The Goldfield news and weekly tribune. [volume] (Goldfield, Nev.) 1911-1947, 1917-07-21
DISLOYAL HOLD-UP By DRYS

being held back in its necessary work in that battle by fanatic,
who are determined it shall not go ahead therein until they
have established here an autocracy in some particulars scarce
" less offensive than the one against which it wages war. '
Had it not been for the drastic interference OF the admin
istration, it is more than likely that congress, by this Tune:
would have passed a law forcing national prohibition upon the
peOple-not only the elimination of the manufacture OF ardent
spirits, which may become a necessary or at least an ad-
vantageous move in the policy of food conservation, but as well
the absolute prohibition of beer and wine, and others OF the
lightest of alcoholic be~verages-together with the confiscation
of vast stores of whisky already manufactured, with conse-
quent enormous losses of revenue to the government.
And that measure would have been jammed down the
Threats of the American people against undoubtedly the wish
es of a great majority of the citizens of this country, and by
men in congress who have no faith in prohibition either as a
matter of principle, or as a question of policy.
For it is a safe wager at odds that the majority of the
senate and the majority of the house of representatives are
anti prohibitionists at heart, but that they have been driven to
vote as they did by political fear, enhanced by the constant ap-
peals and threats of the most perncious, the most expensive:
the most un-American lobby ever known in the halls of con
gress.
The members of the lobby have not hesitated to put ia
naticism above patriotism, and to glory in the declaration that
this war has presented them an opportunity to force prOhlbl-
ton upon a great people.
In fact, one of them, a minister from Montclair, New Jer-
sey, asserted in a letter to the New York World that the pro
hibitionists are not bothering about this 'puny war;" that
they are engaged in a fight against the devil and hell"
In other words, and in plain English, they place the well
fare and the needs of this nation, loyalty itself, and devotion
to the flag, as mere secondary considerations to their crusade
for a bone-dry nation.
1t is no wonder one senator declared the senate of the
United States is acting more like school children than a body
of sensible men. 1t is acting worse than that. 1t is acting like
a parcel of Bedlamites.
National prohibition should not have entered at all into
this food control bill. It's placed there only FOR the purpose
of hampering the government in its sorest hour of trial; and,
as the New York World, the New York Times, the Louisville
Courier-Journal, and numbers of other representative papers
have pointed out, these rabid prohibitionists thus acting are at
this time as reasonable as the l. w. WIS.
You couldn't expect anything more of the l. w. WIS
than to harass this nation with strikes in the hour of her need.
But these prohibitionists are constantly prating of their
devotion and loyalty to the flag. And yet right in the most
critical hour of the nations peril they have stopped the wheels
of the government; WHILE, clubs in hand, they endeavor to
drive the country along their road of fanaticism.
Nero fiddled while Rome was in flames. And the congress
of the United States, its knees clacking like castanets, procras-
tinates in the hour of peril as it dances to a reasonable pro-
hibitiOn tune.
And as it dances, and as it procrasinates, the food specu-
lators are Tightening their throttling hold upon the throat of
the country.
Listen to the words of Herbert Hoover, national food ad-
minstrator:
We are practically helpless to safeguard either the
farmer or the consumer until the pending legislation is
passed.
AS a statistician has pointed out, if the move of these pro
hibitionists were to succeed, they would wipe out at one fell
swoop nearly half a billion dollars of federal revenue just
when it is needed most.
More than one prohibitionist in the east. not following
along with the hue and cry, has asserted that this issue should
not have been injected at this time, that it is not only unjust
to the government, but unwise on the part of those who de-
sire prohibition finally to succeed.
But these sensible prohibitionsts do not point out also
that the great dominating Influence urging on this crusade at
this inopportune time are certain united evangelical churches
of this country organizations representing vast boards of
wealth on which they do not pay a cent of taxes, for church
property IN nearly every state IN the union today is exempt
from taxation.
These are the men, these the influences that would lam
their own fanatical ideas down the Threats of a people who
have just as much right to their wines and their beers as these
others to their cigars and their meats.
These are the men, and these the influences responsible
for a rider in the food control bill which has temporarily
paralyzed the government in the face of the enemy"
There is a time and a place for all things. This is no