The Marion daily mirror. (Marion, Ohio) 1892-1912, 1911-12-13
Temperance ID !

Personal Liberty ana the Spirit OF
Anarchy.
Part second OF the address de-
livered at National w. c. n. u Con-
vention at Milwaukee, by Hon. Sea-
born Wright.
Liquor Trust and Personal liberty.
There is presented. then 20 the
American people this spectacle: The
Whisky Trust and Brewery Combine,
having amassed a thousand million
dollars in property since the Civil
War, every dollar of It based upon
the dead virtues of the people hay
ing established an absolute monopoly
OF the traffic, by the aid of govern
ment through Unjust tax laws, OBJ
tanned and held license for an evil
which Is by all American law ma
tional outlaw, through the power of
billions of government revenue; aft
er cold-blooded robbery of the men
who drink, through a system OF taxa
| ton they do not understand, they
| boldly proclaim, in their defense
against our crusade, the gospel of
Personal Liberty. The heroine of
the French Revolution was right
crimes are committed in the name of
| liberty.
The gospel of Personal Liberty,
proclaimed by the Whisky Trust and
Brewery Combine, in its last analysis,
means anarchy and the breaking
down of all law.
Personal Liberty. as taught by the
Liquor interests, is the liberty of
savage, not the liberty of q civilized
man. The liberty Of the savages cen
turtles ago, in the swamps and
morasses of Germany, covering their
nakedness with the skins Of slain
beasts, adornlng themselves with
scalps, Is not the liberty of an Amer
lean citizen of the twentieth century.
Civil liberty Is as high above personal
liberty as the stars are above the
dunghills.
once convince the vast swarm of
lawless criminals, In our cities, that
obedience to law depends upon their
personal ideas OF its justice and you
abolish, at a blow, every l2w pro-
tectlng human rights.
The Constitution of our great gov
ernment does not guarantee personal
liberty against law; 1t fixes the SUI
premacy OF law above personal lib
erty.
The Constitution of the Republic Is
a great Bill OF Surrender, under which
men lay down their personal liberty
to the higher liberty of the public
When our fathers built this govern
ment, they erected great white
monument and across it's face, in
letters of living light" they wrote
"The highest law Is the public good" |
assI,a Of 1
what land he comes, becomes a citl- |
zen of the Republic, he kneels at the |
base of that monument and sur
renders every vestige Of personal lib-
erty to the public good.
Let me illustrates Here is a man
who says This child is mine,
claim fathers right" And before
the little mind and body have grown
beyond the nursery walls, he hurls II
into the furnace of factory and
sweatshop. Does the state Of which
the man is citizen. spb~it t. t-'f
exercise OF the mans PERSONAL Id
erty? No. thanN God, 1t reaches out
its protecting hand to tAe child ani
says to the man vauntin3 his pee.
sonal liberty, "Your child is 70 Jc
citizen OF the state in years TO come.
You shall not dwarf and paralyze
him. body, mind and sou.' and tAc
child is saved because OF the h!Slcr
right of the state.
Again. a great hg";lrG. Amel'ca'
man stands upon the streets of Mil
waukee, proclaiming his personal hb-
erty to drink ont Cf taous1nd
licensed saloons 1iwi,e ten hundred
Milwaukee mothers mai n up TO him.
bearing the flashing eyed, red
checked boys aloft in their arms, say
ing to him, "Sir, we want to raise our
boys to manhood out from under the
influence of a thousand sa-
looms in this splendid city; raise them
to be sober men, fearless, clean citl-
zens. Help us TO undo the licensed
wrong of a thousand institutions,
which have cursed millions of strong
men," Then your hullSing, siX-foot
man draws back, and says: Down
with you and your children. L stand
upon my personal liberty to drink
liquor out of thousand So looms In
the old town"
Do you mean to tell me that this
is the liberty our fathers fought for
from Bunker Hill to Valley Forge
the liberty that Thomas jefferson
lived for and Abraham Lincoln died
for?
| tell you, again and again, that
Personal Liberty as taught by the
Whisky Trust and the Brewery Com
bine means anarchy, the tearing down
of laws. the destruction Of all that Is
best In our civilization.
And yet by the steady, relentless |
preaching OF this gospel by the Liquor |
Trust and its paid emissarles, millions |
OF honest men in America are deceived |
and are lending the power of their |
ballot and influence against a move
ment which means the salvation of |
our government.
The great problem confronting the |
American neonla tOdaV Is the en-