Signs of the Times, Vol. 41, No. 16. (4/28/1914)

Signs of the Times

Apr 28, 1914

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Apr 28, 1914

PROHIBITION SUGGESTED BY ITS ENEMIES

By Milton Charles Wilcox

Anti-Prohibitionists Themselves Say the Traffic Must Reform or Go

Can the Leopard Change His Spots?

By MILTON CHARLES WILCOX

SARA MAHAN, LL. D., formerly president of two colleges and one university, forcibly voices a great principle in the following sentence:

“Admissions in favor of truth from the ranks of its enemies constitute the highest kind of evidence.”

The testimony of a presumably honest man as to his uprightness in a deal is worth something, but the testimony of his adversaries who admit his honesty is worth more.

WORSE THAN WAR, FAMINE, AND PESTILENCE

Temperance advocates are generally united in the conviction that the prohibition of the liquor traffic — nay, more, of the manufacture and sale of distilled, fermented, and malt liquors — is the only solution of the great problem of intemperance, the evils of which Gladstone declared to exceed those of war, famine, and pestilence combined.

Yet many good men who deplore the ruinous results of the liquor traffic believe that it may be modified and made tolerable if not beneficial. Such are opposed, on various grounds, to prohibition.

THE STRONGEST KIND OF EVIDENCE

Admissions from these opponents of prohibition regarding the potencies of evil in the liquor traffic “constitute the highest kind of evidence.”

In the light of this principle, read the following editorial from the Sacramento Daily Bee of January 8, 1914, presumably from the vigorous and facile pen of its able editor, Mr. Charles McClatchy. The Bee is opposed to prohibition, and so also is the editorial the Bee quotes from the National Liquor Dealers' Journal; but prohibitionists will enjoy reading this editorial, and the great undecided public ought to read it. It speaks great facts in its terrible arraignment. We present its evidence before the court of the people. In the light of it, ought the liquor traffic longer to exist? Which is preferable, that or prohibition?

The editorial follows, applicable to other states as well as to California:

“Some months ago the National Liquor Dealers' Journal contained a surprising editorial, recounting recent prohibition victories, and declaring:

LIQUOR MEN CAN NOT LEARN

“For this the liquor business is to blame. It seems incapable of learning any lesson of advancement or any motive but profit.

“To perpetuate itself it has formed alliances with the slums that repel all conscientious and patriotic citizens.

“It deliberately aids the most corrupt political powers, and backs with all of its resources the most unworthy men, the most corrupt and recreant officials.

It does not aid the purification of municipal, state, or national administration.

“Why? — Because it has to ask immunity for its own lawlessness.

“That this condition is inherently and inevitably necessary we do not believe; but it has come to be a fact, and the public which is to pass on the matter in its final analysis believes anything bad that anybody can tell it of the liquor business.

“Why? Let the leaders of the trade answer.

“There are billions of property involved, and an industry of great employing and tax-paying ability; but when the people decide that the truth is being told about the alcoholic liquor trade, the money value will not count, for conscience aroused puts the value of a man above all other things.

“The writer believes that prohibition is theoretically wrong, but he knows that theories, however well substantiated, may be overthrown by conditions, as has often been done in the world's history.'

“It were well for the brewer, wine, and liquor interests if they had more straight-from-the-shoulder counselors like the National Liquor Dealers' Journal.

“In California, the people will vote next November upon the question of total prohibition.

TAXING TO THE LIMIT FOR THE FIGHT

“The breweries, wineries, and liquor dealers of the state are gathering all their recruits and taxing all their resources to fight it.

“They sowed the wind of the dive and the dirty saloon, of contempt for law, of disregard for the home, and now they fear they will reap the whirlwind of disaster and bankruptcy.

HAVE CREATED THIS CRISIS

“The present crisis in California is of their own creation. They can blame its being and its strength on none other than themselves. They fashioned the Frankenstein which may pursue them to their undoing, and they fed it until it grew into the monster from which they run affrighted.

THE DIRTY DIVE THEIR PAMPERED CHILD

“The liquor traffic in California is what they have made it. The dirty dive is their pampered child. The low saloon is their costly offspring. The road-house that lures young boys to hell and inveigles young girls into prostitution is the creature of their greed; of their contempt for common decency; of their arrogant disregard for the welfare and the rights of fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, sons and daughters; of their impious and damnable immolation of boyhood and girlhood upon the altar of the pocketbook.

“These men are facing the raging tempest of their own creation.

“And how do they propose to meet it in its oncoming wrath?

