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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 1, 1917)
;w -nw ,TtFS:'rir5"SW!,jr,'',"'V i'' r-n ,rj The Commoner VOL. 17, NO. 9 8 gv "i trliinijripB'fiyl'yirin 9 J ' Y ? Prohibition and the Farmer By William Jennings Bryan, in The Country Gentleman. The offect of intoxicating liquor is the same on all, whether they live in the country or in the city. However men differ in race, color or occupation, they are alike in tho effect of al cohol upon tho system. They may vary in self respect, in self-control, in moral strength and in good impulses, but alcohol is to all a poison. There are three propositions that are of uni versal application: 1. God never made a human being who, in his normal state, needed alcohol to stimulate his mind to action. If any such need exists it is evident that the person is defective either by nature or the voluntary cultivation of. a habit. 2. Among tho countless millions who have worn tho imago of their maker, not one was strong enough to be sure of his ability to re sist the appetite for alcohol when once formed; every drunkard who has fallen into a disgraced Kravo has passed through the per..od of confi dence when ho boasted that "ho could drink when ho wanted to and leave it alone when he wanted to.' Tho line that separates moderate drinking from bxcess recedds like the horizon, as one ad vances, until it is lost in the black night of drunkonnoss. 3. There is no time in one's life, between the cradlo and tho grave, when. one can with safety contract tho habit. Even age gives no immun ity. All efforts to prevent or restrain the use of alcohol, whether by persuasion or by legisla tion, rest upon one fundamental proposition that alcohol, when talcen into the body, impairs the physical strength, weakens the energies of the mind, and menaces the nurals. The propo sition is certainly either true or false. If it is false every law built upon it is with out excuse, whether that law simply throws re strlctlons around the sale or use of intoxicat ing liquors or goes to the extent of completo prohibition. If it is true tho growth of the op position to the saloon Is natural and logical. That it IS tr e is not at this day open to dis pute. Tho law forbidding the sale of liquors to minors is -built upon the theory that the indi vidual, not having reached an age at which the reason it presumed to be mature, should be pro tected from injuries which he himself is not yet competent to ward off. Laws prohibiting the sale of liquor to In dians rest upon the same ground namely, pre sumed lack of ability to protect themselves. Laws prohibiting the sale of liquor to drunk ards recognize that the habit may become so overmastering that the victim is, like a child, helpless and in need of a g -ardian. GREATER MORAL STRENGTH IN THE COUNTRY Laws f oi bidding the sale of liquor to a hus band over tho protest of a wife are a recogni tion of the harmfulness of alcohol during the intermediate period between the minor and the drunkard. The rule prohibiting the use of alcohol by the students of Annapolis and other government in stitutions, even though they have reached their majority, is a recognition of the injurious effect of alcohol, as is also the new law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquors to soldiers in our army regardless of age. These illustrations are employed, not because tho question is a debatable one, but to show the growing tide of sentiment against the sale of intoxicants. The farmer is the foe of tho liquor traffic. Thegeneral average of morality is higher in the country than It is in the city, moral stand ards being more universally respected. Evi dence of the truth of this is abundant. Peni tentiary statistics will show it, as will also pov erty statistics. Evidence can also be found in "Who's Who and in the directories which show how large a percentage of the successful business men are torn and reared in the country. Among the reasons for this greater moral strength three may oe mentioned as of special importance. 1. The man in the country is in daily con11 tact with nature and witnesses the miracle which every plant as well as every animal ex- hibits- .i He knows how to invoke the great laws that govern the world about us, but he bows in rev erence before the mysteries on every hand. It is not at all difficult for him to believe in God, for he constantly beholds the evidences of the intelligence, the omnipotence and the love of the Creator. He can hardly be irreligious; and morality, according to Tolstoy, is but the outward manifestation of religion. It would be strange if the farmer did not breathe in with the free air of his domain a sense of responsi bility to God, as well as a sense of dependence upon him. ' ,',,.,, 2. The fact that the farmer draws his wealth from the breast of Mother Earth, rather than from his fellow men, tends to strengthen his moral principles. NEITHER PARASITE NOR PILFERER Th farmer adds to the wealth of the nation without subtracting from the wealth of any in dividual. He is neither a parasite nor a pilferer. When the Creator gave us the earth with its fertile soil, the sunshine with its warmth, and the rains with their moisture, his voice pro claimed as clearly as if it had issued from the clouds: "Go, work, and in proportion to your intelligence and industry, so shall be your re ward." This is the divine law of rewards and its must prevail, except where force suspends it or cunning evades it. The farmer not only learns this law but he has no reason to rebel against it. His conscience is not seared by con stant effort to justify illegitimate accumulations. 