Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1908-05-07

on an almost insoluble problem when
we ask where one mans rights begin
and anOther's end.
while today the liquor interests
and those in sympathy with them are
pleadings for the rights of the in
divldual, there are other silent, help
less pleaders who cannot speak for
themselves. The temperance reformer
hears them. From the thousand or
phanages all over our land, from
within massive walls of our feeble
minded institutions, from hospital
wards, from the homes of the rich
where the sins of the fathers have left
tragic marks on the souls and bodies
of the children, and from overwOrked
mothers in the homes of the poor we
hear the other stOry-what about, our
personal rights? We were not con-
suited when our chance for life and
brain and happiness and freedom were
blighted before our bifth by the bes-
tial appetite of parent. 'Ibsen' 5
Ghosts is the greatest sermon ever
written on the irony of personal
liberty.
"Organic unity is the emphasis of
the twentieth century. Personal
rights, personal liberty, are sacred
but sacred only when they serve to
glorify ourselves and others. Sci
ence, Christianity. not our appetites
or the greed of the men who make and
sell liquor must decide where person
al rights of the individual clash with
the rights of society as a whole. The
home, the wife, the state, the unborn
child have rights more precious than
the man who wants to drink.
sit were better to err in our zeal
BUSINESS to protect the innocent than
the man with the appetite for drink.
"Science, social ethics, industrial
economy have taken the temperance
problem out of the hand of fanatics
and teetOtalers. Against the brewery
interests and the saloon in this fight
stands the we'll being of the COmmuni-
ty. The solution will not probably be
greatly affected by hired debaters on
personal liberty. The liquor interests
will have to submit to the decree of an
educated public opinion. Long
enough they have won their money
from a traffic welded to vice and
suffering. Their Golfers are filed
with gold coined from tears and
broken hearts, civic corruption, and
crippled bodies. They are fighting a
losing battle not to be wen by that
obsolete contention for personal lib
erty out the higher conception of
liberty by which Christ has made US
free, the freedom of remuneration of
our rights for our neighbours good.
The saloon has become a nuisance
not because it sells Intoxicating
drinks-but because it thrives by fOis-
ting temptation upon the public and
cinging to corruption. 1t is absurd
to say that you can not legislate peo
pie into morality. You can. Law
has been doing that from the time the
first statue was put on the statue
books of the nations. Law can wipe
out certain temptations. By forbid
ding men to carry weapons, it de-
creases the temptation to kill. By its
laws of public health, 1t helps to pre-
vent the spread of disease. By COM
polling the vicious to regard certain
decent conventions, it safeguards the
public and decreases crime. Law is
now wiping the evil of gambling out
of the state of Arizona. And perhaps
by abOlishipr the saloon and substi-
tuting some less dangerous institution
in it's place, it will decrease intemper-
ance and protect the home"