lI- ; . f
Vol. YIII. —No. 27,
r i) the white wall the shadows steal apace;
*OM\ Fast slips the day. the day that promised
<%™At a morn I rose with flushed and eager
And tothe hillside turned to toil my share;
But at the gate I paused and pulled a rose.
Then idled where the goldfish glance and gleam;
And Lise and Lettice called me from the
BeneatiTthe my rtles there to lounge and dream,
And so with laugh and jest the morning sped.
Ere I could guess it. it was afternoon.
"And why go now'.’ Stay yet awhile, they said
"Tomorrow toil, today is all too soon.’
Thus with my life: A youth that promised fair,
The world’s broad highway for my eagar feet;
But pleasure wooed me from the noonday glare,
\nd old age finds me with no task complete.
—Maukicf. Gordon ,
KEALDOWS WATCHWOItIIS
MTHETWEffIETH
CEMiy
AN ORATION, BY JOSEPH COOK, DE
LIVERED AT PROHIBITION PARK,
STATEN ISLAND, JUNE 3, 1894.
AT THE CELEBRATION OF
NEAL DOW’S NINETI
ETH BIRTHDAY.
License always implies the legaliza
tion of a portion of the liquor traffic*.
It aims also to repress a portion of that
traffic. It contains thus both a sanction
and a condemnation of the saloon. It
is a statutory authorization of a part I
of the traffic. It is also in theory a statu
tory limitation of another part of the
traffic. It is this double character of
License which causes, even among in
telligent voters, so much confusion of
thought concerning it. But it is highly
important to emphasize the fact that
License. represses one portion of the
traffic only at the expense of sanctioning
another portion of it.
This simple analysis of the delinition
of license answers most of the arguments
in defense of it. The question is asked
whether ten saloons are not better than
fifteen. The reply is they are not, if
the fifteen can be reduced to ten only
by definitely giving the sanction of
Government to the ten. Are not ten
murders better than twenty? No, if
the twenty can be reduced to ten only
by a statutory authorization of the ten.
Is not half a loaf better than no bread ?
No, if the half loaf can be had only on
•condition that it be lirst saturated with
poison, and this by the authority of the
whole community. Did not Moses
licence polygamy and so attempt to
limit its range? Yes, but not at the
expense of assuming that the Divine
sanction was given to polygamy within
the actual range to which it was limited.
Of two evils, must not we choose the
less? No, if in choosing the less we
are required to do evil ourselves. Of
two evils, choose neither.
License makes the community itself
a rum-seller. It has now become dis-
FAILURE.
CiIAPTEH VI.
* Bouvier, in his Law Dictionary, de
fines license as “a right given by some
competent authority to do an act which,
without such authority, would be il
legal.” The text of the document giv
ing a license usually reads: ‘’License is
hereby given by authority of the city
of to A. B. to keep a saloon and to
sell,” etc., All this shows that license
means legalization of a portion of the
liquor traffic. A tax, on the contrary,
confers no authority on him who pays
it Bouvier detines a tax as a “con
tribution imposed by Government on
individuals for the service of the State.
It is futile, therefore, to contend that
license is simply a tax upon the traffic
and only a limitation of it, and not an
authorization of a portion of it.
reputable for the individual to be a |
rum-seller. Comparatively few native
Americans engage in the retail liquor
traffic. The foremost Christian denom
inations, such as the Methodist and
Presbyterian, exclude liquor-sellers
from church membership. But license,
high or low, makes the *tate a liquor
seller. As Horace Greeley was accus
tomed to say, “It is disreputable enough
for the individual, under the pressure
of personal wants, to become liquor
seller; but for the whole State to become
such, and this with no necessity, but
from pure greed and cowardice, is infa
mous”.
