Mr. Beck undertook to amend the bill by a general revision and reduction of the tariff duties in long schedules introduced by him. I took an active part in the discussion of this bill in the hope that by it we might secure a logical and desirable revenue law. No final action was taken on it before the adjournment of Congress on the 8th of August, after an eight months' session, and it went over to the next session.
After the long and wearisome session I returned to Mansfield. The congressional canvass in Ohio was then in full operation. The failure of Congress to pass the bill relieving the people from the burden of internal taxes no longer required, the shadow of the murder of Garfield, the dislike and prejudice against Arthur's administration, the temporary stringency in money matters, the liquor or license question, the Sunday observance, and the discontent of German Republicans, greatly weakened the Republican party in the state and foreboded defeat. R. A. Horr was the Republican candidate for Congress in the district in which I reside, and on the 17th of August he spoke at Mansfield. I also made a brief speech covering the chief subjects under discussion. I explained the causes of the failure to pass the revenue reduction bill, blaming it, as a matter of course, on the Democratic party, but assured my hearers that it would pass at the next session, and that the surplus revenue would not be wasted, but would be applied to the reduction of the public debt, and to increase pensions to Union soldiers, their widows and orphans. The opposition to the immigration of Chinese into this country was then strong. I could only promise that Congress would do all it could to exclude them consistently with treaty stipulations. I favored the proper observance of the Sabbath day, claiming that it was a day of rest and should not be desecrated, but each congregation and each citizen should be at liberty to observe it in any way, consistent with good order and noninterference with others. Touching on the liquor question, I said that many of our young men were brought to disgrace and crime by indulgence in intoxicating liquors, and I therefore believed in regulating the evil. Why should all other business be suspended, and saloons only be open? I was in favor of a law imposing a large tax on all dealers in liquor, which would tend to prevent its use. I believed in a policy that would protect our own laborers from undue competition with foreign labor, and would increase and develop our home industries. This position was chiefly a defensive one, and experience has proven that it is not a safe one. The Republican party is stronger when it is aggressive.
On the 31st of August I attended the state fair as usual, and on the morning of that day made a full and formal political address covering both state and national interests. I quote a few passages on the liquor question, then the leading subject of state policy. I said:
"All laws are a restraint upon liberty. We surrender some of our natural rights for the security of the rest. The only question is, where is the boundary between rights reserved and those given up? And the only answer is, wherever the general good will be promoted by the surrender. In a republic the personal liberty of the citizen to do what he wishes should not be restricted, except when it is clear that it is for the interest of the public at large. There are three forms of legislative restriction: Prohibition, regulation and taxation, of which taxation is the mildest. We prohibit crime, we regulate and restrain houses of bad fame. We tax whisky and beer. I see no hardship in such restraints upon liberty. They are all not only for the public good, but for the good of those affected. If certain social enjoyments are prolific of vice and crime they must give way, or submit to restraints or taxation.
"I know it is extremely difficult to define the line between social habits and enjoyments perfectly innocent and proper and those that are injurious to all concerned. It is in this that the danger lies, for the law ought never to interfere with social happiness and innocent enjoyments. The fault of Americans is that they are not social enough. I have seen on the banks of the Rhine, and in Berlin, old and young men, women, children of all conditions of social life, listening to music, playing their games and drinking their beer, doing no wrong and meaning none. I have seen in the villages of France the young people dancing gayly, with all the animation of youth and innocence, while the old people, looking on, were chatting and joking and drinking their native wines, and I could see no wrong in all this.
"But there were other scenes in these and other countries: Ginshops and haunts of vice where the hand of authority was seen and felt. What I contend for is that the lawmaking power shall be authorized to make the distinction between innocent and harmful amusements and the places and habits of life which eventually lead to intemperance, vice and crime. Surely we can leave to our general assembly, chosen by the people and constantly responsible to them, the framing of such wise regulations, distinction and taxes as will discriminate between enjoyment and vicious places of resort.
"It is a reproach to our legislative capacity to allow free whisky to be sold, untaxed and without regulation, at tens of thousands of groggeries and saloons, lest some law should be passed to restrain the liberty of the citizen. What we want is a wise, discriminating tax law on the traffic in intoxicating liquors, and judicious legislation to restrain, as far as practicable, the acknowledged evils that flow from this unlimited traffic."
This speech expressed my convictions in respect to temperance, and how far this and kindred subjects should be regulated by legislative authority. This was a delicate subject, but I believe the opinions expressed by me were generally entertained by the people of Ohio and would have been fully acted upon by the legislature but for revenue restrictions in the constitution of Ohio.
After I closed Governor Foster and Speaker Keifer spoke briefly. The general canvass then continued over the state until the election. As the only state officers to be elected were the secretary of state, a supreme judge and a member of the board of public works, the chief interest centered in the liquor question and in the election of Members of Congress in doubtful districts. I spoke in several districts, especially in Elyria, Warren, Wauseon, Tiffin and Zanesville. I spent several days in Cincinnati, socially, and in speaking in different parts of the city. The result of the election was that James W. Newman, the Democratic candidate for secretary of state, received a majority of 19,000 over Charles Townsend, the Republican candidate. This was heralded as a Democratic victory. In one sense this was true, but it was properly attributed by the Republicans to the opposition to prohibition. It grew out of the demand of a portion of our people for free whisky and no Sunday. THey were opposed to the liquor law, and believed it went too far, and voted the Democratic ticket.
A few days after the election I went with two friends to Lawrence, Kansas, arriving about the 15th of October. I have always retained a kindly feeling for the people of that state since I shared in the events of its early history. With each visit I have marked the rapid growth of the state and the intense politics that divided its people into several parties. This was the natural outgrowth of conditions and events before the Civil War. As usual I was called upon to make a speech in Lawrence, which, in view of our recent defeat in Ohio, was not a pleasant task. However, I accepted, and spoke at the opera house, chiefly on the early history of Kansas and the struggle in that territory and state, which resulted in transforming the United States from a confederacy of hostile states into a powerful republic founded upon the principles of universal liberty and perpetual union.