Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1915-05-18
What Is "liberty"?


I'm the future our weekly clip sheet
| will leave Cincinnati every Saturday
| morning. It Is our purpose to play up
| question In way that will appeal to
| every reader who wants to know potn
sides.
"Plate matter covering any part or all
| of this clip sheet will be gladly furnished
| FREE ON REQUEST.
plate or matrix of cartoons will be
| regularly each week.
lust write US how we can serve you
to the best advantage"
| The special feature Of weekly attack
| by the liquor dealers is the Hon. VIM.
J. Bryan-because he is Democrat
and opposes the rum trust: that is all.
1t calls him the party splitter" 1t
says he is attempting to hitch the
donkey to the water wagon. 1t car
toons him, this week. as fishing with
prohibition" for states. and the big
ones" like New York, Pennsylvania,
Illinois and Ohio getting away.
This weekly rum trust sheet also
gives a great variety Of news" for
those "who want to know BOTH
SIDES" and here is a sample:
ut is the great cry of the profess
sional prohibitionists that they are going
to alleviate all our sufferings and by do
ing away with liquor, make this earth
second Paradise. They wrongly accuse
tress and suffering. With their own pc
culiar ideas of liberty and freedom they
are going to reform US regardless of our
own particular desires in the matter.
They are going to attempt. the absurdity
of making good by legislation. They fail
to consider that the trait in man which
Is stronger than all others and which he
so cherishes that he would willingly take
liberty and freedom. He has heard these
two words from his infancy and far as 1t
is within his power will hear them ring
out for all eternity.
ANY attempt to legislate against this
liberty and freedom can be considered as
nothing short Of an insult to his man.
hood. 1t is this liberty which they seek
to destroy.
ut has always been an acknowledged
right that freedom Of choice be granted
to all as long as the exercise of this right
in no way conflicts with the right Of
up and tell us that by taking a drink in
fringes upon the rights of others. ~
preventing man from freedom of choice
in the matter of drink the prohibitionist
NlOldlcS HIS right NY uSStIOSII6 Ills lTcc.
DOM"
The above specimen Of both sides"
news" asks some questions which we
deem it a privilege to answer.
When a man stands up and takes 4
drink" he surrenders a percentage of
his intelligence, his judgment between
right and wrong, his discernment of
the line where his personal liberty"
ends and that of other people begins,
his grasp upon any resolve not to
drink too much. A second drink and
the animalism. which hundreds o.
generations of civilizing influences
have been overcoming. begins to over
throw the control of common sense
and decency. Another and another
drink so often follow that it is safe
to expect the man who stands up and
takes a drink" to make of himself an
object Of pity. derision, disgust or
fear, or all of them, that the world is
becoming intolerant of the drinker.
by preventing man from freedom
Of choice in the matter of drink" the
safety first' of the morals and physi-
cal we'll being of the many is guaran-
teed from the bestial personal lib
erty" of the few.
The rum trust declaration that this
right" of a man to drink and rob
himself of intelligence. respect and
decency, at any time and any place,
lin no way conflicts with the rights Of
Others" is the same old bald lie tina.
the traffic has used for ages to build
up it's ranks of fool patrons who re-
spect neither themselves nor anybody
else. If a decent citizen has not the
right" to protect himself, his wife
and his children from even the de-
grading sight Of an intoxicated per-
son, to say nothing of an irresponsi-
BILE person being at large in the streets,
public conveyances, in automobiles
Of respectable, law-abiding and tax
paying people?
But the meat of the subject is right
here:
The public will have little difficulty
in making real men out Of misled
personal liberty" citizens and in re-
straining boys from forming the habit
of standing up and taking a drink"
when it can suppress the advertising
and the lying appeal to the unthink-
ing that is now flooding the country
from the offices of the rum trust.
An out-of-State reader Of the Journal
writes: II haven't seen any Biddeford