The actual saloon of our clay is notori
ously a school of crime, an ally of
anarchy, a fountain of social misery, a
source of heavy taxation, a cesspool of
political corruption. License makes
the whole community a partner in the
business of the actual saloon. To that
business, with these results, License
gives governmental sanction, and so a
legal respectability. But the actual
saloon in most cases has infamous
allies. The gambling-hell and the
brothel and the gilded High License
saloon usually go together in great
cities, As Prof, Herrick .Johnson says
in an epigram not soon to be forgotten,
“Low License asks for your son; High
License for your daughters, also.” High
License tempts the salaon to make alli
ance with the gambling-hell and the
brothel so as to raise funds to pay the
High License fees. This temptation is
rarely resisted. License of the saloon,
therefore, may easily amount in effect
to a license of gambling and harlotry.
It is assumed in this discussion that
the wickedness of licensing these allies
of the saloon is admitted. But the
community that fosters the liquor traf
fic by giving it legalization, does prac
tically make itself largely responsible
for the usual allies of the traffic.
Liquor-selling, it is sometimes said,
is not a sin in itself. But the business
of the actual saloon is what is in ques
tion. We think that this is a sin in it
self, fully justifying the exclusion of
the liquor-seller from church member
ship, as it now does in the leading evan
gelical denominations. But certainly
the business, even if it were not a sin
in its circumstances. The wickedness
of all forms of license is proved by the
wickedness notoriously resulting from
the business of the actual saloon of our
day. To make the community a partner
in that business and its results by license
high or low. is not only the worst social
economy, but also ethical wickedness.
The actual liquor traffic, as the Metho
dist Church officially declares, -can
never be legalized without sin.” It
may not be a sin in itself to light a
match, but it is a sin in its circumstances
to light a match in a powder magazine.
The actual saloon manufactures paup
ers, criminals, widows, orphans, madmen
and lost souls, and license of the actual
saloon makes the community itself a
participator in this wickedness.
Licence proceeds upon self-contradic
tory principles. It sanctions the traffic
with one hand and condfems it with the
other. In the days of the American
conflict with slavery, Government
treated slave-holding as a crime north of
Mason and Dixon’s line. All the power
of the Government was to be brought to
bear against it there. One hair’s-breadth
south of that line, however, slavery
changed its character and was to be
permitted. All the powers of the
Government were to be exercised to
defend it there. History has now
proved that apolicy thus divided against
itself could not prosper. Under a licence
system, Government treats the liquor
traffic as it once did slavery. The li
cense fee is Mason and Dixon’s line.
On one side of that line Government
condemns the traffic. A hair’s-breadth
across the line, on the other side, Gov
ernment defends it. These principles
are self-contradictory. A house divided
against itself cannot stand.
“IT IS NEVER TOO LATE TO MEND.”
STILLWATER, MINNESOTA, JANUARY 7, 1895.
License forces the saloon into politics,
disciplines the enemy, and so is the
source of untold political corruption.
The licensed liquor traffic corrupts the
police force and the lower courts, and
is the chief source of municipal mis
rule, which is the principal peril of free
institutions.
License apparently brings a revenue
to the State, and sq intrenches the traf
fic behind the cupidity of short-sighted
taxpayers. It robs Peter to pay Paul,
but it does not pay Paul. The expenses
which the traffic brings upon the com
munity greatly exceed any profit arising
from license fees. But this fact is
overlooked by average voters. The
money there appears to be in license is
a temptation to the State and a chief
scource of the political power of the
saloon. It is, nevertheless, the estimate
of the best statisticians that, for every
dollar which the State gains by license
of the liquor traffic, it loses 318 by di
rect damages caused by that traffic.
License does not for any length of time
diminish the amount of sales of liquor,
although for awhile it may diminish
the number of places in which liquor
is sold. But the large establishments
often own the small ones and foster
the illegal trade of the latter. The
gilded saloons want the low dives kept
open to receive the refuse constituency
of the former. When the drunkard be
comes a noisy and loathsome sot, he is
turned out of the Opper into the lower
| grade of saloons.
License gives the traffic legal, indus
trial. political and social respectability,
and so increases the power of the saloon
to tempt the respectable classes, and
lowers and corrupts the temperance
sentiment of the community at large.