3. In addition to an environment that en courages spiritual growth, and an occupation that confirms his faith in the justness of God's laws, he has' a third advantage in the absence of many of the temptations that throng about the city. His hours of labor, and his need of rest combine to shield him from the dissipations that find cover in urban darkness; he is out of the reach of those wlio, profiting by sin and vice, lay snares and set traps for the young men of the cities. Another reason why the agricultural commun ity is more inclined to prohibition than the city is to be found in tho fact that in the country there is no mercenary group that reaps a profit from the sale of intoxicating liquor. The brewery, the distillery and the saloon are the backb'one of the opposition to prohibition; they furnish the money to susidize so much of the press as is purchasable, and for the corrup tion of officials in so far as they are corruptable. These interests are able to control a percent age of the vote by the appeals to the appetite, and a still larger number by the intimidation which they practice on business communities. Until very recently the liquor interests had their representatives at every capitol and at ev ery convention. The party politicians and the party organizations have alitfe been terrorized; though it would have not been possible to ter rorize them but for their ability to intimidate the business men of tl e town. The fear, studiously cuLlated,that prohibition would "drive away trade" and "hurt business" has scared many- cities into tolerating the sa-loon.--Eveirwhen the farmers surrounding the town have petitioned the voters to abolish the saloon, the liquor interests have often been able to frighten the business element into submission to their demands. This very intimidation has, however, operated powerfully to arouse the agri cultural vote against the saloon. In 1914 the liquor interests in Ohio went be fore the state with a plea of "home rule," and succeeded in repealing county option. They did it by using the majorities in the wet counties to override the prohibition vote of all the agricul tural counties. Although the business men of the cities draw their wealth largely from ihe ag ricultural districts, they practically disfranchised the farmers of the state at the demand of the representatives of Jhe liquor interests. - Under the pretense of securing for the citie3 the right to govern themselves they really gave the cities the right to sell, not only to" the peo ple who licensed them but also in the agricul tural communities) where the protest was over whelming. The slaughterhouse is a nuisance because tho odor that comes from it can not be confined in the land on which if is situated; it is as inW sible to confine the evil influence of the sain to the city that licenses it. on Everyone injured by the saloon has a moral right to protest and should have the legal richt to do so. b The effect of prohibition has been the same in the country that it has been in the cities where it has been tried. The individual is better for not using intoxicants; life and property in his neighborhood are safer; political life is cleaner and legitimate business improves. ' Virtue is contagious; it is rapidly spreading In the prohibition states young people grow up without any knowledge of the saloon and seldom see a person under the influence of liquor Prisons stand idle, poorhouses are uninhabited and the drunken chaffeur no longer terrorizes the traveler on country roads. Young men learn by experience that intoxi cants are not necessary; that, as Fred Emerson Brooks has expressed it, "Pleasures are false that bring repentant pain." Business men find by consulting their ledgers that prohibition turns wages and salaries from the till of the saloon into the safes of merchants and the vaults of the savings banks; and public men discover that the elimination of a sordid, mercenary-group, interested in nothing but the safeguarding of the liquor interests, enables the parties to vie with each other for social better ment and improvement in government. What a hideous delusion it has been, that a city or agricultural community could really be benefited by the lowering of vitality, the impair ment of productive power, the sapping of intel lectual vigor, the wrecking o'f character, the im poverishment of families, the disrupting of homes, the diseasing of unborn infants, the de basing of society, the debauching of politics, and the paralysis of patriotism, And yet the saloon had its defenders until they were overwhelmed by the sheer force of numbers. Prohibition began in the country and extend ed to the cities, larger and larger in size, until finally it dominated the so-called agricultural states. It is now working its majestic march from the west and south to the northeast, clos ing, as it moves forward not only the saloons but the Tiouses of vice that cluster about the sa loons. More than half the people of the United States now live in dry territory. Congress, reflecting the sentiment of the .voters, enacted the Webb-Kenyon law, and the supreme court, not unconscious of the change that has taken place in public sentiment, has declared it constitutional. Congress has taken the federal government out of partnership with the bootlegger and the liquor press and made it the ally of the state in its efforts to exter minate the saloon and to silence the papers suh sidized by the liquor business. And now, the capital of the nation takes its seat upon the water-wagon. After the first of November of this year, 1917, the white flag of prohibition will float over Washington, just he neath the Stars and Stripes. The war is giving us, as a by-product, two new and convincing arguments against tho sa loon. First, we can not spare the food grains that are now converted into alcohol; second, we can not in the present crisis permit anything so un patriotic as the impairment of the strength either of those now in the, army or of those who, at present engaged in other occupations, may at any time be needed at the battle's front. Prohibition is coming. When it comes, to whom will the credit be due? To the farmer 'toore than anyone else. Again he has demon strated his morality, his intelligence, his cour age and his patriotism. He began the fight against alcohol and he has kept it up until vic tory is in sight. Hail to the farmer! May his influence never grow less. Big business has convicted itself of being a slacker. The nation conscripted the manhood oi the country for. the purpose of fighting its Bat tles in Europe. When it sought to conscript war profits for the same purpose, big ousl"e, resisted to the limit, refusing even to be sa u fled with being allowed to retain 20 or 6V p cent of those profits, made possible by war. x riotism finds the folds of the pocketbook an hospitable abode. e