Morgan County republican. (Versailles, Mo.) 1906-1914, 1907-12-19

49, N"Nh aN' q Idl NCFl vi lllGlT
efforts and to their lips naturally rise that
great battle him Of the republic.
Mine eyes have seen the glory Of the coming of
the Lord.
He is irampling out the vintage where the
grapes of wrath are stored.
He has loosed the fateful lightning of His
terrible swift word,
His truth is marching OH.
Few people, unless they are keen
students OF the subject, realize the tire.
niendous progress that the temperance
movement is making. Without splurge, |
without noise of bands Or banners, but
with a steady and increasing force, the
opponents of the saloon are marching to
victory. They hardly know their own
strength.
In Georgia ii county that was con.
sidered to be the home of the liquor in.
terests shows 400 favorable to the saloon
to over 200 against it on the ballot, and
people are amazed. The county in
which Sam Small lived and in which he
had fought for years successfully to keep
out the saloon, was raided in the interests
OF liquor after his death; that is the sa.
loon element determined to get a foot.
hold. The temperance people them
selves felt that, in the absence of Sam
Small, their case was hopeless, and yet
they won at the polls by more than ten
to one.
The Emporia, Kansas, Gazette of No.
vember I, in a leading editorial entitled,
THE Necessary Saloon takes substan-
tally the p~osition-as MI. Dooley put it
sometime ago-that if the saloon is nee
essary it is not an evil, and if it is an evil
1t is not necessary. The Gazette goes on
to point out that there have been several
saloon murders in Kansas City, Mo-, in
the last three months, to say nothing OF
the fifty saloon fights in which men were
badly and in some cases permanently in.
jured, and points IL that this Kansas
City record can be duplicated in almost
any town, and that any truthful police.
maj will testify that the majority of
crimes find their inspirations in bar.
rooms.
ltsays they talk OF regulating saloons,
but to regulate them would require the
constant presence Of a policeman on duty
in every one. The owners of the saloons
will not regulate because they are not
men of high enough character. Saloons
will not be regulated until men of high
moral character take charge of them,
which is a self contradictory proposition.
The Gazette points out that wherever
saloons have existed in Kansas City,
Mo, they are murder mills. 1t closes
by saying, The moral must be sufficient
ly plain to any person who uses his head
to carry his brains ~"
1t falls to the lot of every man who ad-
vocates that which is strange or unusal
or not understandable to his fellows, to
be called a crank.
In having the term applied, an indi.
ridual may consider himself duly COM
%plimented for it means he has the moral
courage to leave a beaten path and to
penetrate the virgin forests and the I'M
explored vastnes of the unknown.
Christopher Columbus was a crank,
so.called, and in fact. But he discover
ed America and gave to the Old World a
New. Patrick Henry was a crank, but
his words of fire and steels kindled the
spark that resulted in the conflagration of
! rnhalltnp aud fraalayr AI.ln., Il.
coin was a crank, but his name will ever
be glorifed by millions of freedmen, who
were made free by his life and ell
franchised by his death. Dwight l..
Moody was a crank, yet he brought to
thousands the knowledge of real life and
the delivery from the sin that is worse
than death. The works started in his
life live today and those taught in the
institutions founded by him are spread
ing the Gospel into all the world. X. A.
Torrey is a crank and to him hundreds
owe release from sin and the life given
only by God.
Yes, cranks have been for the most
part the creators of the best in the world
and when we hear from the allied liquor
interests the word crank" applied to
the foes of their unholy traffic, we can
but pause to think that it is really the
cranks who make the world go round.
One crank shows which way the wind
blows, but thousands of them are in the
wind.
The anti-saloon cranks will see the day
when the way pointed out by their
fathers will be the accepted way OF the
nations, and when the great American
republic will point with pride to saloon.
less Union, no only free in name from
earthly bondage, but in fact-free from
the alcoholic beverage bondage.
No nation was ever or will ever be free
until it has thrown off the shackles of a
degrading habit and ceased paying
tribute to the master Of the evil which in
men lies. All hail to the temperance