It must be kept in mind that the clerical politicians of the Prohibition party (no distinction can be made between the Prohibition Party and the Anti-Saloon League: they are one and the same in intent and purpose) are interested not merely in the enactment of prohibitory liquor laws. They want laws prohibiting everything that does not conform to their interpretation of theological dogmas.
Prohibition and Sunday Laws
They are as determined to secure compulsory Sabbath Day observance laws as they are to obtain Prohibition laws; and wherever and whenever you find a movement for one, you invariably find, sooner or later, a demand for the other. Prohibition and Sunday laws go hand in hand. In fact, they result from the same cause—the desire to control individuals; the application in civil law of the fallacious theory that it is “the social right of every individual that every other individual shall act in every respect exactly as he ought to act.” Nothing is further from the truth of the principle of free and popular government, and nothing so destructive of the rights and privileges of man.
Sunday laws can find no justification except in a church-and-state system of government which essays to establish a practice grounded in religious belief; to fix upon a particular rest-day, and say to individuals how they shall observe that day. A compulsory law for Sunday or Sabbath observance is equivalent to a law for compulsory baptism, or compulsory church service, or the support of the church: in like manner, sumptuary laws that determine what one may not drink, may extend to defining what one may eat, ad infinitum, until a thousand and one articles of food and drink are “unlawful”—articles of diet and consumption that to a large proportion of the citizens may seem harmless, if not, indeed, beneficial. The Sabbath law says to you what you must religiously do; and if it may extend to the observance of a day, it may extend to all religious duties and practices without exception: the Prohibition law tells you what you may not drink, and if it presumes the right to prescribe in the matter of drink, it may extend to the matter of determining what is fit, and what is not fit, to eat—and it could continue until a Dietary List and a Fashion Plate had been fixed by legal enactment. It is not difficult to see that the Sunday law and Prohibition are quite identical in character; the source of their origin must be the same: at least, it is plain that their introduction and operation in civil government is destructive of personal freedom and choice.
Sumptuary Laws Increasing
These restrictions by law are eternally increasing, so that it has become almost impossible for a citizen of the republic to live a single day without violating one or more laws. In almost every relation of life the conduct of the American is minutely regulated.
Many of these restrictions are founded upon a muddled conception of the public good: their aim would seem to be to protect the innocent bystander. But we cannot see how the innocent bystander profits, when the free citizen is forbidden to go fishing on Sunday, to smoke in public, to see certain plays, to get Anthony Comstock reports and the Kreutzer Sonata through the mails; to say in public just what he wants to say—to exercise freedom of speech; to kiss his girl in the parks, or a woman to wear abbreviated skirts,—ad libitum!
These prohibitions burden the individual without conferring any appreciable advantage upon the mass, or even upon other individuals. The struggle between two wholly different theories of life—the Puritanical spirit on one hand, and the Liberal spirit on the other—is on, and it is becoming fiercer every day. Said Congressman Richard Bartholdt, in a speech made in the House of Representatives:
“The attempts to further and further restrict our liberties in a Puritan sense are carried on in the garb of a religious movement, and the ministers of all churches and the members of all congregations are constantly called upon for support and money to maintain lobbies in both the national and state capitals; and these lobbyists are cracking the whip over our lawmakers, and are urging them to pass more and more restrictive laws,—laws which in their mistaken zeal, they believe will make people good. I do not exaggerate, my friends, when I say that if this movement is not stopped, and stopped soon, the American people before long will find themselves wrapped up in a network of ‘don’t’s’ which will completely hamper their freedom of action; and instead of being freemen in all matters of personal conduct, they will be slaves fettered by the chains of un-American laws.
“Permit me, in this connection, to call attention to a most remarkable fact; namely, that the people in many cases actually vote to enslave themselves. History tells us of despots who kept their subjects in perpetual serfdom, and of rulers who robbed the people of their freedom; but there is no case on record, so far as we know, where the people of their own volition and by their own votes robbed themselves of their own birthright. The United States is the first example of this kind. The history of the human race is a constant struggle for liberty, and every concession wrung from the oppressors was heralded as a new triumph of progress and civilization. Here we have the example of a generation which, though being free, voluntarily surrenders its social liberty and forges with its own hands the fetters of slavery. Now, can you account for that? Is it because we do not sufficiently appreciate our heritage on the theory that what you inherit and what comes to you easily you do not value as what you have to fight for yourselves? Or is it because the people do not fully realize just what they are doing by joining forces with those who are conspiring against their highest interests? I leave these questions for you to answer. Perhaps we are guilty on both counts.”