The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1907-11-08
wATTERsON ON PROHIBITION.

In his address at the opening of the
Blue Grass far, at Lexington, Ken
lucky. Henry W8tterson, of the Lou
isville Courier-Journal, had the
moral courage to say what most peo-
pie think of prohibition, and of the
religious and other cranks who want
to reform the world by foolish laws:
4 protest against that religion
which sands the suga4' and waters its
milk before it goes to its prayers.
protest against the morality which
poses as a saint in public to do as it
pleases in private. As the old woman
said of the old mans swearing, If
there's anything I do hybominate it S
hypocrisy In my opinion. that
which threatens Kentucky is not the
gentlemanly vices of the race course
and the sideboard, but perfdy and
Phariseeism in public and private life.
The men who made the blue grass
famous, who put the brand of glory
upon its women. its horses and its
vintage, were not ashamed to tax a
drink nor to lay a wager. thong they
paid their losses and understoo
where to draw the line. They mark
ed the distinction between modera-
ton and intemperance. They did not
need to be told what honor is. They
7 believed, as | believe, that there is
such a thing as pretending to moro
virtue than honest mortals can hope
to attain.
/ I know very well how | shall be
rated for saying this: how my words
will be misrepresented and misquoted
and misconstrued; I told you not to
ask me to come here; but being here,
am bound to speak as | am given
the mind to think and the light to
see, and TO warn our people against
/ the intrusion OF certain 'isms' which
I describe themselves as Progress.
and muster under the standards OF
what they call God and Morality,
but which, fifty years ago, went by
very different name; .isms' which
take their spirit from Cotton Mather
not from Jesus Christ; 'isms' which
where they cannot rule, would burn
at the stake; isms" which embrace
the sum of all fanaticism and intol-
erance, proposing that, instead of the
rich, red blood of Virginia, ice water
shall flow through the veins of the
people, isms which, in one word
would blot Kentucky out of the gal
axy of stars and recreate her in the
dread image of Maine and Kansas.
Il refuse to yield to these Hold.
ing the ministry in reverence as spir-
itual advisers, rejecting them as
emissaries of temporal power, | dc
not intend, if | can help it, to be
compelled to accept a rule of modern
clericalism, which, if it could have
its bent and sway, would revive for
us the priest-ridden systems of the
middle ages. I do not care to live
in world that is too good to be
genial; too ascetic to be honest; too
proscriptive to be happy. l do not
believe that men can be angels. The
blue laws of England-dead letters
for the most part-did more harm to
the people whilst they lasted, than
all other agencies united. l would
leave them in the cold storage to
which the execration of some and
the neglect of all consigned them
long ago, not embalm and import
them to Kentucky to poison the meat
and drink and character of the peo-
pie.
Il want to live yet a little longer
still to tell the truth and shame the
devil; but if obscurity and neglect
and adversely shall overtake me, it
will be a comfort even in the valley
of the shadow of death that from
first to last l fought, not for the
speckled gospels of the short haired
women and the long haired men of
Babylon, but for the simple manhood
and lovely womanhood of Old Ken
tucky-never New Kentucky, but al
ways and forever Old Kentucky
your birthright and mine"
Right you are, Mr.. Watterson.
The way to manage the liquor traffic