Rensselaer Republican, Volume 14, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 August 1882 — “LIBERTY AND LIQUOR.” [ARTICLE]

“LIBERTY AND LIQUOR.”

The 4, b100d-money” of the liquor traffic will fill the place of “Barnum's mules” on the Democratic side of the pending campaign in this State. - If Congressmen Robeson shall be left out in the cold by his New Jersey constituents, many Democratic papers will be crippled for want of campaign material. _____________ The brewers of Ohio have planked down $30,000 as a contribution tp the Democratic campaign fund tor “free whisky and no Sunday” in that State. The Republican party “reposes trust” in the wisdom and virtue of the people to the fullest extent, and demands a free, fair, unbiassed and unobstructed decision of the people on questions of great moral and political importance. The Democratic party distrusts the people, and assumes a guardianship over them which would inspect, influence and, if possible, dictate every ballot cast by them. Compare this statement with the facts and see if it is not entirely true. Since the recent exhibitions he has been making of his true inwardness, nearly every decent man in the country, without distinction of party, congratulates himself upon the result in 1880 which kept such a man as “Old Bill English”, out or the honors of the second office in the Government. The* veneer of years of apparent respectability disappeared in an instant under the internal heat of the man’s original Bourbon blackguardism.

Quite a number of Representatives in Congress are certifying the good character in Washington of fellowmembers. Among them is our own William Holman,'the great “I Object,” who is accused of a disastrous fondness for the “flowing bowl.” It is not probable that many of his certifiers feel at liberty to “flrst'cast a stone.” William is “sly, very sly,” but his sin will be sure to And him out. Anything is grist in the clamormill of the liquor traffic. For instance: The great champion of the traffic, Hon. W. H. English, said in his convention speech that prohibition “would lessen the consumption of the farmers’ grain” and “wreck the fortunes of merchants and manufacturers,” and then, with brazen inconsistency, be;declared that the effect of the same prohibition would be “to cause the people to drink more.” At a meeting held at Seymour Saturday night for the purpose of ratifying the Republican State nominations, Dr. J. W. F. Gerrlsh; President of the Grand Temperance Council at Indiana, who has hitherto acted with the Democratic party, made a strong speech in favor of the Republican ticket. Wm. J. Dm ham, President of the late Hancock and English Club, followed in the same strain. The Democrats of Fulton county, Illinois, in convention assembled, had an exciting contest, the other day, over a prohibition resolution, which was finally voted down, the vote standing 108 for prohibitiod to 117 against it. It is evident that a great many Democrats, all over the country, are prohibitionists, and many more are temperance men. The leaders of the party, however, are everywhere pledged to the liquor traffic, and temperance Democrats will be compelled to choose between their temperance principles and their allegiance to these leaders.

If the liquor traffic can defeat prohibition in the next Legislature, or by the general election dodge, it is snre of at least four years of practical free tradein its wares. The prohibitionists will not give up the fight for that method of' temperance reform, and no other method will be strong enough without their help to secure adoption. It prohibition fails fairly before the people, its forces will rally around taxation or some other method, and temperance reform will be assured Thus the question of temperance re form is directly at issne in the present campaign, end a vote for the Democratic (ticket is a vote against such reform while vote for the Republican ticket is a vote for temperance reform, in some shape to be determined here; after by the people. Everyone with a grain of sense knows that a close alliance has been formed in this State between the Democratic leaders and the B:a»e Liquor Dealers’ Association, the terms of which are that, in consideration of votes and money furnished by the Association, the Democratic leaders agree to defeat all obnoxious temperance legislation. Democrats wIH become participants in this bargain and sale by voting to accomplish the terms of the agreement which binds their leaders. If there is odium in the transaction, as there certainlyis, Democrats can free themselves from such odium by repudiating the bargain and rebuking the leaders who dare attempt to ally them to the evils and infamies of the lipuor traffic. A great many men were chained by party ties to the

monster wrong of slavery, who have since learned how far they were led into evil doing. Will these men repeat their mistake and wrong doing by ■ticking to leaders who bind them in alliance with the monster evil of intemperance?

