New-York tribune., 1907-09-01
RATIONAL PROHIBITION.

II is hard to persuade inCrained c0nStrvA-
tive that the old changes, duly and properly
giving place 10 the new We are reminded or
the obtuSenpSs of vision which often affects the
praser of the past's ideas and virtues by the
reception given in the South to Colonel Waiter
sons recent defence of Oldtime Kentucky tra-
ditons and his assault on 1.-The fhariSaism and
Puritansnl'' which aim by restricting or ab"l-
ishing the sale Of intoXicants at recrcating
sundry Southern states lin the dread image OF
Maine and Kansas" Since Colonel Wattcrson
made his speech at the Lexington fair Georgia
has passed Il prohibition law. Mississippi has
chosen n Prohibition Governor and the Gov
ernor of North Carolina has announced that he
is going TO make prohibition an issue in the
next state canvass In Kentucky too. where
four-fifths of the counties already dry.
the colonel's appeal for more sympathetic
appraisal of the once pardonablc vices of
gentleman has been met not much with
grave and measured argument with good
natured skepticism and unconcern-
1t is evident in fact. both in and out Of Ken
tucky that Mr.. Watterson has wholly misin-
terpreted the motives and forces behind the
movement for prohibition and local option. He
seems 10 think that the crusade now stirring the
South iS Identical in character and impulse with
that which years ago forced prohibition on
Maine and Kansas His eye is fixed on the
past and he is misled into using the terms of
the past TO explain the phenomena of the pres
pnt There is little similarity between the tenn
perance agtations of twenty or thirty years
ago and the temperance agitation of to-day
The older temperance movement was largely
religious and extra-rational in motive. 1t rep
resented moral revolt from the eXcesses of
intemperance in this country and attacked in
sobrfety as sin mperiling the soul as well as
destroying the body. 1t was. perhaps tanat-
icai" and prOscTiptive. because ii rated the vice
which il condemned offence not so much
against social order and efficiency against
righteousness and godlineSs 1t branded the
user of ntoxicants as criminal, and did not
try merely to convince him that he ought 70
surrender an undoubted personal right for the
sake of promoting the larger good of the com
munity.
1t is the growth of this more rational spirit
which distinguishes the new prohibition agi-
tation from the old The leaders in tie move
ment in the South are not 1.-The Pharisees and
the Puritans'' They are not trying to make
people sober in order 10 fulfil any abstract
ideals of personal virtue. They do not condemn
the use of liquors as in itself sin. They only
want to protect society against the abuses of
the liquor traffic in communities in which it
is a wholesale breeder of Decentralization and
lawessness If it were possible to retain the
right 10 buy and use liquors without inviting
crime and lowering economic efficiency, the
Southern states would not readily abandon the
c0nYivial and cOmpanonable traditions which
Colonel Watterson has feelingly eulOgized.
The Souths heart may still warm TO those ira
ditions, but IFS head rejects them as, on the
whole, unsuited to the political, social and
industrial order. Prohibition has become eXpe-
dient because the economic pressure for it is too
strong TO be resisted, and the Southern people
are accepting it, with its personal depriyatiOns,
for the sake of the benefits which it promises
to the community at large. In this spirit there
is no fanaticism, no 0diunt fhc0l0gtcum. The
South is merely applying a system which it
needs TO insure order and stimulate progress,
and is not 10 be moved from its course by init
nations that il is dishonoring certain amiable
but now outgrown and handicapping traditions
and customs.