If the writer were to answer these questions, she would be constrained to say that the last count is the strongest count: the people do not realize what they are doing by joining forces with those who are conspiring against their highest interests. The average American has become a chronic joiner. He does not stand for something: he must belong to something. The Prohibition movement comes along and appeals to his sentimental and emotional nature. He has been schooled to depend largely on sentiment, and trained to march with the crowd. To act as a responsible unit has been practically impossible. He has never thought upon the question deeply; he has been part of a muddled mass of humanity, thinking as the mass thought and acting as they acted: he has not been the soul-free individual he imagined himself to be; his acts and opinions have been nothing more than weak reflections of the opinions and acts of the muddled mass. He joins the Prohibition forces, and thereafter thinks less than before, because, being joined to something, he can safely trust to that something—the organized mass which, in turn, thinks and acts just as a few self-appointed and ambitious leaders think and act. There is no more for him to do now than to walk up to the polls and vote precisely as he is bidden to do. He has become a real automaton.
And he does not once realize that he has joined forces with those who are conspiring against his highest interests. He helps to pass a law that takes away his neighbor’s rights and privileges, and does not dream that in so doing he is taking away his own rights and constitutional guaranties, and as surely undermining the fabric of our free institutions and thereby hastening national decay and national ruin.
A Dangerous Combination
Prohibitionists, once they are seated upon the throne of civil power, do not intend to stop at the passage of laws prohibiting the liquor traffic. As has already been stated, they are fully as interested in securing compulsory Sabbath observance laws, and in fact, as stated at the [1]Inter-Church Conference in New York City in 1905, “to secure a larger combined influence for the churches of Christ in all matters affecting the moral and social conditions of the people, so as to promote the application of the law of Christ in every relation of human life.” This, indeed, means a wide range of activities, and the individual citizen may well enquire, and with apprehension, as to just how far this combined influence is to go in its invasion of “every relation of human life.” If it actually means what it says, and proposes to invade “every relation of human life” with a string of laws and regulations as complex and as multitudinous as the relations of human lives, the student of political government, if not the citizen, may ask of this gigantic combination of the so-called moral forces of the country: what will be the ultimatum? Where will it all end? What is to become of the unit of citizenship?
“Straws show which way the wind is blowing,” is an old saying. In this connection, the following article—a portion of an editorial—that appeared in the Sacramento (Cal.) Bee, Oct. 7, 1915, is both interesting and significant:
As a further example of the intolerant, domineering and narrow-minded tendencies of the prohibitionists, witness this communication recently published by the New York Evening Sun, signed “Herman Trent, of the Anti-Saloon League,” and dated at Englewood, New Jersey:
“Speaking now in my personal capacity, and not as a member of the Anti-Saloon League, I will say I regard the anti-liquor crusade as merely the beginning of a much larger movement—a movement that will have as its watchword ‘Efficiency in Government.’
“If I had my way I would not only close up the saloons and the race-tracks. I would close all tobacco shops, confectionery stores, delicatessen shops and other places where gastronomic deviltries are purveyed—all low theatres and bathing beaches.
“I would forbid the selling of gambling devices such as playing cards, dice, checkers and chess sets; I would forbid the holding of socialistic, anarchistic and atheistic meetings; I would abolish the sale of tea and coffee, and I would forbid the making or sale of pastry, pie, cake and such like trash.”
This at least is consistent. And Mr. Trent is startlingly frank in thus boldly publishing his programme. In a lecture work extending to all parts of this country and for a quarter of a century of time, I have found a great many Herman Trents, and I fear they are increasing, and I know they are becoming emboldened. After all, are we so far removed from the blue-law regime of early New England? Be certain of one thing: today, we would see just such a regime except for a due regard for the Constitution and a minimum majority of votes.