The city government of Omaha, under
High License of the saloons, has sunk
to so low a level that it now derives a
large revenue from arrangements nearly
approaching the licensing of houses of
unreportable infamy.
License prohibits Prohibition, for it
always provides for the continuance of
the traffic. The revenue w hich the mis
led voter suffers the State to obtain
from High License, although it by no
means covers the damage inflicted b)
the traffic, and is collected from the
•victims of the saloons and their families,
operates as a golden bar to Prohibition.
The higher the license fee the higher
and stronger is this bar. It is notori
ous that the policy of License is favored !
by politicians as a means of defeatiing
Prohibition. The Chicago Tribune very
justly says: “High License, reasonably
and properly enforced, is the only bar
rier against Prohibition in the present
temper of the people in almost every
State of the Union.'’ In January, 1889,
the Omaha Bee said: “The only effec
tive way to block Prohibition is to en
force rigidly High License.”
License is genearlly approved by the
liquor traffic itself.
License, so far as it produces ap
parently good results, owes its seeming
success to its restrictive features. The
Brooks Law in Pennsylvania, for ex
ample, transferred the power to grant
licenses in Philadelphia and Allegheny
from corrupt political Boards to Judges
of reputable Courts. The J udges grant
ed licenses much more cautiously than
the politicians had done, and gave full
force to the prohibitive elements of the
aw.
License has been weighed in the scales
of practical experience for hundreds of
years, and found wanting. The present
power of the liquor traffic and the cur
rent intemperance of our time, have
grown up under it. Over against this
indisputable fact is to be placed the
fact which is indisputable, that no
License and Prohibition, whenever
fairly weighed in the balances, have
been most significantly approved by
their practical results.
License is condemned as wickedness
by the chief Christian denominations
of our time. The celebrated declaration
of the Methodist Church in its Confer
ence of 1888, may now fairly be said to
represent the opinion of the most en
lightened and religiously earnest por
tions of Christendom at large, s<> that
in citing it here we summarize scores
of equivalent declarations Irom other
religious bodies: “The liquor traffic
can never be legalized without sin.
License, high or low, is vicious in prin
ciple and powerless as a remedy.” It
is gross inconsistency for church mem
bers to vote for License and then ex
clude licensed rum-sellers from church
membership.*
If church members would act inde
pendently and vote outside the churches
on this topic of the liquor traffic, as
they do on the inside, there is no politi
cal party that they might not bring to
terms. When the path to political
preferment leads them through the gin
mills, free government is a farce, and
its future is likely to be a tragedy. No
political party in the United States can
be permanently preserved in whisky.
* Encyclopedia of Temperance and
Prohibition. Funk and Wagnails. 1891.
Article by Joseph Cook on License.
See also the very able volume by E. J.
Wheeler, entitled “Prohibition, the
Principle, the Policy and the l arty.
Funk & Wagnalls’ Standard Library.
(TO BE CONTINUED. I
PERSONAL ABUSE NO ARGUMENT
In this country for the past ten years
there has been a general tendency to
ward improvement in political discus
sions in the conduct of political cam
paigns. Prior to 1884, personal abuse
of the leaders and of the organs of the
opposing parties constituted a leading
feature of the stump oratory; and in
the national campaign of that year, this
feature reached its highest point. A
reaction set in, and the politicans were
quick to adapt themselves to the change
in the public sentiment on this point.
Since then the public speakers and
party organs, have concentrated their
efforts to criticisims of and attacks up
on the principles, the measures advo
cated, and the question of policy of
their opponents’ measures; men have
not been the theme of discussion, and
while party spirit has run high, absence
of personal attacks has been the rule.
The style of speeches has also
changed and reached a better tone, and
though it is true that stump orators
scathe the opposite party by rigorous
invective, yet, they nevertheless also
aim to instruct and convince their
audience, to get hold of the judgment
and reason of the people through
argument, and to maintain debate on a
higher level.
