The Commonwealth. [volume] (Everett, Wash.) 1911-1914, 1913-01-03
GoEBEL WANTS TO KNOW.

George II. Goebel, of New Jersey,
has sent the following letter to the
editor of the national organ of the
Prohibition Party:
Editor Clean Politics,
Indianapolis, Ind,
Dear Sir
I receive from you, from time to
time, appeals for aid of your paper
and the prohibition cause, which it adj
vocates. l suggest you cut my name
off the list to whom you send such
appeals, as it will save you postage
that brings no return.
l am a socialist l was for many
years one of the most active and best
known members of the prohibition
party in this country, delegate to it's
conventions, speaker for it in many
states. National secretary of the
junior prohibition leagues, etc. This
being the case I have always respec-
ted and understood the prohibition
lists, and been disposed now and then
to help them to a hearing, futile as
l am convinced is their method of
reaching the evils of intemperance.
1t was this that made me original
ly take your paper, and that letter
made me respond to your request to
renew for three years. And for so
doing l had the pleasure(?) of read
ing in your paper that the socialist
party was a liquor party, followed by
other statements of a worse nature.
Then, for good measure, 1 suppose,
you added the cowardly trick, in
speaking of the shooting of Roose-
welt, of saying that the Associated
Press spoke of Schrank as a social
list, thus avoiding personal RESPONSE
bility for the statement, but never
the-less allowing your readers to get
the thought that a socialist had done
the shooting, and indirectly that the
socialist party stood for murder. Nor
have l, in reading your paper, been
able to find where later you at any
time take the trouble or show fair
play enough to point out that
Schrank instead of being a socialist,
was a member of a republican club
and such a good Catholic that he re-
sisted the police depriving him of the
Rosary worn around his neck.
Suppose you some day define why
the socialist party is a liquor party.
AS a former prohibitionist, l think l
know in advance what your reply will
be.
When you have given it l will ask
you to explain your relation as a pro-
hibitionist to capitalism and the
manifestations of its workings as now
seen in the coal fields of West Vir-
ginia, where martial law is declared
ers are compelled to give birth to
their children in the open roadway
because of evictions due to their hus-
bands refusing longer to be slaves.
speak of West Virginia in particular
because your paper informs me that
it's editor has all his saving invested
in West Virginia coal mine stock.
If voting the ticket of a party
which does not specifically declare
war on the liquor traffic makes
member of the party responsible
for, and a partner in the curse Of in
temperance, then why does not the
direct ownership of stock in these
West Virginia coal mines entitle ev-
cry underpaid and slave driven miner,
every harrassed mother and every
ill-fed, ill-kept and ill-educated child
to point the finger at you and say
with a thousand times more truth
that you are partners in all the grow
ing iniquities of capitalism, with its
growing wealth to the few and grow
ing poverty to the many? WHY
NOW?