of the husband to rule the wife. The old marriage forms every one of them-contained a clause stipulating that the wife should obey the husband. If I had been young at that time, and one of the ladies here had also been young, worth fifty thousand dollars in bonds, notes and real estate, and married me, by the act of marriage (unless her property had been entailed upon her and her children) every dollar would have become mine. I could have spent it or gambled it away, and she could not have prevented me by other means than love or the broomstick. The old law has been changed, and shaped and polished until to-day, in my state, if I wanted my wife's money, the only way I could get it would be to persuade her to give it to me. She can buy and sell property, and transact business in her own name; and next November many of Nebraska's voters will say that the women of the state have the same right to a voice in the government under which they live that the men have. This is the legitimate result of a change of customs from a monarchy to the broader idea of a democracy, founded upon the morality and intelligence of the people. The founders of the republic recognized the fact that the foundation of universal liberty must be universal education. At the birth of this government the schools of America were private schools, but the necessity of making the citizen-sovereign intelligent, developed our free school system. All the institutions that America inherited have been molded, shaped and developed. Among these inherited institutions was the accursed drinkingplace. The dram-shop is not a child of American customs, liberty, ideas, schools or theories. It was inherited from the despotic governments of Europe. At the laying of the foundation of the government there were men who openly denied that it should be allowed to continue in the new structure. Those who favored a compromise were in a major-. ity. They said: it will not be fair to reject this liquor traffic until it has been tried in the new form of government. They prevailed, and it has been tried. Its results have been the same as in Europedrunkenness, debauchery, vice, crime, riot, communism. In the rich soil and genial climate of our government it bore fruit early, and in 1676 the government of Virginia found it necessary to protect the people from the multitude of evils resultant from the traffic and the conditions favorable to its development. As increasing population, seconded by wise statesmanship, has enlarged the nation's borders, it has grown with our growth and increased with our strength; only crippled where persistent prohibitory efforts have made the conditions for its development unfavorable. The evil has long been admitted by all, and a persistent effort to remedy it has been made by a few. Compromise has followed compromise, the unrestrained sale, license, high license, civil damage, local option; and I wish to assert in the light of history that all these compromises have been failures, to just the extent that principle has been sacrificed; and successes to just the extent that right has been recognized and prohibitory features incorporated into their text. Thus this institution has been tested and found unworthy of a place in a free republic. It is an enemy of American liberties and must be destroyed. Then: "There shall be sung another golden age; The rise of empire and of arts, Westward the course of Empire takes its way; The fifth shall close the drama with the day; IV. EXAMINATION OF THE ISSUES AND DEFENSE. DELIVERED AT MOORE'S OPERA HOUSE, DES MOINES, IOWA, APRIL 23, 1882. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF DES MOINES: I came to your state at the request of the old prohibition, corps of the temperance army, the Good Templars, who have fought on this line since 1852, to discuss with you the question of what is the best course for the people to pursue with the alcoholic liquor traffic of your state. Your legislature has submitted this question to you, voters-I would God the question could have been submitted to every one who suffers from the accursed influence, or whose heart is bleeding from its direful effects. The provisions of our American constitution are such that men above the age of twenty-one years must settle this question, while the great class who suffer most from the evil influences of the liquor traffic-the women of the country-are debarred from expressing their opinion in rendering the final verdict. I would that this were not so, but as it is submitted to the voters of this commonwealth, you, as voters, must settle the question. The day has passed when a man can afford to laugh, to sneer or to jeer at this question. As citizens of the state, bound by the highest obligations of a Christian civilization,—home, and love of country, you are to take the question without passion, without prejudice, without bitterness, and fully consider it in all its phases. If I could at the outset of this campaign, by any trick of sophistry, by any power of personal magnetism, lead every man in this state to shout for prohibition, without his judgment, his reason, his conscience telling him that he did right, I would not do it. This question is one that must be settled calmly and dispassionately. The saloon of this state must be weighed in the balance of political economy, of social life, and it must be weighed, not by prejudiced men, not by bitter men, not by unfair men, but by jurors willing to consider every phase of the question, and then to render their verdict according to the facts. To-night let us look at the liquor traffic of this country in its relations to society and its best interests; then, as you go from this hall, weigh the facts as I state them, and if your judgment tells you they are facts, if your judgment tells you they are correct, act upon them. If your judgment tells you my reasoning is incorrect, reject it. I would not think much of you if would accept you something as true because I said it was true. I |