Prohibition Amendment and Sunday Law Tactics
By Editor
SAYS the Lutheran Observer of March 1, in referring to the Prohibition Amendment to be submitted to the people of Pennsylvania June next:— “It is stated that Cardinal Gibbons and Archbishop Ryan, of the Catholic Church, will be neutral in this contest, and that Catholics will be free to vote as they please. Some priests have already declared themselves in favor of the amendment, and others against it.” What a pity it is that the liquor party cannot get the vote of Archbishop Ryan and count in that vote all the Catholics of Pennsylvania. Of course, it cannot be done, and it would be criminal if it could, but if it could be and were, it would be no more immoral than the act of the American Sabbath Union which multiplied the signature of Cardinal Gibbons in favor of the Blair Sunday Bill by over 7,000,000, although the Cardinal signed it merely as an individual. If the question were that of a Sunday law, and the American Sabbath Union could count in one man’s vote for the whole, be assured they would do it. The whisky men will do all in their power to defeat the amendment, but they can hardly surpass in trickery and fraudulent methods that body of which Col. Elliott F. Shepherd, of the New York Mail and Express, is president, and which the Lutheran Observer, with many other religious journals, indorsed. We hope, however, whatever methods may be used against it, that the prohibitory amendment will carry in the Keystone State by a decisive majority.