The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1900-07-18
PROHIBITION A FAILURE.


discussed at this time more than
anv other. Editors, preachers
and politicians are contending to
prove their respective sides OF
the contention. The ministers,
who should practice and preach
temperance at al times, are,
with a remarkable singularity,
on the eve of an election, preach
ing prohibition; many of them
are advising their hearers to
vote for the present candidates
who are running on the Prohi-
bition platform. These minis
ters resent being told they are
making the pulpit a political
stump, and claim they have as
much right to discuss these ques-
tions as any other citizen. We
know of no one who has been so
silly as to dispute the legal right
Of a preacher to vote and discuss
political questions; the law OF
the land guarantees to every cit
izen the light of suffrage, but
there are many people, while
they concede a preachers legal
right to vote and talk politics,
think that when a preacher does
these things, unless he is exceed
ingly careful he will injure his
influence with at least some
members of his flock, because
members OF churches differ ma
terially on political questions,
and preacher who will become
active for one side OF the other,
is liable to cause wounds. A
great many people also con-
cede the legal right Of preacher
to attend political conferences,
but these same people believe
that a preacher is honoring his
calling, more by using the time
it would take him to be closeted
with politicians, in visiting the
sick, praying with the dying,
giving spiritual light to those
who are blindly groping in the
dark; they believe preachers
have a higher calling than to be
closeted with politicians devising
plans to secure votes for this
and that candidate. A preacher
from his pulpit does not always
get his facts straight, his statis-
tics are often defective and, when
he breaches sermon which in
wolves a pending political ques-
ton, he often makes assertions
which, with thinking people, are
not accepted as conclusive.
Just at this time, from nearly
every pulpit will be heard SER
mons on prohibition and the
speakers enjoy a degree of self
satisfaction, that their sermons
are effective. Nearly every pro-
hibition sermon we have ever
listened at was made up Of as
sertions, and quotations from
Neal Dow and others, without
any attempt to take the official
reports to prove their argu-
ments. This sort of thing might
have done in the days when igno-
rance and superstition ran riot
over the land, when religious ia
naticism caused people to be
burned at the stake, when women
were executed for being scolds,
and for witchcraftry, etc, but
in this day of great educa-
tional advancement, mere asser-
tons not backed by proof, will
not be taken as indisputable
facts. Every Prohibition orator,
whether in the pulpit or on the
hustings, quotes Neal Dow's
statement to the effect "that be-
fore the enactment of prohibi-
ton in the State of Maine that
State spent s25, 100000 annually
for liquor, and since they have
had prohibition the amount spent
for liquor has been reduced to
81, 100000" This remarkable
statement is quoted regularly
and yet the speakers making use
of such statement, must surely
see the absurdity Of it. 1t is an
absurd statement, and it only
needs 4 little reflection to be con,