p. 16 | Again Demonstrated by Editor

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Mountain View, California · Jun 7, 1905

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 31, No. 23.

Again Demonstrated.

By Editor

That Sunday-closing of saloons is not a temperance movement, has been demonstrated in Chicago in a most convincing manner. Professedly Christian people who really think the saloon bad, if they would be consistent, ought to favor its abolition altogether. The late municipal election in Chicago gave them an excellent opportunity to express themselves. The two leading candidates for mayor both openly declared before the election that they would not close the saloon on Sunday. This gave the "temperance" men of both popular parties a chance to rally to the support of the Prohibition candidate, with the best of reason, from their own standpoint, for withdrawing from their old partisan affiliations. But the results show that they did not do so. There was a large increase in the total vote over that of the previous election—an increase of 13,000; while the Prohibition increase was no more than would have been expected under ordinary circumstances—only 623. So that the advocates of Sunday-closing showed that they would forego even that modicum of alleged temperance principle, rather than to dispense with the saloon more than one day in the week. Thus the Sunday-observing church people of Chicago—a great majority of them at least—deliberately arrayed themselves on the side of the liquor traffic. Even the comparatively small number of Prohibition voters are not all church members.