Prohibition Opposed

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 17, 1908

Prohibition Opposed

IN the current number of the North American Review, a Catholic priest writes upon “Prohibition in the Light of Christian Ethics,” taking ground against prohibition, but in favor of what he calls temperance. He argues thus:—

One great danger to-day with prohibitionists is the tendency to make their movement synonymous with Christianity, and to base their principles confusedly upon what they suppose to be the principles of Christ. They fall into the common error of quoting from a fickle memory without verifying their references. Still another mistake is the manner in which they confound the cardinal virtue of temperance with prohibition, whereas the only relation in which the latter can be looked upon as being in any sense a Christian virtue, is when its exercise is along the lines of religious asceticism in the name of Christ. And even then, as we shall show, it is clearly a matter of expediency rather than a Christian principle.

All this is in perfect harmony with the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church, which organizes great temperance societies, and makes a loud profession in favor of temperance, while a very large number of those who both sell and drink intoxicating liquors are members of the Roman Catholic Church. The writer of this article does not anticipate that any especially valuable results will follow from making it difficult to purchase intoxicating liquors. He advocates an entirely different plan:—

The only basis of reform, then, is through the individual; the building up of his moral strength and will-power which will result in self-control. This clearly is the work of the Christian church, and the only solution of the problem. Regulate the saloon by all means; rid it of its debasing conditions, or change the method of supply of intoxicants by abolishing the saloon, if needs be, for governmental control and sale, or some other judicious method: all this may be well and good and wise, but the one essential that must ever be kept in view is to teach men to be masters of their appetites. When this is done, the problem is solved.

Reform the individual certainly, but it is not necessary to have a saloon on every corner in order to do this. Prohibition helps rather than hinders the work of individual reform.