Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 November 1908 — PASSING OF THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE. [ARTICLE]

PASSING OF THE ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE.

The result of the election in Indiana is a stinging defeat to Governor Hanly, the Anti-Saloon League adjunct of the republican state machine and the ministers of the gospel who lent themselves to the political game to defeat Honest ‘‘l’onT Marshall for the governorship. W. H. Blodgett, in the Indianapolis News, well says that when the Anti-Saloon League entered partisan politics it weakened its influence. The activity of the Anti-Saloon League was resented, and right here in Rensselaer the offensive methods of the pastor of the Methodist church, who is one of the most 1 uncompromising republican partisans that has ever occupied the pulpit of that church, whose pernicious activity in the Watson cause during the entire campaign, distributed literature all day Tuesday about the polls and elsewhere in the city of this so-called “Anti” league, evten going so far that he possibly violated the law’ which prohibits electioneering within fifty feet of the polls, and advised and instructing his hearers (so we are told) in his Sunday morning sermon to vote for Watson for governor, has been deplored and w’lll be resented in a way that will cripple his church as an influence for good for years to come. Politics- and religion do not mix very well, and it is to be regretted, that the ministers, notably the Methodist ministers of Indiana, have seen fit to use their influence and their pulpits in an effort to promulgate the cause of any political party. They have done their churches and the temperance cause incalcupable harm by listening to the sophistries of Hanly and the Anti-Saloon League, although many of these ministers were willing victims of this confidence game. Many prominent temperance democrats in Newton and White counties tell us that there is so much resentment over the action of the Anti-Saloon League that if elections are held therein (heir counties are sure to go “wet,” and that is the general opinion here regarding Jasper county. As to Mr. Marshall, whom Hanly and his allies so bitterly opposed, Mr. Blodgett says in Wednesday’s Indianapolis News: The Anti-Saloon League knew, or could have known, that Mr. Mar- ! shall is a temperance man in his public life; that he stands high in ithe esteem of his neighbors as an i honest, conscientious, upright citizen, a man whose word will be taken anywhere in Indiana on any subject. The Anti-Saloon League knew, or could have known, that Mr. Marshall conducted his campaign entirely free from brewery and saloon interests. He paid his own expenses and would not accept a dollar from any one; would not permit the State 'committee to pay his traveling ex- , pensea or give him a penny. He I borrowed the money from a bank • on.his personal note and would not accept free transportation even on

a hack line. When Albert Lieber and Crawford Fairbanks and a number of brewery representatives of liquor interests held meetings and sent for Mr. Marshall he declined to attend their meetings and replied that he had no business with them. The Anti-Saloon League did magnificient Work in getting the local option law passed. Then it was within its province. Then it was performing the duty for which it was organized, and there was no one that would say it nay. It had the support of the majority of the people of Indiana, the pulpit and a very large part of the press. There was not a Christian organization in Indiana but that stood behind it. When the county option law was written in the books the work of the Anti-Saloon League was done, except that it was expected to see the law was obeyed. But the republican politicians at once threw the temperance issue into party politics and the leaders of the AntiSaloon League went Into party politics with the Republicans, and right then and there its influence for good began to wane. “The leaders of the Anti-Saloon League knew as well as Governor Hanly knew and as well as Mr. Watson knew’ that county local option was not an issue in the election of yesterday. That question was settled until the counties, by special elections, were called on to vote for or against the saloon. The cry went up from Hanly, under the auspices of the Anti-Saloon League, and from "Watson, indorsed by the Anti-Saloon League, that the purpose of Mr. Marshall would be to have the county local option law repealed But the people would not stand to be hoodwinked by Hanly and fooled by Watson or cajoled by the Anti-Saloon League Into voting the Republican ticket on the pretended temperance issue.