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The Commoner
OCTOBER, 1918
.7
PROHIBITION: STATE AND NATIONAL
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Speech of William J. Bryan, Delivered at Auditorium, St. Joseph, Missouri, September 18, 1918
Ladies and Gentlemen:
i lt make3 me feel as ic i were aomownai ageu
when I remember that it is twenty-threo years
i-aincc I flrflt spotce in yum cit-jr, uU vo miiu-
duccd to you uy your vuij uibiiu6ui0uwu "b"
Hon Calvin Buroes. I have returned many
times since and never with more pleasure thau
"i come to-niglit My lire lias been spent for now '
nioro than a quarter of a century upon the
olitical battlefield. Twenty-eight years, for
that is the length of time since my first Congres-
lonal nomination, i. nave oeen laaonng in uu
half of reforms, and the latter years of my life
have been made glad by the triumph of many
reforms for which we negan to ugut more uiau
two decades ago; but in all these years I have
never taken part in any fight which was as great
.in its far reaching influence as the fight in
which we are now engaged and my heart has
never been so deeply in a cause as in tue cause
..Mnh nnw aoDroaches its complete triumph.
And this cause has grown more rapidly than any
other cause with which I nave ueen conncccea.
We are traveling towards the dawn; the day
grows brighter hour by hour, and I am glad to
night to find upon this platform men who dare
oppose what has been in the past a majority
sentiment in this city. It takes moral courage
(o face an adverse majority, and there, is no
majority that has been as tyrannical and as des
potic as the majority which has stood guard
over the saloon. I desire, therefore, to express
my great delight at, and my appreciation of the
fact that you have citizens here who are willing
to takd the risk of offending those interested in
the liquor business and are making their fight
open, direct and positive against the saloon.
Allow me to encourage them by telling them
that if they will hold out for eighteen months
longer there will not be a brewery, a distillery
or a saloon in the' City of St. Joseph to terrorize
any one.
The institution is going. The question that
you have to decide is whether you will help to
drive it out or be its champions until it is driven
out.
CAUSE UPPERMOST IN MINDS AND HEARTS
OF PEOPLE- '
Before I take up the subject that brings us
here I shall dwell for .a little while upon a
greater cause, for the cause uppermost in the
minds and hearts of our people at this time
is the cause in which millions of our men are
now engaged; the cause to which we are pledg
ing bill'ons of our dollars. I want to speak for
just a little while of the war, and frshall draw
some parallels between this cause at home and
the cause that we are fighting for across the
sea. Let me bring you a thought from the stand
point of my line of work. It has been my busi
ness to compare forms of government, to study
methods of government, and to work for im
provements in government, and I ask you to
consider for a moment the eifect that this war
"Will have upon the world's thought on the ub
ject of government. When our nation4 entered
this war the character of the conflict as a com
bat between two forms of government was
greatly emphasized, for now, standing face to
face upon the battlefiefd, are the greatest re
public in all history and that government which
in modern times best represents all that is
antagonistic to our ideas of government. Ours
js a people's government. Here the people rule,
fhose who temporarily exercise authority are
chosen by the people, and while they act for the
people they act within the limits of a written
V constitution. Here the people, are the masters,
u me ouiciais are but the public -servants
chosen to give expression to the people's will.
Being a people's government it has hafeguarded
Jhe rights of the people and its chief concern
has been to secure equality of opportunity to
ie people. To show you how fully and com
pletely it lias accomplished its purpose let me
Present this illustration. If a boy is born in this
In t llis Darents die before he is old enough
io Know them and ho is reared in an orphan
t5iU?' SUch aTe the opportunities that are at
ntrS, tt0 American citizenship that if that
hn v,an ,oy wlU but improve those opportunities
uu nas just as good a chance to become the
greatest business man of his generation as has
tho son of the greatest business man of the
preceding generation. More than that, if that
orphan boy will but improvo his opportunities
he has just as good a chance to become Presi
dent of the United tates lu his day as has the
son of any former President. That is our coun
try, and this equality of opportunity is worth
more to our children than any amount of money
that a father can leave to a child. A large f ortuno
in anticipation has ruined many young men, a
largo fortune In possession has ruined manymoro,
and a fortune does not always remain in the
hands of tho one who inherits it, but equality
of opportunity, such as attaches to citizenship
1n this country, meets the child on the threshold
of his life and it is his to improve while his
life lasts. That equality of opportunity is a
thing so priceless that every man in this country
and, If necessary, every woman also can afford
to die to keep the path open between the child
and the stars. That iff our country.
WAR A CONFLICT BETWEEN TWO FORMS
OF GOVERNMENT
Tho German government is tho very opposito
of ours. At its head stands one who claims to
julo by right divine, and ho is supported in
these absurd pretensions by military power. Tho .
German people are not their own masters; they
enjoy such privileges as thoir sovereign con
descends to grant to them.