“What weapons will they use to cope with the battalions of prohibition they have created, have fathered, have nourished into a swarming host, blind in its wrath and indiscriminate in its vengeance?

“The evidence is apparent on every hand that they intend to follow old and played-out methods; that they will provide a great defense fund, with which to flood the state with literature and with orators; that their principal reliance will be on the erstwhile potent almighty dollar — a champion once erroneously credited with being able to accomplish anything.

“If that be their mainstay, their great hope, and prop, and defense, they may as well keep their money. For they can not save themselves that way.

RIGHT-ABOUT-FACE AND GET A DIVORCE

“The only thing for the wine, brewery, and liquor interests of California to do in this crisis is to right-about-face — and that immediately.

“They must at once divorce themselves from the low saloon and the dirty dive; from the assignation road-house; from arrogant and corrupt attempts at political domination — and they must give evidence that that divorce will be permanent.

“They can not stand before the bar of public opinion, and crack the lash any more over the voters.

“Their hope lies in humbly pleading for mercy at the feet of the people, confessing their guilt, and promising permanent reformation.

“They can not well go to the father, holding in his good right hand the potent weapon of the ballot, and say: 'You must vote against this prohibition amendment. Its passage would take from us all our property and leave us wrecked and ruined.'

YOUR GREED SENT HIM TO THE DEVIL

“And if they do, let them expect this answer: 'You ask me to protect your property; to save your dollars. Where is that which was dearer to me than all my property, all my dollars, than everything else I have on earth — almost than my own hopes of heaven — my son, my boy? Your greed for dirty dollars sent him to the devil. Restore me my boy as he was, and then I may talk to you — but not before.'

“And if they beseech the mother for her vote, they may expect her to reply: 'You men helped, and protected, and shielded, if you did not own, a gilded Satan's den that lured my girl into its net and drove her to ruin and to shame. You met every cry for vengeance against that devil's trap with a sneer or an evasion; and each effort to clean it out brought from you your powerful influence with the authorities to give the den a renewed lease of vicious life.

YOUR PROPERTY AND MY GIRL

“And now you beg me to vote for the protection of your property! You'll excuse me; but my vote will not go to save any property used to send young girls to hell. I will need it in November in an effort to save the best of all property — the girlhood of California.'

“The brewery, wine, and liquor interests can tax the distilleries, and the breweries, and the wineries until the gutters run money instead of water.

UNLESS THEY REFUSE TO DESTROY THE BOYS AND THE GIRLS

“And every dollar the people find these forces are spending out of a defense fund — even in the most legitimate way — will create votes for the prohibition amendment — unless these interests start in right now to take their protecting arms from the low saloon and the dirty dive; unless they refuse to sell to any lawbreaking saloon, or any den inveigling young boys to hell and young girls to prostitution.

“If the brewery, wine, and liquor interests of California expect the voters to go their way next November, they must approach them with clean hands — clean hands which they intend to keep clean.

THE 'BEE' AND PROHIBITION

“The Bee has no use for prohibition. It does not believe in it, either as a principle or as a policy. It considers it unjust in its essence.

“As a matter of equity, a democratic and inherent right, the majority have no more righteous authority to prevent the minority from drinking wine or beer — always provided it be done with sobriety, in moderation, and without disorder — than they would have to order the same minority not to smoke cigars or to eat pork.

PROHIBITION RATHER THAN YOUTHFUL CRIME AND LICENTIOUSNESS

“But if prohibition be unjust in its very kernel, it is less unjust than the rank injustice which has so strengthened it — the combination of wine and beer with boyish crime and girlish licentiousness.

“If these hellish evils are not to be remedied — if the dive, the deadfall, the low saloon, the wedding of liquor and lust, are not to be cast out of the traffic — if it is still to continue a menace to our boys and a lure to our girls, then the state of California had better embrace prohibition as the least offending and offensive of two evils, the milder injustice of two injustices.

“And if the beer, wine, and liquor interests should elect not to repent and reform, and still prohibition should not win this year — or if, promising to repent and reform, they should go back to their evil ways — that result would be the Dead Sea's fruit of a victory that would turn to ashes on the lips; for the battle would be renewed at the next general election, and prohibition then would sweep the state of California like a prairie fire.'

Let the redactor of this article say in conclusion:

1. Every one of discernment and experience knows that the liquor combination will never reform, can never reform.

CAN THE LEOPARD CHANGE HIS SPOTS?