The Democratic political alliance with the liquor traffic presents an issue in which the question of prohibition is only a secondary consideration. This issue is the ascendancy or subordination of the liquor traffic; the free and unchecked continuance of the evils of intemperance, or the subjugation of those evils linder the restraints es law, and their reduction to the minimum or injury to the country; the establishment of the doctrine of the liberty of the individual to drink what he pleases, and drink it when and where he pleases, as the foundation of an equal right to sell such drink, with equal freedom, or the irrevocable decision that the majority may regulate and control the sale of intoxicating drinks in the interests of humanity and good government. In a word, the issue presents the question whether temperance reform shall advance or retrograde. Hon. W. H. English, in his “key note” speech for the alliance of “Liberty and Liquor,” classed the Saviour of mankind with the distillers and brewers who control that alliance, and argued that there is a divine sanction for the manufacture of intoxicating liquors. If such ideas as these shall triumph in the pending election, what hope will there be left of cheeking the evils of intemperance, for years to come? The people of Ohio are con-* fronting the same issue of “Liberty and Liquor” that is presented in Indiana by the alliance of the Democratic party with the liquor traffic. Governor Foster, in a recent interview, tells us what the issue means in Ohio, and we know it means the same thing in this State. Governor Foster says:

The attitude ot the brewers and liquet dealers is such, in their open alliance with the Democratic party—their {determination to throw vast sums of money into the campaign for the purpose of defeating the Republican party, in the interest office rum against law and order; their epen hostility to the proper observance of Bunday as a day of rest and recreation, their open defiance of law. their want of respect for wholesome usage and tradition, their entire want of appreciation of the better sentiment of the country and of the welfare of the people, and their indifference to the rapid increase of drunkenness, misery, and crime—all combine to show that the people of the State will be compelled to encounter a liquor dealer’s rebellion. “It is a question, with them, of self-inter-est against the peace, the order, and the good of society. According .to their own statement, thirty millions of dollars are invested in the brewing interest in the State of Ohio, with an annual sale, at retail price, of thirty-five millions of dollars. It is sate to say, when we add to this an equal amount for the sales of other kinds of llqnors, that we have a total of sales at retail of seventy millions of dollars In a single year. Otchiß sum, Say one-half, or thirty-five millions of dollars, is net profit. And here we find the animus of this rebellion. “The enforcement of Bunday laws curtails profits, and hence the howl sent up in iavo of personal liberty. A tax law would reduce the number of saloons at least fifty per cent, thus curtailing their sales largely,and hence their opposition to a tax law. “They take no note of the fact that ninetenths of the crime, an equal amount of the pauperism, and one-half of the lunacy and idiocy, and the enormous expense entailed on the people of the State for the support and maintenance of these classes are directly traceable to the liquor traffic. It costs in Ohio three millions of dollars a year to maintain our public Institutions, and our poor houses, and to support our out-door paupers. It is a ife to say that two and onehalf millions of dollars of this amount is directly chargeable to the liquor traffic.”

All over the laud the liquor traffic has become aggressive, and in the name of the liberty of the Individual asserts and demands the liberty of liquor. The tolerance that has heretofore been given to the traffic is no longer tolerable. It must have recognition and equality, or, if possible, supremacy and dominion. The clamor about prohibition in this State is chiefly a false pretense, assumed to cover the advances of liquor for liberty. In Ohio there is no movement for prohibition, yet the liquor traffic there is working as earnestly for the libery of liquor as it is in this State. Prohibition is, plainly, but a secondary consideration in our campaign. If a victory is won against “Liberty and Liquor” next November, the question of of the expediency of prohibition as a remedy for the evils of the liquor traffic will come before the people for their c msideration. If the people, after a full and free discussion of its merits and demerits, adopt this remedy, it v ill be applied and tried. If they do not adopt it, the way will be open to other remedies, with the opposition to the Equor traffic in the ascendancy, aud a public sentiment supporting tifrorg measures. If the liquor traffic alliance with the Democratic party wins the victory, the liberty of liquor will be assured for years to come, and the admitted and untold evils of intemperance will scourge the Stale without restraint or There is yet time and opportunity to rescue the State from this calamity by overwhelming the ilnlqultous alliance of the Democratic leaders and liquor traffic with a Waterloo defeat.