The Use and Need of the Life of Carry A. Nation
just powers from the consent of the governed." The licensing of intoxicating
drink results in suicide and murder, whether or not the saloon-
keeper or state be held responsible. Some one is. Who? The man who
consents to or aids by his vote is most criminal. It is said that drink
kills a man a minute. Suppose that we had a war that killed a man every
five minutes. Would there not be howling for an end of bloodshed. This
is more than ten times worse, for the soul is more valuable than the
body.
Freedom or liberty in animals is following instinct and underlying
appetite. Not so with man; to the reverse. It is the freedom of conscience
and will, from the bondage of ignorance of the person, the gratification
of appetite and passion. The body is a good servant, but a tyrant
when it is master. A man must be master or slave. One must first, like
Daniel, "purpose in his heart that he will not defile himself". Liberty
or freedom is only attained by prohibition of opportunity to do wrong
to ourselves or allow any one else to do so. Citizenship not only requires
one to obey law but must see that others do so also.
The principles of government are founded on liberty and self-control.
Drunkenness is a loss of self-control. Anything that animalizes men,
is a menace to the life of the state and prevents the purpose of government.
Thus replacing the weapon of destruction in the hands of its foes
and the danger is great, because so many citizens are under the domination
of their own will and passion. This class is being multiplied by
this licensed crime. These willing classes are an integral part of the
nation. By licensing rum, we are fostering a power that is increasing
the weakness, and preventing the self-control of its citizens. This is
conspiracy, treason, black as night. Some plead the revenue of our
wealth. Our wealth is in our citizens. The state can not add to its
treasury at the expense of its manhood without punishing herself. The
state must guard the character of its citizens. It can not make them
honest but it must punish dishonesty; can not make them humane, but
it must prohibit an act of inhumanity; and should oppose and forbid
every license that man would desire or try to obtain that which would
allow such gratification of the animal over the moral.
The nation is what its homes are. The family first, then the nation.
Nothing can injure an individual or a family that is not an injury to
the state. The fight for firesides means a fight for our national life.
Our revolutionary sires fought for this. This is the fight that Carry A.
Nation is making. It is the heart of love, liberty and peace. Some of
these thoughts I have copied from an article I read on a few leaves of a
torn pamphlet, no name. But the writer has the true meaning of government.
I am a prohibitionist because I am a christian. I want to get
to heaven. None but prohibitionists ever do. Hell is made for those
who take license to sin.
HELL'S CONSPIRACY.
England has the same struggle that we have. The government conspiring
against the people. This article from the pen of Lady Carlisle
tells of the same vile plot the Prime Minister of England sustains, the
brewer against the people, just as Roosevelt and his crowd here:
THE PEOPLE'S STRUGGLE AGAINST THE LIQUOR TRADE.
(Spirited appeal by Lady Carlisle.)
Throughout the past year we have been face to face with a grave
crisis in the history of our temperance movement, but the present Session
of Parliament is the moment of our most imminent peril.
In March, 1903, the Prime Minister, surrendering to the threats of
the liquor trade, recklessly attacked the Magistrates because in the public
interest they had here and there reduced the number of licensed houses,
and he declared to the Brewer's Deputation that in so doing the Magistrates
had been guilty of "gross injustice," and that "to such unjust confiscation
of property the Government could not remain indifferent." In
April the Government supported Mr. Butcher's Compensation Bill, and
in August Mr. Balfour gave a pledge in the House of Commons that the
Government would introduce legislation "at the earliest possible moment
in the following Session," which would put an end to the present "wide-
spread feeling of insecurity on the part of English license-holders."
Since the Prime Minister made these pronouncements, our forces
have everywhere set themselves in array to fight the impending legislation,
by which the 'Trade' is to be endowed at the expense of the nation's
welfare, and is to have its privileges and its powers greatly increased.
The government, having yielded to the dictation of the Publican interest,
indicated that either the Magistrates must be hindered from exercising
their ancient power of not renewing annual licenses when in their
discretion they deem such renewal to be against the public good; or else
that some measure of compensation must be enacted, whereby this wealthy
liquor monopoly should have its huge financial profits made permanently
secure by the grant from Parliament of a vested interest in their
licenses. If after the passing of such a measure the Magistrates should,
for the protection of the people, refuse the renewal of a license, the holder
of that speculative public-house investment would be by law guaranteed
against loss. He would thus no longer need to insure himself against
the risk of non-renewal, for the State would have turned this annual
license into a freehold property. Then for the first time this dangerous
'Trade' would have obtained that fixity of tenure which it has so long
coveted, but which Parliament in its wisdom has always vigorously refused
to grant; and the nation, which has already too long suffered under the
oppression of the Liquor Traffic with its terrible licensed temptations,
would then be permanently crushed under one of the most perilous of
all the political tyrannies that ever sapped the strength and the freedom
of a great people. For these Liquor Traffickers have proclaimed cynically
their anti-social aloofness, from the ideals of good citizenship; "they
know no interest but their own," and their defiant boast is heard at all
elections, "Our Trade our Politics."
