The daily sentinel., 1908-03-23

| voter in the United States, If it is
possible to carry out the present
plans of distribution. The futility of
the prohibition laws to prohibit
| is pointed out in statistical table,
| quotations from world-famous men
| and the statement of various facts
| which the Model License League
vouches for as being absolutely true.
! The utterances of Abraham Lin
/ coin, U. S. Grant, John Quincy
Adams and Thomas Jefferson are
quoted on the pressing engrossing
| subject of temperance. In the ex-
| tracts all of them have opposed pro-
hibition. The statistical figures,
many of them compiled by the United
States Census Bureau, show a larger
| death rate from alcoholism in pro-
hibition states, an increased con-
sumption of liquor in these dry
states and number of men and wo-
men in penal institutions of states
where the sale of liquor has been
abolished by law. The conclusion
drawn from the statistics is that pro-
hibition is the sponsor of more evils,
political, official, moral and financ-
| ial than the combined harm of the
licensed liquor traffic.
| Full Text of Address.
|
| To the People of the United
States: In urging the passage of
sumptuary laws the professional pro-
! hibitionst and those who have fallen
under the spell of his fervid oratory
picture the evils of inebrity and
point to the licensed saloon as a dire
menace to society. Conceding the
indisputable fact that the lawless
saloon is a fruitful source of hui
man wretchedness, let us ponder
over the proposed cure-prohibition
Assume that in a given community
the saloon has just been abolished.
| What degree of fulfillment of the
| glorious prophecies of the prohibi-
ZIONIST has the community right
to expect, judging from the expert
ences of other communities in recent
and more remote times? 1t may be
| taken for granted that President
Eliot, of Harvard University would
not express himself on such an i'm
portant question unless he had
| studied the matter thoroughly. Pres
ident Eliot says:
There has been concurring evil
of prohibitory legislation. The eff
forts to enofrce it during forty years
have had some unlooked-for effects
on public respect for courts, judicial
proceedings, oaths and laws in gem
| eral, and for, officers of the law,
Legislators and public servants. The
public has seen law defied, whole
generation of habitual law-breakers
| schooled in evasion and shameful
ness, courts ineffective through fluc-
uations of policy, delays, perjuries,
negligences and other miscarriages
of justice, officers of the law donble-
| faced and mercenary, Legislators
| timid and insincere, candidates for
office hypocritical and trucking, and
officeholders unfaithful to pledges
and reasonable public expectation.
| Through an agitation which has al
ways had moral end, these immor-
alties have been developed and made
conspicuous"
Abraham Lincoln expressed his
views on the subject as follows:
Prohibition will work great in
| jury to the cause of temperance. 1t
is a species of intemperance within
| itself. for it goes beyond the bounds
of reason in that 1T attempts to con-
troll mans appetite by legislation,
and in making crimes out of things
that are not crimes.
"A prohibition law strikes blow
at the very principles on which our
| government was founded
Gen. U. S. Grant was opposed to
prohibition, and gave the following
example to illustrate his view of the
matter:
| 81 know from my own experience
that when I was at West Point the
fact that tobacco in every form was
prohibited, and the mere possession
of the weed severely punished. made
a majority of the cadets, myself in
cluded, try to acquire a habit of
using it."
Gen. Grant died of cancer caus-
ed by excessive smoking: the result
of a habit cultivated because of a
prohibitory rule.
John Quincy Adams said:
'Self-government is the founda-
ton of all our political and social
institutions and it is by self-gov-
ernment alone that the laws of tenn
perance can be enforced. Seek not
to enforce upon your brother by leg
islative enactments that virtue which
he can possess only by the dictates
of his own conscience and the energy
of his own free will"
Thomas Jefferson's Views.
Thomas jefferson laid down the
following principles:
No. man has natural right tc
commit aggression on the equa
rights of another; and this is al
from which the law ought to restrain
him: every man is under the natura
duty of contributing to the neces
stiles of society and this is all the
laws ought to enforce on him. Wher
the laws have declared and enforced
, all this they have fulfilled thefl
: functions and the idea is quite un.
founded that on entering into society
we give up any natural right"
II jefferson Davis spoke of prohibi
tibn in the following terms: