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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