The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1910-07-15
LAW AND LICENSE
SOME FUNDAMENTAL
By John G. Woolley
FUNDAMENTALS

By John G. Woolley.

with the foolishness of trying to force
prohibition on the majority. But no
intelligent prohibitionist has ever
sought. or hoped. to drive law through
an unwilling nation. Force is folly in
! a republic except moral force to make
| the people think.
! Absolutely the whole effort has been
i and is to drive home the argument
| to the head and heart and hand of
the majority. until it shall desire and
! demand and obtain and enforce law
that Will forbid the wasting and the
poisoning. and eventually abolish them
am on reflection not disappointed
that the final movement has taken the
form of progressive local option, al
though | did what l could for more
summary method.
The general battle has not come in
the way that | expected and intend
ed But it has come. [ welcome if
gladly and gratefully. as greater
plan than mine, since it carries not
only the rout and ruin of the liquor
traffic. but also breaks the stronghold
! Of the party habit of the people.
True, the liquor plague is not local.
1t crawls and flies and burrows. But
! neither is state or county reforma-
ton local. The counties are the states,
and the states are the union. We are
all members. one of another. Real re
form may begin anywhere, but it does
not stop short Of the dome of the ma
tional capitol.
The reform began a hundred years
ago in terms Of the individual. Now.
it speaks by counties and states: and
it almost has its hands upon the hal
yards Of ''old glory"
What we see about US, north, south,
east, west and at Washington, is ma
tional prohibition marching by army
corps, regiments and companies-that is
to say-by States. Territories, Counties
and towns into the plain of Arranged
don. where manhood and womanhood,
the king and queen of the earth, and
their armies are gathering to make
war on the scarletcolored beast.
The objection that local option con
cedes to the majority the right to do
wrong is mere cant-the whine of
weakIing or the swagger of a pharisee.
This government is not a piOus oigar
chy, where absolute moral values are
put up in sealed packets and marked,
"none other genuine but a democra-
cy, where right and wrong are always
relative terms, and not rarely very
vague terms. And local self govern
ment is the American rule of the road
for those who seek to arrive at the
right and to carry it out successfully
in civic forms.
The pronoun Of conscience is ''I'-
not che not Eve, = not "you,' not
"thev.' ''I''-one stroke. one letter,
high, straight, narrow, aloof, vertical.
1t does not work; it is. 1t does not 90:
it witnesses. It implies absolute indie
pendence in the polling booth. 1t re
jects all claims of parties and maiori-
ties to command; and. like a seed in
the earth, abdes alone until it dies and
bears
The pronoun of democracy is .'we'F
-''T'' and "thou" and .'hen and
''thev' together. It is a syllable. It
is word. It is a crowd. It is fusion
It is a compromise. 1t is conscience
moving horizontally. 1t works: it is
a business. It goes: it is an engine
It implies full, equal competition for
wheat and tares alike until the true law
arrives with scythe and fail and power.
| shall stand here, where God put me,
ana 90 right as lie gives me TO see the
right. That is the voice of conscience,
81 rest
We Of this county, we of this Terri
tory, we Of this nation. viii have a show
Of hands on this proposal and abide the
issue without snarl or whine That
is the voice Of WORCESTERSHIRE
on the march.
They, the representatives. of the peo-
pie in office, and them. the people them
selves out of office, shall obey the ma
ioritv, while counties and States work
upon each other and work themselves
together into national policy as up
right, patriotic and glorious as the flag.
That is the voice of law and order
conscience on guard.
This IS our case. in the symbol Of the
era:-Conscience, the stem. in one di-
mension. height; democracy. the arms
in the second dimension. breadth: eco
Monies. the grip Of the soil. in the
third dimension, length. It is the true
cross Of Christ, and in this sign we
conquer and shall conquer.