The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1910-05-26
EDITORIAL
Keep Liquor Out of Politics.

In Cincinnati on Tuesday the National Whole
] saie Liquor Dealers Association declared wal
\ 10 the hilt upon those advocates Of temperance
throughout the country who are seeking se
further their cause by securing the enactment
Of prohibititory legislation.
4 To mt this declaration into practice there Is
only one way in which the Liquor Dealers can
hope TO be effective.
That way is TO intervene In politics; and IN
teryention in politics by liquor dealers means
ono method and only one: the liberal use OF
money to influence political action.
This being true. it must be borne in mind that
this political intervention on the part of the
most unsound and necessarily selfish interest IN
the country is to be made chiefly in the South,
where prohibition sentiment is most erystalhzed
II i to be made in the South where apart from
nrdinary political alignments, experience has
shown that the one. and now dominant, party
stands for and secures peace and good govern
ment, and where the other party has earned IN
the wake of ifs infrequent successes strife and
disaster
What does the liquor party intend to dof
Hang the milestone of its corruption about the
neck Of the Democratic party, or, by fusion OF
hungry Republicans with all the mongrel forces
10 which free liquor is the paramount hope and
incentive give over the South. not only TO the
open bar but TO the one enemy that can be de-
pended upon to stay its progress and thwart its
endeavor7
This is the organized liquor side of the equa-
fion. At Lewisburg West Virginia on We'd
nesday the General Assembly Of the Southern
Presbyterian Church declared the question to
be one OF morals and not Of politics. The Pres
hyterian Church has long held as tenet the
principle of non-interference in civic govern
smenf. But upon the issue Of method in deal
ing with what it considers a moral evil, it en-
dorsed the action of the Alabama Presbytery in
alecting to favor prohibition, not as a politl-
cal creed, but as means to moral end
Could there be afforded sharper contrast Of
aim and method than the action of these two
sharply contrasted bodies-hquor dealers and
church,
Believing that prohibition is an issue which
The people of Southern States will not much long
|nr fail to insist upon having submitted to their
ocsEion; believing, also, that nothing holds
xure danger politically, and that nothing is SO
-politicaiiy demoralizing; believing Also in the
Democratic party organization responsive
and obedient to the popular will. we believe that
the people of the South gain needed warn
ing and example from the actions of the two
diametrical bodies above referred to.
In political recognition of the liquor question
Exists nothing except the certainty of CONFUSION
Df political and debauchment Of personal ideals
In its handling as moral question exists the
right of the whole people to speak their will as
70 the method by which matter vital to the
whole people shall be most wisely solved.
The first course is political suicide to the party
That adopts it the second is the practical appli
cation of tic democratic night of popular pre-
seryation