The Indianapolis journal., 1904-04-27

In this increase, but have been assured
by some of the active workers of the party
that the phenomenal increase in the vote
in Indiana in 1902 was responsible for it.
TO make amends for any wrong impress
slons may have thus made, / wish to say
that, for some reason. Indiana was below
the average in 1856, for while the whole
averaged 3.45 per cent, the vote in In
diana was only 2 per cent. of the aggregate
vote of the State that year. Yet in 1902 it
was per cent, showing a net gain of 1
per cent. in sixteen years, or an annual
average of six and a quarter-hundredths
OF per cent. per annum. AS the party is
entitled to the whole truth, take pleasure
In thus giving it's own explanation of its
irrepressible enthusiasm at the convention.
Inc average American, after working
thirty-two years with a party which can
muster only per cent. of the votes in
iaVor or straight-out prohibition or nothing,
should try some repressive measures and
join the Anti-Saloon League, which seeks
10 enforce the very little restraining law
we have until better and still better laws
can be had and enforced. but the league
mas no more bitter opposition in the sa-
looms themselves than it finds in the Prohi-
pltion party. When apologizing for con-
tinuing the organization from year to year
with such history the leaders claim that
the AooIuon party of fifty years ago
procured the abolition of slavery through
their continued agitation of the slavery
question, so the Prohibition party expects
TO secure prohibition by continuing to agi-
tate the saloon question and TO demand
prohibition. Honest men who know the
facts OF history will make no such an
apology. True, then there were many paral-
iensms between the two parties, but in
the wisdom of their methods they were
wholly unlike. For instance, when James
G FBirney, the organizer of the Liberty
party In 1s40 and its first and second can
dluate Tor President, was in the thirties
the secretary of the Anti-slavery Society.
the editor of its organ and an able lectur-
eer he was one of the most useful men of
his period and succeeded i'm practicaIIv
federating all the churches i'm the North
into compact anti-slavery force. but after
becoming the leader of the party he and his
party associates never delivered an anti
slavery address, or wrote an anti-slayery
article, except in the interest of the Liberty
party, and all their writings and lectures
apo. a.oounoed IN opprobrious epithets against
their former associates. charging them with
pefriending slavery by voting the pro-
slavery tickets. In this method the paraI-
leilsm Is complete. Many of the early lead
ers In the Prohibition party were once
among the most useful of the temperance
workers.; they lectured on temperance i'm
the churches and in the slum districts and
babite eIGteu many a drunkard from his evil
haplts; but on joining the party all this
ceased If. In twenty-five years any lead
er In the party has delivered a Temperance
lecture or worked for reformation of a
orunkard nave never heard of it, Their
one theme has been prohibition and they
never fail TO denounce those who do not
loln Ihelr party, no matter what may be
his devotion to prohibition as the onIv
IiSht thing TO seek. In this the parallelism
is complete. 1t is complete In another
phase, Notwithstanding the detection of
the Liberty party men the cause of anti
siaVeryism grew rapidly through the in
strumentality of hundreds OF such papers
as the New York Tribune and the Indian
apolis Journal, and through such preachers
as Henry Ward Beecher and Mattbew
simpson, and such literature as "TJncle
Toms Cabin" just as the demand for
prSoininltion mas grown, in spite of the Pro-
hibition party, through the churches and
tne SCHOOLS, and the ravages of the saloonS
themselves. aoon'
Here the roads fork. but they will come
Mr. Birney, the first Abolition party can
dldate, received In 1910 only three one
thhousandths thot of 1 per cent. of the vote
.hat year many thought the party had
breathed its last. but in 1874 he received 2
per cent of the popular vote. Showing
rapid growth in four years. and when in
1912 the party received 10 per cent of the
vote Mr.. Birney and others saw the uIti-
mate success of the party very near hut
they were mistaken. Ten per cent. Of the
people In favor of any radical measure is
strued 1t as such an expression of non,,
lar disfavor that it at once began to act
as II slavery were indorsed by the people
of the Nation 1t at once demanded PIC
Congress the fugitive slave law and cot
IL, and 1t demanded Of the Supreme Conrt
an opinion that slavery was national NOT
sectiohal while the executive took every
possible opportunity to obey its commando
and anarchy prevailed. All laws restric
tive OF slavery were openly defied and
their repeal demanded and slavery tooL
possession of everything in sight This so
aroused the North that the wiser men of
the Liberty party at once abandoned their
party TO join with those who wished To on
force the restrictive law then on the hooks
and to demand more as fast as possibIe
The result was that in 1852 the party re-
ceived only per cent. of the popular vote
Then followed the beginning of the end of
slavery. Without any formal disbandine
or the party Mr.. Birney and all his asso.
ciates took up the cry for restriction and
every last one of them i'm 1856 voted the Pc
publican ticket, which sought only to re
strict slavery not to abolish il where IN
existed, and seven years later there was
not slave in the United States The nre-
vailing anarchism of the saloon in defyine
all restrictions upon its business and its
insolent demand that all restrictions he
removed finds no parallel in history ex
cept in the anarchism of slavery in the
early hfties. Whether the method of over
coming that anarchy shall be paralleled in
the prohibition of the saloon by a union
of all Prohibtionists to prevent the reneai
OF the present unsatisfactory restrictive
laws and TO obtain better with the least
possible delay remains to be seen: Pro-
hibition will never be had in any other
way. L. L. SEE
indianapolis, April %.