Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1908-07-15

achievements of the present officers
in the way Of law enforcement.
The eleven O'Clock and Sunday clos
ing crusade carried on by Attorney
General Young was not even men,
toned, altho it was the most gener-
ally approved and widely applaaded
act of the entire administration.
A large number Of delegates went
to the convention pledged to sup
port county option plank in the
platform, yet when the original
resolution was presented, reading,
land we now favor and recon-
mend such further legislation,
etc-the word FURTHER" was
stricken out!
Then the delegates to the con-
vention of the Grand Old Party,
wet and dry instructed and
uninstructed, brewer and preacher,
clean and dirty, anti and pro, with
one tremendous laundering voice
roared "hic-ya-a-a-aw!" without
a dissenting vote.
The Prohibition party is the nat
ural home of every honest voter
who has sincere conviction
against the corporation and liquor
interests in Minnesota.
ellison Gardner, correspondent for
the Minneapolis Daily News, thus
epitomizes the campaign situation:
Taft VS.. Bryan.
Platforms, similar.
Issues, none.
The Prohibition Party will an
nounce the only issue in local, mu-
nicipal, state and national politics
in 1908.
It is getting to be custom for
the decent, respectable, law-abid-
ing citizens, when they want law
against gambling, the saloons or
other like institutions enforced, to
crawl humiliatingly up to the off,
cials and timidly offer their suppli-
cations. Then a crowd of prohibit
tionists. anti-sa|oon leaguers, W.
c. I. U. ladies and others get to-
gether and come down on their
knees before the council or the
chief Of police and use every kind
Of disgusting responsiveness to get
the officers Of the law to obey their
oaths. They are more often insult
ed, made fun Of, ridiculed, than
not, by these servants of the people
and by the interests for whom they
act.
Now, we are. and always have
been, opposed to this sort of thing,
and we protest against any more
such pr .,cedure. We feel that
when it becomes necessary to force
men to do their duty, or to hire
outside organizations to do it for
them, and then resort to such hu-
initiating, practices as have been
resorted to in Minneapolis and
other Minnesota cities, the time
is ripe for a change Of some kind.
And we have changed. We have
elected mice" men and mice "
men. Very few Of them have done
their full duty without pressure.
We have paid our taxes for protec-
ton, and have spent other thous-
ands on the outside for getting the
work done, with not wholly salts
factory results, and we think it is
time to quit our begging and try
some other means of getting the
officials to do what they are paid
for doing.
No one questions for a moment
the integrity of most of the officials
who fail to do their duty; when
they are elected and honored by an
organization that now stands, and
always has stood, for the saloon, we
are getting about all we can reason
ably expect.
, There is no one so foolish as to
believe that were a Prohibitionist
party in power any money would
have to be spent by a law-enforce-
, meat league. There is no one SO
! foolish as to believe that with any
party in power not squarely against
: the saloon there will always have
, to be money spent on the side for
law enforcement.
? Yet, we suppose the Prohibition.
lists will continue enforcing law
they never believed in, never voted
a for, never advocated, and have nc
| confidence in, because the party ir
/; power, which enacted the law anC
: wrotelit in the statute books, is toe
I recrean ut to it's trust to take care Of
its own. ......
: The st. Peter, Mimi, Free Pres:
t suggests: 1T would seem thu