Prohibition Party

“ Would it not be far better for the Prohibitionists to say: "We will vote for temperance men; we will stand with the party that is the nearest in favor of what we deem to be the right"? They should also take into consideration that other people are as honest as they; that others disbelieve in prohibition as honestly as they believe in it, and that other people cannot leave their principles to vote for prohibition ”

“ Eugene W. Chafin, Prohibition candidate for president, in 1912, said:
“I don’t want any person who claims to be a party Prohibitionist—a middle-of-the-road Prohibitionist—ever to sign another petition, or ask Congress or any legislature anywhere under the American flag to pass any prohibitive laws on the liquor question. We don’t want any laws of any kind whatever passed. All we want is to be elected to power.... Elect us to power, and we will repeal a few laws and do the rest by interpretation of the constitution and administration of the government.” ”

“ Is it not sufficient to claim urgency for the prohibition issue, to say that no work should take precedence of prohibition in party performance? I think the time has come when this issue can be taken up by a political party and I recommend a party that shall declare for prohibition with the same emphasis with which the Republican party declared for protection in 1884 and in 1888. ”

“ That we declare our purpose to organize and unite all the friends of prohibition into one party, and in order to accomplish this end we deem it of right to leave every Prohibitionist the freedom of his own convictions upon all other political questions, and trust our representatives to take such action upon other political questions as the changes occasioned by prohibition and the welfare of the whole people shall demand. ”

“ The injection of prohibition into the progressive campaign is thought to have injured the Walker cause, not because the average progressive is opposed to prohibition, but because many of them believe that the cause of prohibition should be confined to the party that raised it as an issue. ”

“ At every presidential election since this time, nominations have been made by one or more labor parties.
THE PROHIBITION PARTY.—Another party which first nominated presidential candidates in 1872 was that of the Prohibitionists. After much agitation of temperance reform, [2] efforts were made to prohibit the sale of liquor entirely, and between 1851 and 1855 eight states adopted prohibitory laws. Then the movement subsided for a while, but in 1869 it began again and in that year the National Prohibition Reform party was founded. ”

“ You can prevent a man from stealing by tying his hands behind him, but you cannot make him honest. Prohibition breeds too many spies and informers, and makes neighbors afraid of each other. It kills hospitality. Again, the Republican party in Ohio is endeavoring to have Sunday sanctified by the Legislature. The working people want freedom on Sunday. They wish to enjoy themselves, and all laws now making to prevent innocent amusement, beget a spirit of resentment among the common people. ”

“ Now, the policy of prohibition, with penalties stringent enough to be effective, has become as firmly settled in this State as that of universal education or the vote by ballot. The Republican party, in its annual conventions, during all these years, has affirmed, unanimously, its "adhesion to prohibition and the vigorous enforcement of laws to that end;" and the Democratic party, in its annual convention of this year, rejected, by an immense majority, and with enthusiastic cheers, a resolution, proposed from the floor, in favor of "license." ”

“ The Prohibition Reform party of the United States, organized in the name of the people to revive, enforce, and perpetuate in the Government the doctrines of the Declaration of Independence, submit in this centennial year of the Republic, for the suffrages of all [Pg 259] good citizens, the following platform of national reforms and measures:
1. The legal prohibition in the District of Columbia, the Territories, and in every other place subject to the laws of Congress, of the importation, exportation, manufacture, and traffic of all alcoholic beverages as high crimes against society ”

“ There is a nervous tension in the air; and so long as the Volstead Act remains, there will be disturbances comparable to the rumblings of earthquakes.
Those of us who love America yearn for a return to truth and sanity. The present conditions are intolerable. Each political party is striving to evade this big issue. Each claims that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans gave the people Prohibition ”

“ When the dominant political party shall adopt prohibition as one of the chief planks in its platform it will hold the Christian and temperance voters in its ranks, but when it throws this cause overboard these people will think seriously of turning their political machinery upside down. ”

“ Besides its immediate effect, the direct primary had an ultimate effect even more important in favour of Prohibition, inasmuch as it weakened the party as an organ of political thought. The convention had served as a forum for deliberation and protest. Deprived of this forum, the party names tended to become mere labels and the allegiance of the average voter to his party tended to become weaker as the party came to mean less [Pg 244] and less. Accordingly, the voter became more inclined to throw over his party from time to time, and again the cranks gained in relative importance. ”

“ Three most enjoyable weeks were spent at home and during this time Miss Anthony addressed the W. C. T. U. She expressed herself in no uncertain tones as to the futility of third parties, declaring that the Prohibition party already had taken some of the best temperance men out of Congress, and made a speech so forcible that it lifted the bonnets of some of the timid sisters. The evening paper reported:
... ”

“ The Prohibition movement then, unquestionably, is simply a means to an end,—the stepping-stone to political power,—the pathway to the goal of political ambition; and it seems only fair to presume that all the hue and cry over drunkenness and the inability of some men to control their natural appetites is, after all, only a minor matter ”

“ I said, "that they are confronted with no other choice but that of either submitting to the full rigor of Prohibition, of trying to procure a law which nullifies the Constitution, or of expressing their resentment against an outrage on the first principles of the Constitution by contemptuous disregard of the law." It is a deplorable choice of evils; a state of things which it is hardly too much to call appalling in its potentialities of civic demoralization. ”