Considering these facts a critical out
sider, and the majority of the adherents
of one of the leading parties of a cer
tain north-western state, cannot but
view with regret the tone and style of
the editorials of its principal organ, the
more so when it is a journal that has al
ways prided itself upon the high char
acter of its articles. It is a lamentable
fact that it has not only descended to
abuse, but the language used and the
names applied are an excellent form of
billings gate of the most scurrilous kind;
and although appropriate, perhaps, in a
sheet of national reputation that has
been excluded from the mails, is most
emphatically not appropriate in the
columns of a journal of its pretentions.
It is to be sincerely hoped that self
interest and policy will cause it to
change its tone if self-respect does not.
Observer.
GIVING.
Some one has truly said that, “life is
to each one of us what one puts into it
of one’s self.” We cannot question it.
To some people life stretches from
earth up to heaven like the glittering
ladder of Jacob’s vision, each duty a
round upon which angels may descend
Tcduq. i $1 .coper year, in advance,
i fc.KMS.-j y ix Months 50cents.
to us with divine messages, or ascend
to the Father, with hands laden with
our loving thoughts and upward as
pirations.
Life is a parable of divine meaning,
and not the humblest act without its
high interpretation to some people;
to others it is but the lonely
spot where Jacob lay down to sleep
upon a pillow of stones. They do not
see the angels, and miss the blessing.
All nature is a parable of the divine
plan of ministry to others. We see it
about us. The fullest life is that which
gives the most. The stone is self-con
tained; it receives the air, the sun and
dew and yet it neither gives nor grows.
It is a lit emblem of a selfish nature.
Hard, cold, self-contained, it exists, but
that is all. It fills a stone's place in
the world, but it is always a fixed place
where limitations aie about it, and
nothing but its mere existence is re
quired. Nothing more completely
proves that it does not live than its
incapacity to give. It is the living
tree that proves its life by giving.
From its veil of spring-time beauty to
its harvest in the autumn, it gives,
hoping for nothing again, obeying the
; laws of the God of Nature who created
it for ministry. It is only when nature's
laws are thwarted that there is a lack
of the highest fullfilment of possibili
ties.
The ocean gives back all that it re
ceives. It lifts up clinging hands of
mist to the clouds and tills them with
rain, and thus the verdure that makes
the whole earth beautiful with green
ness and fair to see, comes from the
ocean’s gifts. It is only the stagnant
marsh that keeps all that it can get.
All through nature we find this
chain of reciprocal service. The clay
elaborates its nourishing principles,
not for itself, but for the higher crea
tion of vegetable life. The flax does
not provide linen for its own use, It
ministers to the higher creation, man
From the moss to the mightiest tree
every plant reaches up to minister to
another creation, and upon each is in •
scribed the law of giving. Shall we
fall below the standard of the natural
creation? Let .us read the exquisite
parable that is about us everywhere and
, learn that to give is the purpose of life.
To withhold is to defeat that purpose.
Tiie Exile.
WHAT ARE WE COMING TOP
We may not be able to hail a cable
car nor stop a bread wagon, but we are
alive and in fairly good health, and that
is a good deal in these hard times. As
for the rest of humanity, with the
banks yet tumbling around their
and strikers sore and surly on every
hand, the outlook is not pleasant, to.say
the least. What the future will bring
forth is a weighty and momentous
question to nine tenths of America to
day. With a financial crisis pending,
beside which the experience of the past
two years would be but an introduc
tory chord, and with labor and capi
tal at swords' points on every hand,
well may men pause and say, “What
next?” When England demonetized
silver in India, she aimed a, deadly, pre
meditated blow at our very vitals.
And the worst of it is, we have ever
since played directly into her hands.
Instead of holding our awn (as we could
have done) and totally ignoring this
envious Briton, we have botcheu
and congested our finances so that
it will need more than a mere se
rum to restore us our normal activity.
And matters are growing no better. A
democratic congress, and a democratic
president, cannot agree; and it will not
be at all singular if a republican con
gress and a democratic president will
not agree. Barry.
Keep your heart full of sunshine,
and God will soon give y° u a ace *°
match it.