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CLINTON HOWARD’S CLUSTER OE GEMS
“AN INDICTMENT OF THE CRIMINAL AND A REMEDY FOR THE CRIME.” BRILLIANT BLISTERING ARRAIGNMENT OF
THE SALOON BY THE LITTLE GIANT FROM ROCHESTER, DELIVERED AT THE BIENNAL CONVENTION OF THE
ANTI-SALOON LEAGUE OF AMERICA, COLUMBUS, OHIO, NOVEMBER 13, 1913.
NTI-SALOON League! Why Anti-Saloon?
Why not anti-grocery, anti-dry goods league?
Why not anti-furniture, anti-bread, anti-meat, anti
coal and iron league?
Why single out this one trait, this one commodity,
this one institution and name that as the reason for
the assembling of this national convention?
Anti-saloon! Who is against it? The Church is
against it. The school is against it, the home is
against it; the scientific world, the industrial world,
the civic world, the military world, every world-wide
interest on earth except the underworld, the immoral
world, the world of sin and crime, cries “Away with
alcohol! Away, away with these licensed distributing
centers of sin. Down with the saloon.”
Why the saloon? What is a saloon? By a saloon,
I mean the saloon, by the saloon I mean the brewery
and distillery, by the brewery and distillery I mean
the organized traffic in rum, wholesale, retail and
cocktail; the pocket peddler, the blind tiger, the blind
pig, the speak-easy, the joint, the saloon, the hotel
bar, the high-toned case, the swell club buffet, the
bishop’s subway, brewer and beelzebub, distiller and
devil; in one word —the saloon!
What is this traffic in rum? “The devil in solu
tion,” said Sir Wilfred Lawson, and he was right.
“Distilled damnation,” said Robert Hall, and he was
right. “Artist in human slaughter,” said Lord Ches
terfield, and he was right. “Poisoner’s General, driv
ing men to hell like sheep,” said John Wesley, and
he was right. “More destructive than war, pestilence
and famine,” said Wm. E. Gladstone, and he was
right. “Cancer in human society, eating out its vi
tals and threatening its destruction,” said Abraham
Lincoln, and he was right.
• Ruinous and Degrading.
“The most ruinous and degrading of all human pur
suits,” said William McKinley, and he was right.
“The most criminal and artistic method of assassi
nation ever invented by the bravoes of any age or
nation,” said John Ruskin, and he was right. “The
most prolific hotbeds of anarchy, vile politics, pro
fane ribaldry, and unspeakable sensuality,” said Dr.
Chas. H. Parkhurst, and he was right. “A public,
permanent and übiquitous agency of degradation,”
said Cardinal Manning, and he was right. “A busi
ness that tends to lawlessness on the part of the one
who conducts it and to criminality on the part of
those who patronize it,” said Theodore Roosevelt, and
he was right. “A business that tends to produce idle
ness, disease, pauperism and crime,” said the United
States Supreme Court, and it is right.'- “That damn
ed stuff, called alcohol,” said Robt. G. Ingersoll, and
he was right. “Hell perpetuator and hell-populator,”
said Henry Ostrom, and he was right.
This is not very fragrant, but you can not expect
the perfume of roses when a pole-cat is on the dis
secting table. It is the universal verdict of humanity
against the liquor traffic.
This is the indictment, the saloon is the criminal,
the people are the victims, God is the judge, science,
reason, religion, experience and motherhood are the
jury, and the verdict is guilty in every unprejudiced,
unpurchasable and just court.
The public verdict has been made up. The saloon
stands condemned to death by the American people.
All that is now required to lay the licensed liquor
traffic in the grave that knows no wakening, as eter
nally dead as is humane bondage under the flag of
liberty, is that its enemies shall become united and
agree upon the method of its execution.
The character and scope of the remedy must de
pend altogether upon the nature and extent of the
disease. If it is a local evil, affecting some part of
the body, whether human or politic, then let us have
a local remedy; but if it is an organic evil, if it pol
lutes the blood, rots the heart, paralyzes the nerve
centers and deranges the mind; if, as Abraham Lin
coln said, “It is a cancer in human society, eating
out its vitals and threatening its destruction,” then
THE GOLDEN AGE FOR WEEK OF DEC. 18, 1913
the surgeon’s knife, instead of the powder puff, dyna
mite instead of a game of dominence crowning God
or devil king, according to the shift of the game;
radium instead of rose water.
A Constitutional Evil.
A constitutional evil requires a constitutional rem
edy. Away then with powders and pills, pepper
mint and pipiseway; for this physical leprosy, moral
meii.ngitis, mental hydrophobia and criminal civic
exerescence all in one, conceived in sin, shaped in
iniquity, bom in bastardy, nurtured upon impurity,
wedded to harlotry and mother of anarchy, give us the
surgeon’s knife. We must cut this cancer out. No
matter what has been our methods of warfare in the
past, we can no longer be content with trimming
here and there a branch, of closing here and there a
saloon, of casting it out of this ward and out of that
town and county, where the people do not want it,
a bare majority of the most ignorant, immoral and
and consent to leave it for another two years where
criminal men, part of the people, do.
