Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1908-03-18
WEDNESDAY, MARCH Is. 1905
KILL THE HAYNES BOOM.

The recent prohibition wave that
has been sweeping over the country,
practically wiping out the saloons
in the South and making rapid head
way in the North, has made the
liquor element desperate. The six
dollar campaign fund raised
by the brewers and distillers is
bearing fruit in various ways.
Newspaper space is being bought for
vicious attacks on the prohibition
movement. In few instances the
corruption fund has even reached
some ministers, who have fur
nished the liquor organs with dia-
tribes against prohibition. These
things are, however, only prelimin-
aries; the greatest effort will I'M
doubtedly be made to reach the
corrupt politicians and thru them
capture the Offices concerned with
the enactment or enforcement of
liquor legislation. The hand of the
liquor organization is already be-
ginning to show in the political
movements in this state. The plan
is to capture the democratic con-
vention and nominate for governor
Mayor Haynes of Minneapolis, with
the expectation that the democrats
will vote for him for party reasons
and that the liquor element of the
state will be powerful enough to
throw the election to that notorious
opponent of law and order. Haynes
has no other claim to distinction
or notoriety-than that he violated
his oath Of Office in regard to en-
forcement of the laws in Minreapo-
lis until he had to choose between
enforcing the laws or losing his
office, when his innate love for
office-holding overcame his "scru-
ples'' against the law, and he ap-
piled it in halfhearted fashion.
Ordinarily such a man would not
stand much Of a show for being
placed at the head of a party; but
that big corruption fund looks good
to the professional politicians who
would get slice of it, or hope
thru its use to get at some minor
office, and therefore it behooves
the clean, law-abiding men in the
party to assert themselves in no un-
certain manner and put stop to
this barefaced attempt to make the
democratic: party of Minnesota the
tool of the liquor organization.
The party can far better afford to
lose the governorship and the ap-
pointive Offices that go with it than
win a victory that would bring a
blush to the face of every decent
man in the party. Whatever a
mans opinion may be in regard to
prohibition, he must, if he is not
an anarchist, insist that the laws
be enforced as long as they are on
the statute books. The most dan
gerous anarchists of this country
are those public men who deliber-
ately ignore laws that do not COIN
eide with their ideas. The thief
has just as much right to violate
the law against stealing as the sa-
loonkeeper has to violate the liquor
laws, and the official who endorses
the latter violation is no better than
if he endorsed the former. 1t is
every mans privilege to criticise
any law he regards as unjust, but
it is his duty to obey it till it is re-
pealed. That is the fundamental
basis on which all government rests,
and any man who acts differently is
helping to undermine the govern
ment. While every man is anxious
to see his party win, he should not
be so anxious for such result as to
be willing to combine with the de-
structive forces in the state.
The saloon is a great political
factor, but there is a way to neu-
tralize it's power. Let both the
great parties take a firm stand
against its entertainments and it
will have no balance of power, as it
has now. The forces of evil have
no power if there is no one willing
to seek an alliance with them. But
should one of the parties make an
alliance that way, then the better
element in that party owes II az a