The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1901-07-18
SOME HISTORIC FAILURES.

The theory that a Government ought
to do right as other people under
stand the right and ignore so base a
thing as common sense and political ex-
pediency, has wrought many signal and
melancholy failures in the history of the
world. Long ago the governments of
Southern Europe were instructed by
the church to which they held ale
glance to treat as enemies of the
State, worthy of the faggot and the
chain, those who did not accept a pc
culiar and unscientific Interpretation of
Gods word. 1t was held by the church
that the earth was fiat; that what is
now carfsd the Old World was the only
world; that astronomy was heresy and
that the idea of the earth being more
than plus five thousand years of age
was a device of a personal devil to lead
the Christian astray; and that, on the
theory that a Government should al
ways do right"-as other people in
terpreted the right-men who question
ed these dicta were to be slain upon
instruments of torture. The annals of
the world are indelibly stained and
blackened by the story of those times.
At a much later period the world had
a new conception of right to deal with
in it's politics. The scene shifted from
southern Europe to northern Europe
from Spain and Italy to England. There
asyGovernment to do right must stop
all amusements, must ordain the sober
garment and the lugubrious visage,
must compel the singing of psalms. in
a nasal monotone and must regulate
eating, courtship, recreation and even
art. The Government did as it was
hidden and England almost went mad.
For years and decades the sad expert
ment was carried on until the patience
of men could stand it no longer; and,
as a correspondent said in a recent
Advertiser, the Swing back carried
En-, gland into profgacy." A small col
ony of pinched fanatics took the dark
Cromwellian creed across the sea to
New England, where the local govern
ment had to do right by burning old
women as witches and Sitting the ears
of Quakers. The right" of the matter
was so clear in that day that ministers,
after proving it by the Bible, felt no
computations against barbarism and
outlawry We read that part of New
England's history with shame; yet the
men who made it were as sincere as
any who have come after them with
schemes to invade personal liberty with
edicts of Church and State
Men now living can remember the
strident call of the Abolitionists when
the loyalty of the border States of the
Union was trembling in the balance. to
do right" and strike down slavery at
once. Abraham Lincoln knew that God
did not always move in the thunder and
the storm but was heard in the still,
small voice. He tried to deal gently
with the crisis, and for it Wendell Phil
lips proclaimed him the ''Slavehound of
and VIM. Lloyd Garrison said
that he and the Republican party were
in covenant with death and a league
with hell" Abraham Lincoln, vastly
greater than they, held his peace. He
refused to enrage the border States; he
declined to lose the support of that
great faction of his own party which
did not care to shed blood for "niggers;''
and for two years after war began he
held the abolitionists at bay waiting for
the time of emancipation to grow ripe.
Finally it came on the bough of expe-
diency. Lincoln freed the slaves as a
war measure; did it lawfully;
did 1t irrevocably; and did it despite
representation of the Abolition party.
Americans and Christians now hear
again the old familiar call to "do
right"-to abolish the trade in alcoholic
and malt stimulants by an edict of the
State. The call is fanatical in its tone
and its iteration and because of that
but 100000 out of the millions of tenn
perate men or total abstafners in the
Union, are willing to respond to it with
their votes. Against this beggarly total
are the millions who have signed the
Francis Murphy pledge believing that
The way to close the saloons is to per-
suade the people not to enter them
that 1t is not to affront their sense of
manly independence by telling them
hey shall not enter. In that view most
Honolulu Christians seem to concur and
Is result of it the Murphy movement