One Question Settled

International Tract and Missionary Society · OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA · Feb 4, 1886

One Question Settled.

THE late discussions in the United States Senate settle the question as to whether liquor has been kept and sold in our National Capitol at Washington, if the report of the daily papers is correct. The senators confess, and none deny, that it has been kept and sold; and they give a list of kinds of liquor thus kept and sold. And they acknowledge that it has been used in the committee rooms, and also that some of the senators so drank to excess that the Senate at times had to adjourn in order to save it from being disgraced before the country. This confession of the senators is a great humiliation to the American people, and the people ought to rise in their righteous indignation and clean out that Augean stable; clean out the liquor, and clean out the drunken senators.

Above all things, they should clean the liquor out of the committee rooms. The committee rooms give shape to all the important legislation of the country, and how can brains muddled with whisky give shape to anything but muddled legislation? Is it invading private rights to shut liquor out of the committee rooms? If so, private rights must go down before the public good. The highest good of the nation can be secured only by the best kind of legislation, and the best kind of legislation can be secured only by clear brains, and clear brains can be had only by clearing the committee rooms of liquor. Let the people speak, and liquor must go out and must stay out of our National Capitol, and drunken senators who are a national disgrace must follow suit. The highest good of the nation demands this double expulsion.—Lever and Liberator.