Now, these two forms of government have
met upon tho battlefield and one of them will
bo victorious. Both have had their defenders in
the past. The champions of autocracy have laid
emphas's upon strength. They have insisted that
under thoir form of government tho ruler could
more quickly and more surely concentrate his
entire force against a given object. Wo have dis
pute,d ,the claim; we have contended that our
form of government is not only the most wise
but also tho strongest, and no one has belter
expressed our views than the great historian
Bancroft who, nearly one hundred years ago,
said that "a republic is in truth the strong
est of governments because, discardipg the Im
plements of terror, it dares to build its citadel
in the hearts of men." And, now, the test is to
be made and we are to find out which is tho
better foundation upon which to build a govern
ment, the love of the people or the fear that
an autocrat can excite in the hearts of his sub
jects. When I was a boy in the college I read a book
entitled "Creasy's Fifteen Decisivo Battles," and
in that book the author says that a single battle
in the past changed the course of civilization
lor hundreds of years. If a little battle in the
past could thus affect the future who today is
presumptuous enough to look ahead and attempt
to guess for how many hundreds of years the
stream of thought on the subject of government
may be colored by this the bloodiest of all the
battles of hiBtory, the one that is being fought
today upon tho western front. Therefore, in ad
dit'on to all other reasons why we"niust win this
war let me suggest this reason. We must not
only win it for ourselvesand for our allies, and
for the world of today, but, as believers in our
form of government, as those who would com
mend this form of government to the confidence
of those who live after us, we must win this
war also for the world of tomorrow. Wo can
not afford to have an historian write an hundred
years from now that when these two forms of
government met upon the battlefield an Emperor
was better able to mobilize the resources of an
Empire than a President and Congress were the
resources of a Republic; and the students of
history will never be permitted to read that the
oppressed subjects of an ambitious Kaiser were
more loyal to their government than were the
free citizens of this great' republic to those who
they themselves had chosen and to a govern
ment that had given them more of blessings
than any other people had ever enjoyed. We not
only must win this ivar but we will win this war.
PEOPLE WILL MEASURE UP TO DEMANDS'
AND RESPONSIBILITIES
I have no more doubt of the triumph of our
arms than I have of the rising of tomorrow's
sun but my faith- in victory rests upon the be-
, if
lief that In the days to como as in tho days thus
far our pooplo will moasuro up to cvory re
sponsibility and moot cvory domand made upon
their patriotism. For th'o purpose of what 'I have
to say on that subject tonight lot mo divldo our
pooplo into threo classes. In tho first class I put
our soldlors and our sailors, those who In tho
army and navy offor their all and are ready to
dio if necessary in thoir nation's dofonso. No
matter how willingly these men approach tho
battle front on them falls tho heaviest burden
of this war. I put no one clso in tho samo class
with our soldier boys.
In tho second class I put thoso who occupy
positions of great rospous'billty, chlof among
them our President, who carries such a load of
responsibility and caro as has never fallon on
any othor President. Near him aro thoso who
to a less degrco share the burden that ho bearfe.
If you would know how heavy this burden is
and what a falso step would mean turn back In
memory a few months to tho time when a United
States senator charged that tho war department
had broken down, and when in somo quarter!
there was a demand that Secretary Baker should
resign. Had tho chargo boon mado good ha
would have boon compelled to withdraw from
tho cabinet and the remainder of his days would
havo been lived under tho cloud that a forced
retirement would havo put upon him. But, for
tunatoly, when ho mado his answer it was so
complete that ho not only sllonccd his critlcH
but established himsolf more firmly than before
in the nation's confidonco, and now, a fow
months afterwards, a world Is amazed that that
same Secretary Baker should havo boon able, in
so short a time, to havo carried across an ocean
three thousand miles wide one million, six hun
dred thousand American soldiers and put them
on the battlefields of Europe. "
For many months a coterie of newspapers In
the northeast tried to drive Joseph uh Daniels
out of tho cabinet. They ridiculed him; thoy
misrepresented him, and Daniels himself is not
happier than I that ho has overwhelmed his
enemies; and horo again the world is amazed
that that samo Secretary Daniels should havo
been able to so safeguard our troops In transit
that less than three hundred have perished on
tho waters.
I mention these two because they wore tho
ones singled out for attack, and now I want to
tell you that the chief influence back of the
attack on them was the liquor interests of this
country.
Thoy did not like the way Josephus had
driven John Barleycorn from the ships of Uncle
Sam, and they did not liko the way Baker had
made dry zones around the cantonments on land.
Had these two men been willing to got down
on their knees and worship tho Rum god there
would have been no attempt to .drive either one
of them out of the cabinet. Outsido of this inner
circle there is a little larger circle mado of some
five hundred senators and members who deal
daily with problems both difficult and delicate,.
The President and those associated with him in
authority I put in tho second class.
DUTY OF ALL TO STAND BACK OF PRESI
DENT AND CONGRESS
In the third class arc all the rest of the people
This is the big class, and wo who arc in the
third class, while not required to make tfce
sacrifices demanded of tho soldier and not called
upon to bear the burden of responsibility that
rests upon the President and those near him,
have our duties also, and our first duty, as I
conceive it, is to stand as one man, without dis
sension, division or discord, back of our Presi
dent and Congress and supporjt our government
jn anything and everything that It sees fit to
undertake while this war lasts. That Is our first
duty and it is a duty that cannot be discharged
by words only. It requires deeds, and deeds
along every one of the many lines of our nation's
activities.
Let me call attention to threo lines and 'that
only briefly. In the first place our government
is "doing more than it over did before and more
than any other government over tried to do to
make the lot of the soldier as easy as possible
when he is sick or wounded, and his moral wel
fare as safe as possible while he Is in the army.- A,
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