(Leader, Johnston, Pa., Dec. 21, 1914—Rep.) A TOTAL ABSTINENCE CONGRESSMAN "Wise congressmen do not believe that a prohibitory law could be enforced under any circumstances in a State where such a law was not supported by public sentiment." (Bulletin, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 23, 1914-Ind. Rep.) NATIONAL PROHIBITION REJECTED "State-wide prohibition of traffic in intoxicating liquors is difficult in many states, and in some impossible. In certain states it is effective, and within the boundaries of states the degree of success in the attempted enforcement of the law varies with the sentiment of the people. All experience indicates that such regulation of personal habits and tastes is difficult under the most favoring circumstances, and that the more extended the jurisdiction in which the application of such a law is attempted the less likely are its prospects of success." (Record, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 26, 1914—Dem.) TRUE STATE RIGHTS "Possibly there is some significance in the fact that all the Progressives in the House voted for prohibition., Colonel Roosevelt, though not a teetotaler, is known to be very abstemious in his consumption of liquor and is probably quite willing to cut it out altogether. The inference is obvious. In the absence of any more definite issue for 1916 let the Progressives and Prohibitionists unite upon the Colonel for first place on the Presidential ticket, with Richmond Pearson Hobson, of Alabama, for Vice-President. Let the platform be: 'Down with the Demon Rum, and unlimited appropriations for the army and navy. Millions for war, but not a cent for booze.'" (Record, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 24, 1914—Dem.) "Prohibition is distinctly a local issue. Each State that desires to, can establish it. The states that do not desire it should not have it forced upon them. Whether regarded as a sanitary, or a police, or a moral regulation, it is decidedly one for each State, or for a subdivision of a State, to decide for itself." (Press, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 24, 1914-Rep.) THE VOTE ON PROHIBITION "The argument that prohibition is a police regulation, that under our system of government it belongs exclusively to the states to decide, each in its own right and for its own territory, has been so generally accepted as conclusive heretofore that the national prohibition movement had not much cause for encouragement." (Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pa., Dec. 24, 1914-Rep.) PROHIBITION AMENDMENT LOSES "There were many believers in temperance who are not in favor of political control, considering it to be a personal issue with every human being. In any event, the question has been postponed for the present. If the United States ever does declare in favor of the Hobson amendment or anything like it, it will be only after a great majority of the States have adopted and have enforced prohibition laws. "Whether prohibition does or does not prohibit is a vexed question not necessary to discuss here. Whether such laws as we have on the statute books have reduced poverty and crime and have increased happiness are matters of grave dispute. Everyone knows that much harm is done by over-indulgence in intoxicating liquors. No one defends drunkenness or poverty. arising therefrom. The real issue is over the best methods of crushing out intemperance, with due regard to the rights of others. It is a commonplace that drunkenness begets misery, but it is also true that misery begets drunkenness. "There is no one panacea for all the misery in the world. Our life is entirely too complex for that. Every effort to uplift mankind is to be commended and assisted, but as there are many views as to how this should be done we should look at the matter sanely. Those whose efforts are in one direction should not complain of those who have other views. That all the world should be temperate in all things is the great desideratum. Anything which makes for that end is to be commended." (Chronicle, Pottsville, Pa., Dec. 14, 1914—Ind.) "Within the next two weeks the present Congress proposes voting upon a bill providing for National prohibition. With one swoop its advocates would wipe out a business in which fabulous sums are invested; would cause millions of capital to become unproductive, throw thousands of men into idleness-in a word, those supporting the proposition would close the fountain upon which Congress has always turned to first, and never in vain, when it needed funds to make up National Treasury deficiencies. The individual States are to be ignored. The capitalist who has thousands tied up in a brewery; the man who has made heavy investments in a hotel property; the individual who has put his all into a small saloon property are to have their investments practically wiped out. There is to be no recompense. They must close-must discharge their drivers, wheelwrights, engineers, machinists, stablemen, clerks and bartenders-throw them upon a