Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 95, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 February 1917 — THEY HAVE THEIR ANSWER [ARTICLE]

THEY HAVE THEIR ANSWER

At the outset the aim of many prohibition states was merely the retail liquor traffic. .The hope and prayer was to visit, upon the lawdefying saloon the ruin it had so cunninglj- and •unremittingly sought. The abolition of drinking in homes or of purchase under legal restrictions for private use, was not desired., . ' • ,< . For this moderate course, there were several reasons; One was that the penalization of personal indulgence might not stand the test of the courts; another was that adherents of “personal liberty” might support a mere blow at the saloon who would rebel at complete prohibition; then it was felt in some Quarters that a moderate statute •which could be enforced might avert the common disgrace of laws so greatly at. yariance with 'public sentiment that they become dead letters and discredit the whole reform. With this compromise, the liquor interests were not content. , They started out to badger th© temperance forces into the extreme measures of “bone, dry.” They said that half-way prohibition was hypocritical and dishonest; and.they cunningly put out the notion that they would themselves prefer “honest*’ prohibition to these standard' prohibitory statutes. Now they have their reward. Upon the devoted head of their self-destroying advocates, first made mad, the walls of the temple have fallen. If there is any move the traffic could have made to plunge itself deeper in the mire than it has sunk, it does not appear from any of the ill-chosen attempts it has made to extricate itself. —Indianapolis Star.

The bill to legalize prize fighting —termed “boxing matches” by the elite sports—was killed in the house Wednesday by a vote of 36 to 40.