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Prohibition Situation in Texas
£>r. S. F. Riley, Superintendent Texas Hnti-Saloon League Gibes Graphic
Pictures of Coming Rattle in the "Lone Star State.”
HE absorbing interest in the question
of prohibition makes it a matter so vi
tal that the public is constantly seek
ing information concerning it, hence
this brief communication.
It may be said that the rapid upris
ing of the people against the saloon is
largely due to the fatuity of those en
gaged in the traffic of liquor. It is im-
T
possible to say how long the question might have
been staved off in Texas, had it not been for the
fact that the liquor men invited a storm of popu
lar indignation by their continued infractions of
the law. The failure to get relief in the courts
and through official machinery stirred the people
to the point of rooting out the saloon absolutely.
This they are now resolved to do. Throughout the
state the sentiment is one. Business and profes
sional men, lawyers, merchants, mechanics, bankers,
all speak in the same way about the saloon and
its destruction.
It is a quiet revolution, and in this lies its chief
danger to the saloon. Effervescence soon spends
itself, calmness is enduring. It would boot noth
ing now for the saloons and breweries to obey the
laws —it is too late. A course that is now seeking
to be adopted of reforming the traffic comes more
in the nature of a death-bed repentance. The
knell has sounded, and doom is certain.
It is not known nor predicted with certainty
when the end will come. All that the people know
is that it certainly will come. To this end the
forces on the field are being multiplied, and the
allies concentrated for a fight to the finish. It is
ascertained that the tactics of the liquor men is
to force the fight in every county when the term
of the prohibition limit shall expire in each, and
thus seek by a series of defeats to reverse public
sentiment. But it must be remembered that agita
tion is the worst possible thing for the saloon,
and the prohibitionists are therefore willing and
v. aiting. They are prepared for any action. They
present a united front, irrespective of name or
order, and the work will go on.
The Battle Begins.
On January 16 a large body of prohibitionists
assembled in Dallas from every quarter of the
state. The proceedings were marked by delibera
tion and conservatism. There was no demonstra
tion of froth, no wild and extravagant declamation.
That stage is passed, and we have now come to
a condition of cool determination.
Four different organizations exist in the state —
the Anti-Saloon League, the Local Optionists, the
Prohibition Party and the W. C. T. U. Leading
representatives of all these were present, and a
resolution was adopted to prosecute the contest to
the end. In the very nature of things, defeat is
impossible. All that is left the liquor forces is a
fight for as long continuance of life as possible.
To presume that the revolution will roll backward
is to presume on a practical impossibility. While
for giving a general direction to the campaign, a
large and representative committee, made up of
the forces named, is appointed under the Texas
State Prohibition Federation, each organization will
follow this general direction while doing its work
in its own way. The forces of the Anti-Saloon
League will be largely increased and the territory
of the entire state covered. Every county will be
visited and sentiment generated against the liquor
traffic. The saloon keepers and brewers have fur
nished us the munitions of war, and the task of re
tailing the facts is a comparatively easy one.
The most efficacious means will be employed for
getting these facts before the public, and for
arousing popular sentiment. We begin under the
most encouraging conditions. We have at present
164 counties that have prohibition; 72 have partial
prohibition, in many of which counties there is
nnlv on* single place that has saloons, while only
The Golden Age for February 6, 1908.
27 counties remain solidly without prohibition. This
has been effected with only slight organization.
What may not be expected when we have organ
ized’every county in the state!
Negroes Turning Against the Saloon.
It is a noteworthy fact that the negroes are rap
idly turning against the saloon. They recognize it
as the direct menace to their race, and they, too,
are organizing. Heretofore they have been cor
ralled like sheep for the shambles, but that time
has gone. It is equally a noteworthy fact that the
German sentiment is turning against the saloon,
while the Swedish sentiment embraces ninety-five
per cent of that people. It is still a fact just as
noteworthy that thousands of men are for state
wide prohibition who were not six months ago. The
unwise course of the liquor men in disregarding
the so-called Baskin-McGregor law, a measure of
their own choice and making, has changed the cur
rent of sentiment wonderfully.
It is not expected that liquor will be en
tirely banished from the state, even after a pro
hibitory amendment to the constitution is had, no
more than any other law is exactly obeyed, but the
Anti-Saloon League, with its forces, will remain
in the state for many years to come to look after
this matter. It is not an experimental organization,
but a permanent one. It looks after law enforce
ment as well as after the extermination of
liquor. Our plans are complete, and no effort will
be left unemployed to make the state that which
it should be, and deserves to be—law-abiding and
faithful.
Dallas, Texas.
Respice Finem.
Sy Arthur L. Hardy.
There have been men so base as dare to doubt
That Truth will triumph and that Right will win;
God pity him who is so steeped in sin
As would scourge Honor from life’s temple out!
