Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 March 1915 — TEMPERANCE RALLY TUESDAY EVENING [ARTICLE]

TEMPERANCE RALLY TUESDAY EVENING

Louis Albert Banks to Address People on 1 the Important Topic At Presbyterian Church. Tuesday evening at the Presbyterian church Lou[s Albert Bonks, one of the foremost temperance men in the United States, will speak in the interest Of humanity. This is the occasion Of the national prohibition rally, when it is hoped by a concerted effort to bring men to realise that the country is Still in slavery, that we are allowing our flair land to be blighted by the licensing of saloons, that we are permitting the -breweries and distilleries and their organization to throttle our legislatures and to maintain their destructive business in the very face of a big majority against them.

We do not know how Dr. Banks will handle the question, but he is a great power in the cause of temperance and his fearlessness and directness of dealing with the liquor evil has been the cause of efforts to take his life and he is today recognized as one of the greatest powers in the anti-salbon movement in the entire nation. Rensselaer rooted the saloons out some eight years ago and its people know that it was no small task. Many merchants feared that the result would influence trade adversely; others were personal friends of the saloonkeepers; others listened to the personal liberty argument. Now, however, the saloons are gone to stay unless some unfavorable legislation is passed that will not give a majority a right to keep them out. But not to carry on the fight against the licensed saloon and the whole liquor traffic is to stagnate and to take the chance of some day having our fair city blighted with the'saloon again. It is to our interest to strike another blow at the menacing monster. Dr. Banks will try to bring our people to realize that the iron is hot and that this is the time to strike.

The Presbyterian church should be crowded Tuesday evening. Fathers and mothers should be there, young men should be there. Those who have been slaves to the drink iabit should be there. Although we today call Rensselaer “dry”, liquor is being shipped in daily, it is being sold by bootleggers’ and in other ways. A big majority of our people are opposed to it being sold at all, but men who would otherwise be fine citizens find a way to get it and their dependents suffer while they wreck their lives. It is time to tighten the clamps. Hear Dr. Banks and become identified with the national movement that hopes to kick the nefarious, business into the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. * Hear Dr. Banks Tuesday night.