The national prohibitionist. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1907-1911, 1908-03-05
March 5, 1908.

national parties, to the continuation of these sys-
TENS, and therefore to the continuation of the
liquor traffic. Behind the saloonkeeper, as he
deals out his liquor over his bar, hangs his att-~
thority so to do-his license, and his revenue
receipt Behind these two documents, sanction
ing and sustaining his business, stand the Repub-
lican and Democratic parties Behind these two
parties, and responsible for their legislation,
stands the individual voter. If he votes to sus-
tain political party that supports and sustains
the license and revenue systems, that legalize
and sanction the liquor traffic, that destroys
hundred thousand men, bringing untold agony
and suffering upon their wives children and
families and also destroys two thousand mil
lions of property-then | submit that he must
bear his full share of responsibility for these
terrible results.
If it is true that the participator is as bad as
the thief-and l believe that is good law-and
If it is true that the nStlgator is responsible
as the murderer-and l believe that is also
good law-then I ask, can the citizen who votes
for and with a political party that supports the
license and revenue systems, that legaze and
sanction the liquor traffic, that produces such
terrible loss and misery and suffering, escape the
logical and inevitable conclusion that before God
and man he is guilty as his agents the saloon
keeper the brewer and the dister? Are they
not his actual partners? Can the latter continue
to exist and do business without the consent of
the former? Is not the only way the former
escape sharing the responsibility for the fear
full results produced by the latter, to refuse to
longer vote for or support the political parties
that sustain the saloon?
And there is only one political party today that
stands squarelv and definitely committed against
the liquor traffic and that is the Prohibition
party represented here tonight
But some good Republican friend says there
are other issues besides this one because of
which he must stand by and vote for his old
party I have heard that argument many, many
times every single year during the twenty eight
years that have been voter. During that time
there have been two issues which the Republican
party has always insisted were paramount and
supreme to all others-the financial question and
the tariff question.
The recent panic has forced the Republican
press. the Republican Senators and their leading
Congressman to frankly confess that Our financial
system is the poorest and weakest and least able
to bear any unusual strain of all the systems
possessed by civilized nations on the face of the
earth And the present indications are that the
party is so divided that it is almost helpless and
unable to pass the necessary legislation to really
strengthen it and avoid another repetition of the
recent money panic.
So far as the tariff question is concerned the
abest and broadest and most patriotic writers
and thinkers within the Republican party con-
cede the necessity of radical amendments to and
revision and lowering of the tariff schedule,
while they concede that enormous trusts and
combinations have accumulated immense fortunes
at the expense of the people, and that so many
of the Senators and Congressman are controlled
by these trusts that it is well-nigh hopeless to
relief under Republican administration
The one really sensible remedy proposed the
tariff commission bill introduced by Senator Bev-
erage, seems to have very small chance for be-
ing passed.