The Seattle Republican. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1???-1915, 1909-02-19

wherein they arrogate to themselves the
title of Temperance Forces" and
through the INSCRIPTIONS efforts of their
paid agents and agitators endeavored to
make the people believe that the only
men opposed to them are what they are
pleased to term the saloon element.
Claiming themselves to be prohibitionists
from principle, they pretend to believe
that it is impossible for any man to
| oppose them from principle or for any
reason except that he is a saloon man
or a paid hireling of the saloon.
If prohibition accomplished any of the
things claimed for it, or had even made
a decent showing, I would not stand
here today urging this senate not to
commit the folly of fastening upon this
state piece of emotional legislation
that we know from the experience of
other states not only does not promote
the cause of temperance but always has
and always will have a tendency from
it's lack of enforcement to create dis
regard for other laws.
Hon. Chas F. Libby, one of the leading
lawyers of Maine, says: ut has bred
hypocricy, encouraged perjury in our
courts, led to corruption of our officials,
set of politicians, has destroyed the
frankness of statesmen, that enobles men
in other states, and has not been effec-
tive"
Legislation having for it's object the
correction of human nature is bound to
be a failure. No man or set of men
have the right to say what another shall
eat, drink or wear, so long as he does
or i,of Nj of ', ic fall
low man. If you reply that we already
prohibit the sale and use of some drugs
shall reply that I find no warrant in
the Holy Writ for their use and I do
for the use of liquors. I will say to
you that the use and abuse of liquors
and the use of drugs in their effect
upon the human system are as far apart
as the poles. I will say to you that
one of the worst evils of prohibition is
that it tends to drive men from the use
of the milder stimulants to the use Of
the stronger. Prohibition always lessons
the consumption of beers and wines and
increases the consumption of whiskey,
rum. gin and drugs.
Prohibition causes to be sold as
whiskey, gin and rum a substitute for
the pure distilled liquor made from raw
alsohol tobacco, drugs and rain water
that produces a wonderful jag on short
notice
Men would class me as a fool should
I assert that baking powder containing
large percentage of alum and ammonia
was as harmless as one made from pure
cream of tartar and soda, still insist
that whiskey is whiskey whether made
in a distillery or in the kitchen of some
man who always votes the prohibition
ticket.
Now, my prohibition friends, do not
think that I am accusing the Prohibition
Party of making whiskey. Be sure and
get the distinction: I said by men who
always vote the prohibition ticket That
the illicit liquor sellers always work
with the prohibitionists against a return
to high license in every state where pro
hibitory laws have been tried is fact
which the most fanatical prohibitionist
cannot dispute Why they do this is not
hard to understand.
Take the city of Bangor, Maine, after
fifty-seven' years of prohibition. I use
the city of Bangor not because it is the
worst on earth, but because I happen to
know more about it from personal OBJ
servation. 1t has today upwards of fifty
blind pigs. This is city of only $4,000.
Should the state return to high license
every one of these men would be forced
out of business, since the number of
saloons would decrease from fifty to per-
haps twenty, and the men who now run
the dives would not stand one chance in
a hundred of obtaining a license under
rational license system, and they know
it, hence on election days they advocate
prohibition with a whiskey laden breath,
clasp hands with their partners in crime,
the prohibition fanatics, vote the pro-
hibition ticket and wink the other eye.
So notorious was this alliance in Yer
mont in the campaign for a return to
the license system in 1903 that the Bos-
ton Globe of February 9Th said:
I'm the Vermont contest the humorous
feature of the situation is, that the liquor
men are not happy, Notwithstanding what
might naturally be supposed to be their
triumph. They conceive that under pro-
hibition they can carry on liquor bust
ness at much less expense than under
the new1y-enacted license system. This
is in itself a very significant comment
on the folly of prohibition. 1t is none
too soon that the people have expert
enced an awakening"
In support of my two contentious:
list: That prohibition does not pro-
hibit.
I'd: That one man has no right to
say what another shall eat, drink or
wear, am going to read you few quo
tations from some of our leading states
men and some of our most renowned
ministers of the gospel
THOMAS JEFFERSON:
"Our Legislators are not sufficiently ap-
prised of the rightful limits of their
power; their true Office is to declare and