Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 41, Number 63, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 April 1909 — JASPER COUNTY TO VOTE ON VITAL ISSUE SATURDAY [ARTICLE]

JASPER COUNTY TO VOTE ON VITAL ISSUE SATURDAY

Settlement of Licensed Saloon Question in This County Will Be Decided Then. ~r

ALL MENSHOULD VOTE Ministers Over the County Deliver Temperance Sermons Sonday and Meet Encouragement Every Place. a ■ ■A.. ■ It ia practically a foregone conclusion that Jasper county will give from 70 to 80 per cent of its votes for the cause of the prohibited sale of liquor in the county, and this belief which is shared alike by the temperance partisans and the friends of the other side is responsible for the very little enthusiasm that has been created since the order for the election was given. The temperance people have been working with a very good organization, and are of the opinion that the voters will not let anything interfere with them getting to the polls and casting their ballots on so important a question. On every hand they have been greeted with the reply “I’ll be there, for my interests are just as great -as yours.” That is the proper feeling; the men who are the selected head of the organization are there as the servants of the cause of temperance and because they want to put Jasper county permanently in the “dry” column. More than 1,400 people signed the petition for the election and it would seem that five men out of six were anxious for this chance to vote and show their sympathy for the cause of advanced temperance, and all of these are hoping that vlgilent officers that will prosecute illegal sales will be elected and that following the election every effort will be made to keep intoxicating Ttqiinfa -out of the oouaty? eeaploying every lawful method to this end. Ministers over the county delivered temperance sermons Sunday, and large audiences of interested men and women listened to them. The finest thing about the campaign is the fact that there is no politics in it and that all the ministers can give their views without being charged with partisanship. It is a moral issue, and never before have the people of Jasper county had the opportunity to caßt their ballots where they would bring about the desired result in this grave issue. At the Methodist church a special temperance meeting was held Sunday evening, which was addressed by Judge Chas. W. Hanley and Senator A. Halleck. Each was heartily in sympathy with the growing sentiment against the licensed saloon End the liquor business. Judge Hanley spoke of the growing sentiment against the liquor business, and credited the churchee with responsibility for the taking up of this important issue. It is not a matter of politics, it is not an excitement of the time but Is a rising public conviction to an understanding of the magnitude of the liquor business and to the fact that it Is the real cause of most of the crime and poverty and woe of the world. Temperance Is being taught in the public schools and boys and girls are being brought up to understand that misery is the certain consequence of intemperance. Scientific experiments have shown that no man can be addicted to the habit and not be injured, while the statistical reports prove that our institutions of charity, our jails and our penitentiaries are made necessary for the most part by the contributions of liquor's victims. And tt Is therefore the duty of men to encourage every step that progresses the

Senator Halleck discussed the subject from a non-partisan viewpoint, and tohl of the proceedings at the last legislature. When the county option bill was passed at the special session of the legislature I there had been an effort to make* it political, but at the regular session the effort to repeal It was not a party matter. Men supported the repeal whose constituents favored the retention of the bill, and apparently men were elected by the brewery and saloon interests and came there not as republicans and not as democrats but to oppose any measure that might give the people the right to express themselves on the salobn question. But the will of the constituency was unquestionably for temperance and it was so because of a belief with the people regardless of political affiliations that the liquor business should be curtailed, and if possible entirely subdued. He advised the temperance people to stay together and to aid their cause whenever they have the opportunity by refusing to compromise with the liquor interests. Rev. G. H. Clarke, of the Christian church, spoke at Good Hope in the afternoon to a'good sized audience, and found them heartily in sympathy with the county prohibition. He also delivered a temperance address to a large audience Sunday night at the Christian church, and gave it a practical turn by relating some of the recent immoral results of the reinstatement of saloons and of the occurrences resultant from the salf of liquor. It was a very interesting discourse and should have the effect of ■causing every man who heard it to vote the temperance ticket. Rev. J. C. Parrett illustrated his temperance sermon with stereopticon pictures, and pointed out the destroyed homes of men addicted to the use of intoxicants. _ Rev. O. E. Miller, of the Baptist church’, also delivered a strong argument for the cause of temperance. Rev. G. W. Bundy, of the Rose Bud church, delivered two temperance addresses, one at his own church and one at Parr. He talked about the subject from a practical standpoint, of man’s duty to man, and of the need to accomplish all that we can for the reform of the world. His sermons were listened to by large audiences and he found that men are giving the subject just the sober, solid thought that it needs. The appended clippings are from the Monday’s issue of the Indianapolis Star and are worthy the persual of every reader:

A Case In Point. Right, you are, Mr. Editor ia saying that “men who patronize saloonSare often free to condemn them,” and that “the-average patron of such places will not admit that he is himself injured by them; he sees very plainly that his neighbors are.” It reminds me of a case in point that I heard only a day or two ago It Is a Marion county case, too. An o!C German farmer had come to U-wn and was talc to a friend, who lo’.d him of a* remonstrance that was being circulated against the saloon In the place. “Well,” said the German fanner, “I likes my beer and always takes a drink or two when I comes here, and it doesn’t hurt me but I has a neighbor who comes tbs often and drinks too much, and when he goes home he abuses his wife and sometimes he beats her; and so I and my boys are going to sign the remonstranoe. We can get along without our beer better than that poor woman Oouoluded on Page Four.