Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1922-12-29
JAMES X. SHIELDS CHALLENGES
EDWARDS

| INK OF me HOlIlCh . 80
ISOLATION Against Prohibition Amend
ment have brought out a sharp reply
from James X. Shields, State Super
intendent of the Anti-Saloon League
of New Jersey, who challenges Ed
wards to give facts to uphold his
charges. In his reply Mr.. Shields
said:
Were Governor Edwards to make
such charges against a private indi-
vidual as he makes against Protestant
churchmen organized, as the Anti
Saloon League, to fight the liquor evil,
he would be amenable to prosecution
for criminal libel. AS reported in
Mondays papers he charged the Anti
Saloon League with deliberately re-
sorting to falsehood to get money
from churches, and said, further, I
shall have some interesting develop
ments in this field to make public
later
81 would wait for the Governors
promised statement before replying
did l not know so well his shifty
ways. He has shot his bolt with no
intention of keeping his promise, be-
cause he knows, and we know, that he
has no facts with which to back up
his libelous charges that the Anti
Saloon League obtains money under
false pretenses.
81 challenge Edwards to either give
his proofs to the public or stand con-
victed as a malicious falsifier, guilty
of criminal libel.
"The Anti-Saloon League has been
in the front line trenches for over a
quarter of a century as the militant
arm of Protestant Christianity in the
wal against the liquor traffic reaching
back to the days when that traffic was
Mr.. Edwards worst enemy-before
the days when he became profession
ally dry and officially wet.
"In New Jersey the League has been
militant for % years, Differed, sup
ported, and it's policy controlled by
Protestant churches, owe 1000 of
which-representing ID denomina-
tions-regularly invite representa-
tives of the League to their pulpits
and contribute to it's support.
''These are the people all over the
United States, millions and millions
of them, who, wearied with the brew
ery-owned saloon and it's litter of
vice-breeding associates, wrote Pro-
hibition in the fundamental law of
America by the greatest majority ever
given for any great National Reform.
"The intellectual and ethical quality
of the clergy and laity who are in
reality the Anti-Saloon League, would
make it impossible for any financial
or moral delinquencies to exist within
it without exposure. Year after year
conferences, synods and assemblies
reafirm their allegiance to, and their
confidence in the League; and clergy
and laity respond with moral, finan-
cial and political support.
mo more untruthful and defama-
tory words could be spoken than the
Governors statement that the Eigh-
teenth Amendment and the Volstead
Act are the ugliest monstrosities ever
turned loose upon a suffering world
by the diseased imagination of relig-
ious bigots and fanatics, insane propa-
gandists and superstitious ignora-
muses. Who are the people whom
garian terms? Two-thirds of the
United States Congress of both
Houses, two-thirds of both the Re-
publican and Democratic members, Sc
per cen of the State Senators, and 80
per cen of the members of the lower
Houses of the Legislature of 46 states
the majorities of voters in those 46
states who elected them pledged to
such action; and the millions of Pro-
testant churchmen and women and
other patriots who backed the move
ment with their influence, their money,
their prayers and their votes.
."Law-abiding citizens will compare
these citizens and their unselfish pur-
poses with the brewers and CONT
mental European wine makers, who
back and finance the propaganda of
the Association Against the Prohibi-
ton Amendment, and the aliens,
smart set and tough guys who are
shouting for notification and the re-
peal of the Eighteenth Amendment.
Edwards boasts that when he gets
to the United States Senate he will
make the fur fly and raise HE'LL and
will formulate an array of facts that
will dispose of the Eighteenth Amend
ment and the Volstead Act as uncon-
stitutional, invalid and without effect
That will be some job in view of the
fact that m~illion-dollar lawyers have
already tested those laws before the
United States Supreme Court only to
have them both sustained unani-
mously."