The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1917-07-26
DRY MEASUREI IN
 FOOD BILL HELD UNPATRI0T|C
Action of Prohibitionist in Delaying Message of Bill
 Condemned

The adherents to the prohibition propaganda and its promoters may think that they have won great vic- tory in the action which has just been taken by the Senate, and they may feel eN1ltant over 1t, but insubord1na- ting and sacrificing the national inter- ests to the attainment of a partisan purpose the Senators who injected prohibition into a bill where 1t has no proper place did their cause grave disservice and exposed their own pa triotism to a 5ustifiable suspicion. They took an nlegitimate advantage of a national exigency to accomplish an end which, whatever may be it's mer- it, could not otherwise have been achieved, and they did so with what appears to have been an absolute tn- difference to the consideration that their procedure would inevitably provoke discord and sissension and de- lay where it Is imperatively necessary and even essential that there should be harmony and union and expedition.
 Constituting itself the champion of great and righteous principle that autocratic government. with its inevi- table despotism, is an abhorrent evil which must be abolished, and that democracy or government by the peo- pie must everywhere prevail, the Uni ted States has engaged in a life or death conflict with a powerful. impla- cable and determined foe. and the pro- claimed object. for which it is fight ! ing is one which cannot be realized until that foe, whose tenacious resis- tance will be inspired and supported by the courage of desperation, shall have been reduced to such state of helplessness as will necessitate his un- conditional surrender. Under these conditions, in order that a conclusive victory may be won at the earliest possible moment and at the least pos sibIe expenditure of blood and treas
 ure, 1t is indispensable that the Presi- dent, in his prosecution of the war should be supported by the approving sentiment of united and enthusiastic country. Decisive victories are nc | longer won by military agencies alone Behind the armies battling on the field must stand in solid phalanx the na- ton whose behalf they are contend. f ing, and the achievement of success depends no less upon moral. or rather | even more, upon the moral than or the material force which a nation fur nishes. If at home there are dissen-
 sion. disaffection, discontent, the springs of the national energy are weakened at it's source and there i. | generated a demoralizing contagior which is incompatible with a sustained
 and vigorous agressive. Thus, in the last ananlysis. public sentiment be- comes the determining factor, ana
 nothing is of greater consequence thar that unanimity of public sentimen shall be preserved. Not until the spir it of its people shall have been brok en will Germany be constrained tt
 sue for peace, and it's only hope O. escaping total defeat consists II the possibility that in one or othe,
 of the allied countries disunion shal | develop and public opinion grow
 weary of the struggle.
 There was recently a chance O such a development in Russia, wher,
 alarming symptoms had multiplied of a war-weariness which threatene, to compel or to induce the neeotia
 ton of a separate peace. But tn Russians have happily recovere, from the attack of faint-heartednes
 which they experienced. They hay lregained their courage and their un
 animity, and now 1t is in the Unite, States that public opinion is to b l disturbed and public sentiment df vided by the injection into the situa ton. through the inconsiderate an
 short-sighted action of the Senate, O
 a bitterly controverted question, up on which the people are widely a odds and which is wholly unrelate to the paramount issue of the da,
 That issue is the winning of tn
 war. and to the winning of the wa
 every other consideration should b
 completely subordinated. Had tn
 Senate recognized. as it should hay done, to the patriotic requirements O an extraordinary occasion, 1t wouI not have pursued a course wtic