There have been those who plant a crown of thorns
Upon the brow of every noble dream;
Who only act, and who delight to seem
As if no virtue life’s fair day adorns.
We may not tread the way the poet-god,
With deathless beauty pointed out to us;
We may with atheist lips His truths discuss,
And grope most blindly, and heart-weary plod;
But let no man so weak and craven be,
And let no man, sin-fouled, e’er fall so low
As for one fleeting moment not to know
That Truth and Honor reign triumphantly.
God pity him who calling self a man
Is yet afraid a knightly self to prove;
Who, abdicating the white throne of love,
Frames life upon a wholly brutal plan.
Pit Truth ’gainst Error on her chosen field,
Let Right contend ’gainst Wrong in any clime;
Error and Wrong may choose the arms, the time,
And at the last be borne home on the shield
Os obloquy and hate. He who would fight
Must, with Damascus steel the brawny arm
Os Honor forges, strike without alarm,
And watch always the rippling flag of Right.
Then when the shades of life’s last evening fall,
Though fierce the conflict may have been, and wild,
We may go singing like a little child
To answer cheerfully the Master’s call.
* «
The great center of the prohibition fight now is
in Texas. The Golden Age is in for that war. It
has pleased the Lord that we have had the privil
ege of doing something in the Georgia fight. May
we have the same privilege in this contest.
Fermented Communion Wine.
To the Editor of The Golden Age:
I want to make a suggestion to the church officials
in regard to the communion wine. There are some
who insist that “the cup” used at the Lord’s
Supper contained fermented grape juice. And they
insist that nothing but fermented grape juice can
be used in the memorial supper. For their bene
fit, let me say this:
If anyone will get a bottle of fresh, pure grape
juice, and draw the cork, and then tie over the
mouth of the bottle a piece of light cloth and set
the bottle in a place of moderate temperature, and
let it alone for a few weeks, that grape juice will
ferment, and then you will have the simple unadul
terated wine exactly like the common wine of
Palestine. It will contain from two to four per
cent alcohol, a quantity not sufficient to prevent
the wine from turning to vinegar if it be allowed
to stand open. To prevent the formation of vine
gar, just as the alcoholic fermentation is about com
plete, which you can know by watching the process
of fermentation from day to day, cork tightly and
seal the bottle, and set it in as cold a place as you
have. That will be genuine wine of a kind doubt
less known in the time of Christ.
It was probably not a very general practice to
seal up the freshly fermented grape juice. They
usually allowed it to go on into the acetous fer
mentation and make sour wine or vinegar. This
form of wine was a common beverage of the coun
try. It was too sour to use without diluting it,
hence it was usually mixed with three parts of
water. If it was drunk before the acetous fermen
tation came on, one could drink it without diluting
it, and then the drink would contain, say three
per cent of alcohol. This drink, taken in large
quantities, hour after hour, would produce drunk
enness after awhile, say in six to eight hours. There
cannot be any reason to doubt that the “new wine”
called in Greek “gleukous,” referred to in Acts
2: 13, was just this product. If it had been the
old wine—the sour wine diluted with three parts
of water—it would hardly have been possible to
make anyone drunk with it at all.
This is all very elementary matter about wine,
but so many intelligent people seem to have for
gotten these things that I have given them here
again, that I may stir up their pure minds byway
of remembrance.
Let it be remembered that no natural wine made
by ordinary unaided fermentation out of common
grapes, has in it more than three or four per cent
of alcohol. The stuff sold as wine in the markets
contains from eight to fifteen per cent of alcohol;
most of it more than fifteen per cent, a degree of
strength almost, if not entirely, unknown among
the ancients. It is a drink so strong that every
thing in the Bible would condemn it, and no sort
of New Testament exegesis can justify the use of
such stuff at the Lord’s table.
Will the law allow you to make your own com
munion wine? Beyond a doubt. Nothing in the
prohibition law is to be construed against the free
dom of religious worship.* Get grapes and press
them and strain off the juice and let it alone for a
few weeks, and you will have pure fermented wine.
Welch’s grape juice professes to be pure. I pre
sume that it is. I have used it at the communion
table when it had evidently been left open since
the preceding communion, ’ n or it had certainly fer
mented. If it had been preserved by using some
anti-ferment, it would not have been found in the
condition in which I found it at that communion
table. When it had been q rst used, it was grape
juice; when it was served ext time, it was wine.
That’s all there is about ii.
Now, there are hundreds of preachers better
educated, better Bible scholars, than I am. There
are hundreds of better chemists than I am, yet in
this matter, I claim the right to speak as a wit
ness because I have submitted these biblical ques
tions that involve facts of chemistry to the legiti
mate chemical tests, and I know that the testimony
of chemical experimentation can be relied upon.
Such testimony never varies.
Very respectfully. J. L. T). HILL YER.
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