“ DAY after day, month after month, a distressing, a disgusting spectacle is presented to the American people in connection with the enforcement of the national Prohibition law. No day passes without newspaper headlines which "feature" some phase of the contest going on between the Government on the one hand and millions of citizens on the other; citizens who belong not to the criminal or semi-criminal classes, nor yet to the ranks of those who are indifferent or disloyal to the principles of our institutions, but who are typical Americans, decent, industrious, patriotic, law-abiding. ”

“ Behind veils of verbiage they discreetly conceal their political107 faces; alone with one another, or with you and me, they will speak their true mind on Prohibition—particularly if their tongues are loosened by one or two glasses of whiskey.
These are the men who are a danger to the Republic they pretend to serve. Janus-faces have they. They are all things to all men. The time will come when, before we go to the polls, we shall know just where each candidate stands on every issue. ”

“ Left to impractical theorizing, Prohibition is harmless: allowed to enter the realm of civil government as a practical working force, it becomes dangerous, threatening not only one liberty, but all the liberties of the people. ”

“ But Congress is privileged to define what constitutes an intoxicating beverage; and the Volstead Act is not static. The people will elect men to represent them at Washington who will liberally interpret the Eighteenth Amendment. Therein lies the remedy for much of our discontent.
Prohibition rose, like a great wave; it is falling back now. The tide comes in, but it goes out again. And one can begin to hear the surge of a mighty people. They will speak at the polls, in every election; for Prohibition, until it is modified, will never be taken out of national politics. ”

“ Legislation therefore that seeks suddenly to exact of the public a greater capacity for self-restraint than it is capable of, cannot but prove ineffectual; and ineffectual legislation is bad, because it tends to bring legislation into contempt. Prohibition furnishes a good illustration of this principle: in those States in which Prohibition is supported by public opinion it operates advantageously; where it is not so supported it operates only as an instrument of blackmail. ”

“ And what concern can be so intimate as that of the conduct of the individual citizen in the pursuit of his daily life? How can the idea of the State as an object of pride or as a source of authority flourish when the most elementary of its functions is supinely abandoned to the custody of a higher and a stronger power? The Prohibition Amendment has done more to sap the vitality of our State system than could be done by a hundred years of misrule at Albany or Harrisburg or Springfield. ”

“ And everybody knows that, in their private capacity, Senators and Representatives and Legislaturemen are precisely like their fellow-citizens in this matter. They may possibly be somewhat more careful about the letter of the law; they are certainly just as regardless of its spirit. With the exception of a comparatively small number of genuine Prohibitionists--men who were for Prohibition before the Anti-Saloon League started its campaign--they would laugh at the question whether they regard drinking as a crime. ”

“ And if the establishment of that precedent should fail actually to work so disastrous an injury to the cause of liberty, we must thank the wide-spread and impressive resistance that it has aroused. Had the people meekly bowed their heads to the yoke, the Prohibition Amendment would furnish unfailing inspiration and unstinted encouragement to every new attack upon personal liberty; as it is, we may be permitted to hope that its injury to our future as a free people will prove to be neither so profound nor so lasting as in its nature it is calculated to be. ”

“ That National Prohibition is an approaching enemy to free government, of which the people should be warned even at the risk of being grossly misunderstood, is my opinion. From the watch-towers of American liberty the warning should go forth. ”

“ For in the principle of Prohibition lies the germ of collective tyranny from which may arise every species of intolerance and despotism—an intolerative principle as far removed from the principle of American liberty as heaven is from hell, and as different in every essential from the spirit of republican government—a true democracy—as the breath of the polar iceberg is different from the blaze of the equatorial sun! ”

“ Upon the question of centralization or decentralization, of Federal power or State autonomy, there is room for rational difference of opinion. But upon the question whether a regulation prescribing the personal habits of individuals forms a proper part of the Constitution of a great nation there is no room whatever for rational difference of opinion. Whether Prohibition is right or wrong, wise or unwise, all sides are agreed that it is a denial of personal liberty. Prohibitionists maintain that the denial is justified, like other restraints upon personal liberty to which we all assent ”

“ The effect of Prohibition, sumptuary law enacted in government, upon the political fabric of the government, should claim the serious attention of American citizens particularly. We can hardly recur to the consideration of this subject too often.
Prohibition is essentially a repressive measure, and all history shows that repressive measures, under ordinary conditions, not only fail, but worse than fail. In aiming to do away with one evil, Prohibitionists set up a vastly greater one. In our American political life the very worst political conditions may ensue. ”

“ Prohibitionists constantly point to the big majority in Congress, and the promptness and almost unanimity of the approval by the Legislatures, as proof of an overwhelming preponderance of public sentiment in favor of the Amendment. It is proof of no such thing. To begin with, nothing is more notorious than the fact that a large proportion of the members of Congress and State Legislatures who voted for the Prohibition Amendment were not themselves in favor of it. ”

“ And is it not of some importance that this great group, who are the mainstay of the Republic, should be laying aside something for the future?
The Prohibitionists will say that they have no sympathy with anyone who willfully breaks the law. But you cannot argue with people who count it no sin to disregard a statute. ”

“ Have I heard the arguments in favor of prohibition? Well, can anyone help having heard them? No project ever placed before the public has been more earnestly and persistently advocated. But where is the sense of demanding a law against which you know the majority of the people will be arrayed? Suppose during momentary enthusiasm a State carries a prohibition law by a small majority, some drinking men themselves being constrained by their neighbors to vote for the law and against their own inclinations, how is the law to be maintained? By public opinion. Who creates public opinion? ”