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About The Reason. (Savannah, GA.) 1908-19?? | View Entire Issue (April 30, 1908)
2 devilless Eden as this? They would not have sense enough left even to raise Cain. If we could force everybody to be good, what ever this vague word may mean, would we have benefited or injured the race? It would seem not. as enforced repression, in the very nature of things, tends to destroy rather than to create character. We repeat the platitude that God knows best, and yet seem to forget that evil is the only soil He has given us from which to dig out good. Providence and nature never interfere, and the result is the survival of the fittest, a breed that stands on its feet, works with its hands, sees with its eyes and thinks with its brains. We may be itching to jog the elbow of the Time- Spirit. but we should not forget that this has been tried before and failure has been the result, with sometimes unfortunate rushes to the rear. We have found out after weary centuries of Hie spilling of rivers of human blood and the torturing of lons of human flesh that liberty of thought is infinitely better than enforced dogma sullenly ac cepted, ami that to allow one to believe in whatever God he chooses, or to believe in none at all. might be more Christ like, and possibly just as convincing, as to argue with an axe. reason with a rack or to persuade with the fires of an Auto de Ee. Truth travailed at last and bore Tolerance for man. the latest and the rarest of the virtues, the evangel of a newer, diviner faith. We are but slow ly. even now. beginning to find out that liberty may not mean license but possibly responsibility, which as Shaw opines, is why most men dread it so much. The very keystone of the arch of modern civilization is the acknowledgement of the right of the individ- WHERE CARDINAL GIBBONS STANDS. The portion of the platform of the Law and Order League of the citv of Savannah which de mands the strict enforcement of the prohibition law had best not been written. How in God’s name is it possible to enforce this law when at least 90 per cent, of the people have no sympathy for it.’ Laws will be obeyed only when they have the sympathy and moral support of the community they effect. This is Cardinal Gibbons' view and the view of all men who have given sufficient study to the problem of local self-government. In New Orleans last February the Cardinal said: ‘‘Prohibition should under no circumstances ap ply to this city. Liquor would be sold quite abund antly here under prohibition laws as under well regulated license. The consequences will be that liquor will be dispensed contrary to law instead of being sold in accordance with law. Then, too, the city will be deprived of a large revenue which is so much needed for the government of the community. “When a law is flagrantly and habitually violat ed it brings legislation into contempt. It creates a spirit of deception ami hypocracy, and compels men to do insiduously and by stealth what they would otherwise do openly and above-board. “You cannot legislate men into the performance of good and righteous deeds. If you are to improve the morality of this city and make the citizens more temperate, let the virtue of temperance be pro- THE REASON ual to live his life according to his lights. He must stand or fall, fail or succeed, by himself alone. No one can save him, nor can damn him, but himself. He must know what evil is in order to know that good is best. His morality will be always unreal unless born of the knowledge certain and sure that there is a moral equilibrium inherent in the very nature of the universe, to arrive at which each and (*very one of us need only to be taught the law of moral equipoise, and nothing more. In a larger and diviner sense than dogma ever dreamed of the body is Hu' temple of the Holy Ghost, and to honor it with clean and temperate living is manhood’s splendid test ; and all can be so trained as to do it as simply and naturally as animal or plant. See that the children have proper environments, that they are well and simply fed. and get enough fresh air and pure water, guarantee to them the right to be glad and to grow, to be welcome not only to the home but to the State, teach them the right, proper and beautiful use of their own bodies and minds: let them feel that they are the fabric out of which we are to fashion the best and bravest of our na tion and our race. Cease not. to instill into every atom of the soul of a child, at home and in school, that so far as we certainly know the only hell is in this world and of it. here and now, and to be idle, selfish and cruel are the only deadly sins, just as to be busy, kind and just are the only truly necessary virtues; only do this, and with a tithe of the money criminally squandered on putrid politics, foolish foreign missions, pet dogs and pink teas, educate the children of the race, and half of the problems that puzzle us, prohibition among them, will, in the full ness of time, solve themselves. claimed in the churches; above all let it be enforced in the family, that parents, both by word and ex ample, may inculcate their children with the tem poral and spirital blessings which spring from a life of temperance and sobriety.” The negroes are advocating an acceptance of the Catholic faith on the assumption that that church will use its influence to effect political and equal rights for them in this country. It is not an idle as sumption to make that the activity of the Protestant churches in entering politics and forcing laws which deprive the people of the right of local self-govern ment, are driving liberal men and women from their own churches into the Catholic and Episcopal house holds. The advocates of prohibition as exemplified in the in the enactment of the last Georgia Legislature, seek in various ways to justify the application of this arbitrary and drastic laws alike to all the cities and counties of the State, irrespective of varied con ditions and heedless of local public sentiment. This is undemocratic and tyrannical. That party or church which seeks to prevent, by all legitimate means, the enactment of tryannical and undemocratic legislation should have and will have the support of the people. The hypocritical politician, whether, in or out of the pulpit, may