labor market that is already woefully overcrowded, and cut off from the railways thousands of dollars in freights. The beer brewing industry is to be destroyed; the revenue it provided for the ever increasing expenditures of the National and State governments will be levied elsewhere-possibly upon necessities. But it must go. The State remunerates the farmer and the dairyman whose cattle it kills. Corporations compensate those whose lands or dwellings it confiscates. Congress would take all from the brewer and the retailer and leave him flat. Does it really seem like a square deal? "And then what? "Will the appetite for a light stimulant-a glass of brewed liquor-have been legislated away? True, the tired workingman may not be able to get it, but if his appetite craves a stimulant or his nerves demand a tonic he will secure something satisfying, legally or illegally, and possibly something more detrimental to health than all the beer brewed to-day. The abuse and not the use of liquor is to be condemned. Excesses in eating have their penalties. Excesses in everything bring their dire rewards. Educate the rising generation as to the penalties that follow excessive indulgences not only in the uses of malt liquors, but in everything; give a helping hand to the one who has lost control of himself and not a kick, and a greater stride will have been made toward hurrying forward the millennium than all the legislation that can be enacted during the next century against the brewing of malt liquors." (Tribune, Providence, R. I., Dec. 23, 1914-Ind.) WARNING TO LIQUOR INTERESTS "National prohibition is not feasible under the Federal Constitution. State prohibition, though growing in popular approval, has yet to prove its general practicability as a really effective restraint on the evils of the liquor business. But it is clear enough, from the increasing readiness of an increasing number of people to experiment with these extreme measures, that unless the liquor interests of the country can contrive some means to make their business less offensive to the people they will presently have an almost life-anddeath struggle on their hands." (News-Courier, Charleston, S. C., Dec. 19, 1914.) "Who in South Carolina is prepared to maintain that this State is in favor of National prohibition? Why should South Carolina be put in the attitude of favoring so radical a departure from the true principles of democratic government?" (Press, Newport News, Va., Dec. 23, 1914-Dem.) NATIONAL PROHIBITION "Believing in both woman's suffrage and abolition of the liquor traffic,' says Mr. Bryan, 'I would vote for either amendment if submitted, but the time does not seem opportune for the submission of either of these amendments.' That is good sense and good politics." (Virginia Pilot, Norfolk, Va., Dec. 27, 1914-Dem:) PLAYING SAFE "There is ground for suspecting that quite a percentage of the gentlemen who so voted did so in the knowledge that the necessary two-thirds to give vitality to the resolution could not be mustered, and that, therefore, they might act so as to conciliate their Prohibition constituents without actually expediting Federal regulation of the liquor problem. Such balancing on the tight-rope of a ticklish issue is not infrequent in legislative bodies." (Intelligencer, Wheeling, W. Va., Dec. 24, 1914-Rep.) NATIONAL PROHIBITION "Operative local option and enforced prohibition have been tested in many States, and the results are contrastingly in favor of the former for the nearest approach to a prohibition that prohibits. In our own State, with the most drastic laws against the liquor traffic of any State in the Union, we have daily been reminded of the futility of absolute inhibition under absolute prohibition." (The Sentinel, Milwaukee, Wis., Dec. 25, 1914-Rep.) NO PETROGRAD "Fundamentally, the question raised by the Hobson amendment is not a moral question, but a constitutional one, involving the simple but vital proposition of home rule. "The zealots of prohibition, finding themselves unable to impose their monomania on all the states, would set up a sort of Petrograd at Washington vested with all full inquisitorial and coercive power. "Prohibition is totally impossible in any American community where there is not a large and effective majority in favor of it. "We want no Petrograd business in this country, and it is astounding that Democrats, and particularly Southern Democrats, should be found championing extreme centralization and a Federalism undreamed of even by Hamilton, as against State rights."" (Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wis., Dec. 23, 1914-Rep.) THE PROHIBITION AMENDMENT "Intemperance is a crying evil-on that the opinion of mankind is almost unanimous; but that the way to remedy the evil is to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages is a proposition that would not command the assent of anything like the majority of the voters of the United States, and in failing to pass the amendment the House has reflected the will of the people." |