The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-07-25
rnE pRooIoirIoNIsTs.

,
Christian practices and requirements
INTO disrepute than any otner president
this republic has had"
TRANSPORTATION is the common vice of
great moral movements and 1T accounts J
m some degree for the fact that the
Prohibition party was reduced from the
third to the fifth place in national pol
tics by the election of 1896. People
who never drink, alcoholic beverages
ard who would like to see the traffic in
them suppressed declined to have any
thing to do with a movement that was
as fanatical in some of its ways as the
one which sent the selectmen of Salem
out at night with lanterns to watch for
witches on broomsticks.
Every reasoning person knows that
President Mckinley has done nothing
| intentionally to encourage the liquor
business or TO demoraliZe young men,
What the Prohibitionists mean is that
| he has executed the peoples Will as
expressed in an Act of Congress per-
hitting the sale of light wines and peer
/ in Army garrisOns. But was this
4 bad thing for temperance? Before that
| law was enacted soldiers who drank
went TO the low groggeries and pooz-
ipg-kens that skirted all Army reserV-
ations on the Mainland and spent their
earnings on the poisons there dispens-
ed. Murder, robbery and vagabondage
were the three graces at the feasts ana
/ the morale of the Army was nearly
ruined. Finally at the earnest request
of our military officers, especially sur
geons, Congress undertook to regulate
/ the sale of wine and beer to soldiers
and check the use of spirits. by estab-
fishing "canteens." In these places no
soldier was tempted to over-indul-
gence: what beverages he got were
mild and pure and he was kept from
drunkenness. The percentage of army
drinking fell off and the liquor trade.
especially the retail part of it. protest
ed bitterly. SO marked was the i'm
provemeny in the young men of Uncle
Sans service that Congress. though
importuned by enormous petitions to
abolish the canteen, has refused TO do
so.
Upon these points we note the fol-
lowing comments in Harper's Weekly,
a Journal which surely cannot be call
ed an organ of the rum-sellers:
Believing that the persons who knew
the soldier were the officers of the army
the War Department lately asked tbs
opinions of the comma nding officers OF
troops, batteries, companies, and resl
ments as to the effect of the canteer
system and espec ally of the sale of beer
on the morality and discipline of the en-
listed men. The replies of commandins
officers in the Philippines have not We
been received. but about fifteen hundred
answers from other officers have come in
and of these the number opposed to tn
canteen system is about forty. The res
heartily approve the carefully regulated
sale of beer, on the ground that Ii keep
the men away from saloons and evil re
! sorts outside the posts, and promote
temperance and good discipline.
These reports will presently be printed
. and will be obtainable by persons VIII
, care to see them. 1t Is very much to b
hoped that conscientious persons VIII
have agitated, and expect to agitate fur
tner, for the abolition of the canteen sys
tenn will procure and read them. 1t seem
!. to the Weekly impossible that the test
4 mony they offer as to the merits of tn
: present system. and the evils that preced
. ed II and which would follow it's destruc
: ton, can fail to convince reasonable PEG
: pie in and out of Congress that it make
j for righteousness and sobriety to let tn
= canteen system alone.
Contrast these statements with tn
!. fanatical charge that President Nc
!. Kinley has done more to encourag
: the liquor business, to demoralize TIL
temperance habits of young men an,
to bring Christian practices and re
quirements into dsrepute than an,
other President this republic has had
The attitude of the Prohibitionists re
: minds us of the attitude of their spirit
: ual forebears. the Abolitionists. toward
Abraham Lincoln-the one man whom
Wendell Phillips, the great orator o
= the ant:-slavery movement, delighte
n to grill over the fires of his rhetoric
N Lincoln" said Phillips In Faneui
~ Hall. lis the slavehound of Illinois
n That was because the future grea
'e Emancipator did not see his way clea
,, to act on the slavery question contrar
~ to good policy and public sentiment
he would not launch the ship of reform
g while the waters were at an ebb. I
n was his desire, as we quote the word
d Of Lamartine. Ito place his bark on tn
e highest promontory of the beach an
p wait for the rising of the tide to max
/, 1t float" Events proved the wisdom
& OF his course. When he declined to in
III bcIleIe WITH slavery IN Stlll-iOyal state
II lest they might be driven to rebel, wrr
= Lloyd Garrison called him a time
& server and a "poltroon." Errati
" Horace Greeley called the flag a.
d Haunting lie, whose stripes are blood
Il scars" and WED with the Richmon
IS Times in inventing epithets of hate 70
e Lincoln. Greeley even demanded tn
q dissolution Of the Federal compact s
e as to let the ''erring sisters take slav
II cry with themselves out of the Union
% a sentiment which Wendell Phillips re
'e peated and applauded. The demand G
e the AbOlitonists was for "immediat
II and unconditional abolition" but
II was never achieved. Finally as a wal
lie measure. Lincoln proclaimed the slave
lie free in all rebellious States and til
IL Garrisonian prints assailed him as on
20 who. in excepting loyal border State
4 had made a covenant with death an
J. a league with hell" Even when com
& plete emancipation came the Abolition
IN lists were not satisfied because, fol-
l. sooth, it had not been done in the
m way. 1t was done. in fact. in spite
" thep1--in cpita N their caI,tropio,,S &