Today the people and the 'Trade' have come to close quarters in
their conflict; and all Temperance workers must join with dedicated
fervour in unremitting and widespread agitation, till the danger is past.
Deep and living must be the zeal and the faith that inspire our work.
The campaign of protest and of "active resistance" has started vigorously,
and it must never slacken till victory is won. Day by day the pressure
of public opinion must increase, till the impression made on Parliament
by resolutions and petitions shall be overwhelming. The struggle against
the 'Trade' and its Government backers is hard, but we must fight straight
on, for the issue is of vital importance and we should be ready to make
a determined and triumphant resistance to the Prime Minister's sinister
and unashamed attempt to sell our immemorial rights to England's
most dangerous foe, that gigantic Drink Trade, which lives and thrives
on the sorrow and degradation of our people.
The worth of our temperance party as a fighting force is once more
being tested, and I trust that we shall not be found unworthy servants
of the great cause which is in our keeping. It rests with the Temperance
stalwarts, leading the conscience of the nation, to win the day. They
fought and they won the same battle in 1888, and again in 1890, and the
achievement of those years can assuredly be repeated today, if we rightly
grip the principles that underlie our old Temperance beliefs, holding fast
to them without wavering or losing heart, and if we work ever zealously,
glowing with the cheerful faith which belongs to those who know that
Right will win in the long run, if only reformers are patiently steadfast
in their task, even when the ultimate goal is not yet in sight. We must
spend ourselves, still marching with our faces set.
ROSALIND CARLISLE,
President North of England Temperance League.
President British Women's Temperance Association.
THIS ARTICLE IS FROM THE TEMPERANCE WITNESS OF NORTH OF ENGLAND.
This explains the danger to honest trade. The reason why we have
capital against labor. The concentration of money without compensation
to labor. The funds that accumulate corrupt the government and enslaves
the people:
THE CAUSE OF BAD TRADE.
"Every shilling invested in the liquor traffic inflicts a distinct injury
to the cause of labor, for there is no trade which pays less wages in
proportion to its receipts than the traffic in intoxicants. If therefore the
capital which is now invested in the manufacture and sale of these liquors
could only be turned into other channels there would be no difficulty in
finding an honest wage for an honest day's work for every unemployed
laborer in the land. Let us illustrate this. In a blue book on wages and
production, issued from the Board of Trade in 1891, it was stated that
for every L100 received in mining, L55 went in labor; of every L100 in
shipbuilding, L37 went in labor; of every L100 in railways, L31 went in
labor; of every L100 in cotton manufacturies, L29 went in labor; but of
every L100 in brewing, L7 only goes into the pocket of the workman. The
same result was shown in another way by Mr. W. S. Caine, M. P., when
he said: 'He was in Scotland, in the neighborhood of a very large soap
factory. He was shown in the locality twelve old cottages and one hundred
new ones. A short time ago the soap factory was a distillery, and
then the twelve old cottages sufficed for all the men the industry employed;
but when it was turned into a soap factory it became necessary to build
one hundred cottages to accommodate the extra hands which the manufacture
of soap required.'
The shutting up of the distillery and the building of these hundred
cottages meant increased trade to all the local shopkeepers, and in turn
this benefited the wholesale trade and caused increased employment. The
way in which labor is starved by the liquor traffic is further illustrated
by the following facts:-
The Publicans' Paper says: "Two breweries in Sheffield turn out
50,000 barrels of beer a year each, but they only employ 660 men. An
Edinburgh Distillery with a turnover Of L1,500,000 a year only employs
150 men. An Iron Ore Company in Cumberland, with a turnover of
L250,000 a year, employs 1,200 men. Our largest ironworks employ 3,000
men each for the same turnover that the distillery employs 150."
Say She Is Insane. From a minister, Rev. William Ashmore, D. D.--
"They say Mrs. Nation in insane. The wonder is that tens of thousands
of mothers and widows are not insane along with her. The wonder is
that instead of one hatchet slashing away among the decanters there
are not ten thousand of them all over the land. To stand by the grave
of a husband or son ruined by drink is enough to drive a woman crazy.
Instead of criticising Mrs. Nation, let us turn on those heartless saloon-
keepers and the negligent and responsible judiciary and that indifferent
and callous community. They are the ones who put the edge on Mrs.
Nation's hatchet. The Master said: 'If these should hold their peace
immediately the stones would cry out.' It is because those pledged to
public order hold their peace that Mrs. Nation's hatchet is flying about."
A Catholic Priest. Mendota, Minn.--"Mrs. Carry Nation. Dear
Sister:--These days back the season's routine duties of a Catholic priest
have prevented me from expressing to you my sympathy and my admiration
for your pluck. You are the John Brown of the temperance cause.