The Hartford herald. [volume] (Hartford, Ky.) 1875-1926, 1915-04-14

gument against use? If IL were,
Prohibition would unsex the race to
preserve its virtue and prohibit ev-
erything that could be abused. Who
can read in or between my lines
aught against the necessity of re-
straining the disorderly by force, If
needs be? What | contend is that
the mere act of eating and drinking
in themselves are not the remotest
encroachment upon the rights of
Others and therefore, beyond the
reach of compulsion. Doubtless IL a
Prohibitionist thinks his neighbor is
guzzling too much sassafras tea,
eating too much raw bacon or be-
longs to the wrong church or politi-
cal party, 1t may be even his duty
to try to show him, in a friendly
spirit, that he's making a hog of
himself and headed straight for the
devil, but right there his mission
must end. Amy attempt at force
would be a fragrant violation of his
victims rights and conscience. 1t is
only when he violates your right
that you may invoke force,no differ
ence whether the cause of offense
was whiskey, dope or pure cussed-
ness.
Can it be this champion of YER
bosity who has so graciously under
taken to explain the deep matters
in Prohibition while his own strick-
en- compeers mess round in politics,
has stupidity Numbered in the out
set, unwittingly betraying the I'M
DERIVING spirit of bigotry and thus,
unawares, scoring the very point
I've striven to make-the inevitable
consequences of sumptuary reform
which must end in prescribing
whomsoever differs from the HER
archy and prescribing just what he
shall eat, drink, wear, do and
think? Yet, forsooth, call this the
'home of the brave and the land of
the free"
Whatever my objections to the
dangerous tendencies of Prohibition,
/ always credited it with being, at
heart, a true reform movement,
but it seems not, if this new evangel
now just appearing on the horizon
in great pomp and circumstance,
dragging behind him his wonderful
aggregation of untamed lingual Gu
riosities, is their accredited Sir Or
acle.
| never knew that the man who
merely assumes to regulate his own
private tastes and habits in his own
way, carefully observing all the
rights of others and committing no
offense against his neighbor or his
State. was, for this alone, to be
classed with the white SLAYER and
murderer. We do the criminal the
justice of finding him guilty of some
infractipn of the law before he is
denounced, but it seems that the
drinker is to be hurled into this
class merely because some bigot
thinks he's eatin' too much hog on
Friday. Again, We punish a crimi-
nal to protect society, not to reform
the man. So, Mr.. Drinker, you must
see, that according to the last blast.
edict or cannon Numbered from
Strut creek. your reform is not
sought but punishment for not con-
forming your habits to the great
censor's views and the best thing
you can do is to surrender. plead
guilty and beg for mercy.
At least, this refreshing bit of
candor, whether ingenious or de-
signing, serves to mark the differ
ence between his brutal methods of
reform and the humanity and good
fellowship of the Democratic meth
cd, which. if it does not approach
you as quite a full brother, it at
least greets you as part human with
a few liberties left you. Don't you
fancy that with a few more breaks
like this we shall hear the wall go
up. Heavens! We can defend our
selves from our enemies, but. good
Lord! deliver us from such a
friend?"
Now, in concluding this distaste-
full task. want to suggest to my
verbose critic that when he hastens
from his new role back into his old
stamping ground, where he deceives
nobody in his long and absurd pose
as past master, as the very acme
of politico-economic science, there
is an abysmal difference betweenRep-
resentative Democracy and Social
Democracy, between Jefferson and
Lassalle and that a convert of the
latter is hardly qualified to speak for,
hardly authorized to ''ile up and ed
ify." the benighted followers of the
former.