From that school of conflict we graduate in this
national convention. To let the saloon live anywhere,
on any condition, at any price, whether by license,
regulation, substitution, local option or nullification,
is the remedy of perdition; to kill it is the divine
remedy for sin.
Only One Solution.
Since the world began, prohibition is the one so
lution. Prohibition in the Garden of Eden, against
rich Satan beguiled the first man to sin; Prohibi
tion at Mt. Sinai, when God wrote with his finger
upon the tables of stone the eternal “Thou shalt
nots” that are the foundation of all criminal juris
prudence; Prohibition when the Christ was manifest
ed the works of the devil; Prohibition in the tem
ple when he drove them out with the scourge of
cords, Prohibition when Satan was cast out of heav
en, not on the installment plan, but in one grand
division, like lightening; Prohibition is the divine
plan.
Confirmed by the Christ when he said, “If thine
hand or thine foot offend thee, cut it off.” Not the
corn upon the toe, but the foot; not the wart upon
the finger but the hand. “If thine eye offend thee,
pluck it out.” Not the wild winkers, but the eye.”
Every plant which my heavenly father hath not plant
ed, shall be rooted up.” “And now also is the ax
laid at the root of the tree;” not the twig or the
branch, but the root. “An evil tree is hewn down
and cast into the fire.” “Go ye, and tell that fox;
behold, 1 cast out devils.” It is the divine plan.
The only solution that will work in operation, is
national extermination. In saying this, we can say
with Paul, “For I know and I am persuaded;” and
we can say with the Christ, “We speak that we do
know, and testify that we have seen.” We have seen
(>verv other pl in in operation, license and regulation.
f||||
HON. CLINTON N. HOWARD
A wizard of eloquence and oratory.
restriction, and state dispensary, and knowledge
founded upon experience has eliminated them from
the plans of practicable men.
We are now ready for the one solution; an exten
sion of the battle line to the last entrenchment of
the enemy; Constitutional Prohibition for the Nation.
This is no criticism upon the workers and methods
of the past. Every experiment to curb the saloon,,
actuated by sincere and honest endeavor, has been
a step in the direction of its final dissolution. It
has cleared the field for the final charge. We are
the children of experience; every fall teaches a child
to stand; every step backward is a step forward;
out of the darkness came the light; out of chaos came
creation; out of sin came redemption; and out of
low license and high license, regulation, substitution ?
subway and local option, will come Prohibition for
the nation.
This is our remedy for the crime.
What shall we say then ? Shall we continue in sire
that grace may abound? God forbid! How shall we
who are dead to sin continue any longer therein?
There is no excuse for falling after we have learned
to stand: there is no excuse for our going back
wards after we have learned to walk forward; there
is no excuse for continuing the walk in darkness
after we have once obtained the light; and there care
be no excuse for our consenting to the saloon any
where in the hope that by so doing we may hasten
its abolition everywhere.
Therefore, w y e can consent to no solution for the
saloon that will consent to the saloon, on any terms,,
on any condition, at any price, at any time, in any
place, by the will of the minority or the will of the
majority.
We deny the right of the majority of the men, ire
opposition to the almost united protest of the wo
men, and nearly one half of the men, to plant a sa
loon on the block where we have built the house that
shelters our children. We deny the right of the
majority of the men to put such an institution in
our ward, or in our city, county or state. We deny
the right of the majority anywhere to do wrong.
The only option for which we can stand is the
option to wipe the saloon out, with the understand
ing that once out, it is forever to remain out.
We can never consent to the right of the saloon to
come back or the right of the majority of men to*
vote the saloon back, after it once has been cast out.
Abraham Lincoln denied the right of the majority
to put a slave where there was no slaves; we deny
the right of the majority to put a saloon where there 1
is no saloon. We go further than that; we deny
the right of the majority to keep a saloon where
there is a saloon. It is wrong for the majority to>
keep a saloon where there is a saloon.
We are living over again in the battle against the
saloon the same situation that faced our fathers in
the contest against slavery. The slave power de
manded the right to enslave a black man wherever
a majority of white men wanted to enslave him;
the Abolitionists denied the right of the majority of
the white men to enslave a black man anywhere..
That was the contention fought out in the debates
between Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglass.
Mr. Lincoln said, “Judge Douglass declares that if
any community wants slaves, they have a right to
have it. He can say that logically if there is no
wrong in slavery. But if you admit there is wrong
in slavery, he cannot logically say that the majority
has a right to do a wrong.” That is exactly our po
sition. The saloon is wrong and we deny the right to
impose it upon any community.
Edmund Burke says, “Not even by a unanimous
popular vote can that which is morally wrong be
made legally right.” The saloon is wrong; there
fore, we not only deny the right of the majority to
put a saloon where there is no saloon, or to keep a
saloon where there is a saloon; but we deny the-
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