limited to only one there
would have been so little unusual that it
would, not have caused any sensation ex-
cept that 1t had occurred among tony peo-
pie instead of the poor, who can afford
homes only where the proximity of saloons
Keeps property cheap; but the repeated re-
currence of such riots, coupled with what
happened to one of his kind only few
months ago, the bringing of his drunken
son home in a MANNED condition, will prob
ably change his views or, at least, induce
him to be man enough to declare against
the present omnipotent saloon power.
history never repeats ITSELF but events,
wholly independent OF each other yet in
VoIvlng the same general principles, often
SO travel in parallel grooves that knowing
the outcome of the earlier it is not difficult
to foresee the certain outcome of the other.
Forty years ago slavery had so long had it's
way that there was no demand IN politics,
IN commerce or even in social life too ex
travagant for it to make. Not content
with having dictated the pro-slavery COM
pleXion of presidential candidates for a half
century, 1t had succeeded in concreting its
policy into fugitive-Slave law, the repeal
of the Missouri compromise, a decision of
the supreme Court which nationalized
slavery, it had prepared for the bloody war
which followed. It's first overt act was the
defiance of law: The numerical strength of
the North might enact laws, but in their
administration the local authorities of the
South might defy them, and they did.
Newspapers from the North were not per-
mitted to be distributed in Southern post
offices, and citizens of the North might not
even travel through the South except on
condition that they said nothing against
slavery, so that when free-state men, seek
ing homes in the neWly-opened Territory
of Kansas, were driven back by border ruff
fans, and steamboats, carrying them were
turned back by loaded cannon slavery was
only carrying out a programme it had long
been preparing, and the firing upon Fort
Sumter was only another overt act in the
general plan. Thousands of years ago
thoughtful heathens had so noticed the uni
form results of wrong doing that they
formulated their conclusion into the aphor-
ism, Whom the gods wish to destroy they
first make mad" and the same truth finds
utterance in Hebrew philosophy in the
phrase. When the wicked triumph it is
that they shall be destroyed forever What
happened to slavery we all know, but we
do not all seem to know that it took just
such an experience as border ruffaniSm to
arouse sufficient manhood in the North to
resist such a daring defiance of law. The
poor crayens, that Northern politicians
were, tolerated for many years all minor
outrages, and then they made an attack on
slavery itself, wishing it only to obey law,
1t took nearly two years of the war itself
TO educate the authorities to the point of
destroying the cause of all the wrongs it
had brought upon US. 1t was a painful and
expensive experience but nothing less
would answer. To-day the saloon is in
command just as slavery was forty years
ago, and it is fastening its own overthrow
Just as slavery hastened its. Not numeri-
cally strong enough to enact or repeal laws,
1T boldly defies all laws that conflict with its
interests. BY its audacity it has created
the sentiment that restrictive laws cannot
be enforced, and by it's persistence and tact
it manages to elect local officers in SYM
pathy with its purposes, terrorizing the OPP
POSlllOH ny It's bOlG political front anu us
relentless business boycott, the cowardly
politician and his willing slave taking up
the exact refrain their cowardly fathers re-
peated forty years ago-you can't enforce
the law. Perhaps cannot now. but such
riots as that, with the murders and other
crimes the saloon Is responsible for are
great educators. Even the good temper
ance men who would not sign petition to
rid their district of saloons may learn that
there are greater interests to be consulted
than business interests when mourning
over lost sons. AS it requires just such
bloody affrays to arouse the people to the
asserting of their manhood that riot was
q good thing The saloon power of to-day
is paralleling the slave power of fifty years
ago, and, like that, it is to be utterly de-
stroyed by its own madness and much
sooner than it expects. u. l.. SEE.
Indianapolis, Oct 2S.