A FRANK CONFESSION by Editor

Seventh-day Adventist Missionary Society · Oakland, California · Jun 2, 1881

A FRANK CONFESSION.

By Editor

THE Whisky Leader of last week gives utterance to the following very frank confession:—

“The great danger which has been impending over the liquor trade has now practically been averted, the legislature refusing to pass the prohibitory bill. It is useless for us to blind ourselves to the immensity of the danger to the liquor trade which the passage of the amendment would undoubtedly have entailed. The placing of such a measure before the people in their present prejudiced condition would have been certain destruction to the trade, and the consequent spoliation of thousands of dollars' worth of valuable property.”

We are surprised almost beyond measure at these words. The friends and sympathizers of the liquor traffic have constantly urged that the people of the State of Michigan do not want prohibition. They have constantly represented the temperance men of the State as simply a set of fanatics, whose fanaticism the people of the State were not ready to accept. They have, however, shown the insincerity of their claim by strenuously refusing to allow the people to say for themselves whether they wanted prohibition or not; and now through their mouthpiece they frankly acknowledge that the majority of people do want prohibition, and not only that they do want prohibition, but that the passage of the amendment by the people would have proved the “certain destruction” of the trade. This acknowledgment proves that the friends of the traffic have more faith in the ability of prohibition to destroy the traffic than many of the temperance men themselves.

There is a lesson which ought to be learned from these words. In the first place, the friends of whisky and their sympathizers have been thoroughly scared by the amendment movement. They have felt themselves on the verge of a precipice. Destruction has stared them in the face, and they are willing to own it. This being the case, the friends of temperance can go into the next struggle with renewed energy and determination, while the friends of whisky must begin the next struggle with increased weakness and trembling. We believe it true that had all the friends of temperance done their whole duty, victory would have been ours before this. Having come so near to success in this struggle, it seems to us that the faithless must take courage, and that victory is an absolute certainty in the next general engagement.—Lever.