The Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1???-1928, 1911-05-16

drunkards than We can run rattle.
snake ranches without raising poi
son. - One might as well say that
we cannot ruG banks without raising
embezzlers; o. railways without Gu
counterins accidents: or cucumbers
and cabbage without the risk of
cholera morbus, the thief. tine wreck,
the bellyache, like the drunkard, be-
ing the exception. Shall we have no
more fiscal institutions, no moro Zines
OF transportation, 10 more truck gar
dens and no more cakes and alef
Perish the thought, for what has
been and is in Bavaria can be in
kentucky or anywhere else whore
the rule of sanity and mod is
observed.
We think we are free people.
We agree that the world is too much
governed. Yet nowhere is individ-
ual liberty so assailcd as in the
United States. The prohibition wave,
now happily subs.dinS was men
ace to free institutions. Thoughtful
people are beginning to see that
there are worse evils than the drink
evil; evils more subversive o. the
character of a nation, because more
general and pervasive, less obvious
and readable. The drunkard is ,lsu-
ally in evidence. He may be dealt
with. 1t is otherwise with the varr.
ing forms of personal and politicc'
corruption. Virtue is self resistance
to vice, not enforced obedience tc
drastic regulation. Morality is Iela-
tive. That may be moral in one
country which is immoral in another
country. Circumstances alter eases.
Time and place must be regarded.
This is strictly exemplifed by the
Hofbrauhaus of Munich.
The common good" about which
we hear so much, like the general
welfare" clause of the constitution,
has been worked to death. The
"common good" is the yeriest alb
straction. 1t is not everywhere the
same as one sees here in Bavaria. 1t
has its variants. Who is to decide
what is the common good9" Time
was when the Church, or rather its
Close corporation of ruling prelates,
alone decided. The "eommon good"
was their belief, or pretended be.
lief, in prescribed religious dogma,
The common good embraced Ger
tain customs, manners and clothing
decreed by canon law as orthodox.
The penalties assessed against the
delinquent varied from hanging to
burning, from the rack to the thumb.
screw. They were applied by which
ever Church party found itself in
the ascendant.
After many centuries of strenuous
trial in the effort to make men good
by force of arms and fortunes, both a
costly and ghastly failure, the self
ordained agents of God sowing the
world in blood and flame, were sent
to the rear and the doctrine of toll
eration--the bedrock of all freedom,
of all enlightenment, of all good
government-was established meas
urably throughout Christendom, but
absolutely as the founders thought
in the United States.
This the prohibitionists would set
aside aud nullify. 70 do so they fly
in the face Of Heaven itself. Tread
ing the cloisters Of the past here
in Europe, or travelling the thor.
oughfares of the present at home,
know but one torch to light the
way, and that is the Spirit of the
Man Of Galilee, whose teaching from
first to last was at war with force,
appealing to the better nature and
the reason Of man, not his brutal
passions and combative parts; and,
taking this for my guide, I cannot
help thinking the American prohi.
hltlonist impious and irreligious in
his dogmatism, and at the same time
as unwise and undiscriminating in
his worldly methods.
might as well rail at God for
bringing sin and disease and death
into the world and seek to eneom-
pass them by sumptuary legislation.
Men may be made hypocrites by law,
but never saints. Religious truth
has been the rather obscured and re-
tarded than accelerated by thcologic
controversy.
Impressive agencies eliminate in
reactions. Radical puritanism in
England was succeeded by the dc.
baucheries of the Restoration; and
Prohibition laws in the United States
have not only not diminished drunk
enness, but they have brought in
their train scandals and evils quite
as hurtful to the community at large
as drink has brought to that limited
section of the community given over
to the excessive use Of intoxicants;
that is, contempt for law, evasions Of
law, extortion and adulteration, the
COrrnntinn alikn of thn nHieials and