The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-03-06
NATIONWIDE PROHIBITION

j Following Is graphic StOTy VI GA
Governor Patterson in his address to
the Anti-Saloon League Convention,
in session at Columbus, Ohio, Novem-
Der 18th, formally launching the
movement for nationwide prohibit
ton:
+; II have seen the trail OF liquor in
the criminal courts where have pros
ecuted crime. | know and have been
participant in its paralyzing and
corroding influence in the social life
and public life of our national capital.
AS the governor of Tennessee, have
seen it veritable and raging center
of storm around which gathered its
defenders and assailants, and from
which sprang divisions in parties,
disputes in families and dissensions
in churches.
Going through life, l have seen it
drag down many of the associates of
my boyhood, blasting their dopes and
lconsigning them to untimely graves.
have seen its forked lightning strike
my fashionable child of my young
manhood, and have borne with him
the suffering and tried to help him in
his brave but sometimes melancholy
struggle for redemption. At last
have felt its foul and stealthy blow
as 1t turned upon me in it's deadly
and shaming wrath-upon me, who
had pleaded before the people for its
very existence. Men have called me
strong; and while / could see it's harm
in others, I thought myself immune,
as thousands before my time have
thought and suffered for the thought.
"All this knew and felt without a
revelation of the deep pathos and
meaning of it all. l needed help, for
was cropping and my feet were
stumbling in the dark. Deep in hui
initiation, tortured and condemned in
my own esteem, which is the severest
penalty a man may inflict upon him.
self, | thought of the oft-repeated
phrases about personal liberty, of the
power of the human will to resist
temptation, with which had beguiled
myself, and l found them as unsub-
stantial as the fabric of dream.
when logic failed and reason gave
no answer, l cast aside all pride of
opinion, all thought of what the world
might say or think, and went to the
throne of Almighty God. There, on
Bonded knees, l asked for light and
strength, and they came. The curtain
of the night parted, and the way was
clear. I arose a changed man. An
invisible hand has led me on to where
the vision is unobscured, and the pur-
poses of life stand revealed. From
critic of others, looked within. From
an accuser, l became a servant in my
own house to set it in order. From a
vague believer in the guidance of Di-
vine power, | have become convert
to the infinite truth. From an unhap-
py and dissatisfied man-out of tune
with the harmony of life and religion.
1 have become happy and content,
firmly anchored in faith, and ready to
testify from my own experience of
the miraculous power of God to
cleanse the souls of men.
"Out of this has come the profound
conviction that on the question with
which / had to deal in my public ca
reer, all my arguments and all my
conclusions, SO far as they excused
or justified the moral right or policy
of the state to legalize the sale of
liquor, and thereby give sanction to
its ravages on society, were only the
empty and hopeless statements of
propositions which had no verify or
application to a thing wholly and es-
sentially evil, and concerning which
no principle of right or order or lib
erty should ever be evoked for its ex-
istence"