The leopard can not change his spots. The cockle seed can not bring forth wheat. The road-house, the brothel, the dive, the saloon mill, the great mass of crime, the wrecked and blasted lives, the ruined homes, are all the legitimate offspring of that monster, the liquor traffic, the fruit of indulgence in intoxicants, whether drunk in a low saloon or in a gilded palace.

2. 'The battalions of prohibition' are neither mad nor blind. They are composed of men and women who believe that the millions worse than wasted, the millions used to debauch and degrade and destroy manhood and womanhood, are an instrument not only unprofitable to the state, but an investment, a partnership, which the state must utterly repudiate if she protects the rights of her citizens, including the wives and the progeny of the liquor dealers.

THE COST OF CRIME WORTH SAVING

The prohibitionists believe that the annual cost of crime due to the liquor traffic — more than twenty-nine million dollars in California alone — is worth saving for schools, highways, and homes in which children are safe and in which men and women can walk and live soberly.

The prohibitionists believe that character is worth more than coin; that fathers' and mothers' hearts and hopes, that sober sons and daughters, are not to be measured by the billions invested. The former are priceless to heart and home and state; the latter is an investment for the destruction of mankind by one of its greatest enemies.

The prohibitionists believe that the sons and daughters of America are worthy of a better end than to furnish grist for the devilish mills of the saloon, the brothel, the dive, the dishonored and disgraceful death which awaits.

Reader, let your vote for prohibition help to destroy the monstrous evil.

Despair of Our Efforts to End Vice

By F. D. Starr

THIS heading is given to an article in the Literary Digest for March 7, 1914. The mayor of one of the large cities of our country expresses himself as not knowing what to do about the white slave problem.

It is stated that he has "looked into all the recent panaceas that have promised the speedy abolition of this age-long evil." The effect of trying to stamp out this and the drink evil by police force, it is stated, has been to scatter them all over the town.

Reference is made to the fact that when those authorized to investigate in regard to these great evils would make their findings public through their report, the commission is prevented from doing so. "Its own great masterpiece in morals is at once forbidden circulation in the mails because of its immorality."

The outlook is indeed distressing, and from a human point of view we might well despair of ever seeing anything better. "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived." 2 Tim. 3: 13.

But while vice in so many forms is alarmingly on the increase, we can say with Paul, "We are . . . not in despair." 2 Cor. 4: 8. In the midst of all the enormities that make men's hearts fail for fear, we console ourselves with the view held before us in Rev. 18: 1: "I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory."

We look for that glorious city of which it is said, "There shall in no wise enter into it anything that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie." All these evils will be effectually stamped out when the time comes that the saints possess the kingdom. F. D. STARR.

A Worthy Daily Life

"To rise in the morning with a rested soul; to burn the day's first incense at the altar of one's highest ideals; to begin each day's work with a song whose courage sets other hearts singing; to dignify the prosiest toil by an honest investment of self; to be spendthrift of kindness, frugal of the minutes, and niggardly of criticism; to come down to the evening hour with the peace of having blessed the world in spite of failure — this is to be a 'workman that needeth not to be ashamed.'"

PROTESTANTISM and AMERICAN PRINCIPLES

By W. A. Colcord

By W. A. COLCORD

A Plea for Their Preservation—America the Heir of the Reformation

The aggressions of Rome in the United States are becoming so bold and so conspicuous that voices of protest are beginning to be heard from many quarters, the national capital not excepted.

WOULD ELIMINATE THE WORD “PROTESTANT”

Concluding his sermon Sunday, December 28, 1913, on the occasion of his twenty-fifth anniversary as rector of the Church of the Epiphany (Episcopalian), in Washington, D. C., the Rev. Dr. Randolph H. McKim, after referring to the recent effort on the part of some in his own church to eliminate the word “Protestant” from the church name, which he said had happily been defeated, made a very earnest plea for maintaining the Protestant character of the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the Protestant principles upon which the government of the United States was founded. He said:

MAINTAIN IT AT ALL HAZARDS

"Let me exhort you, then, my dear brethren, with all the earnestness I can command, to maintain at all hazards the Protestant character of our beloved church. That is its strength. That is its reason for being. Around that cluster its most glorious traditions. It became Protestant at the Reformation in order that it might remain Catholic. Its Protestantism is an essential condition of its primitive and catholic character. Only by fidelity to the principles of the Reformation can we fulfil our mission to the American people."

"Remember that the principles which lie at the root of the American Constitution were born of the Reformation. That statement has recently been challenged, but without any substantial ground whatever. Michelet declares that it is to Martin Luther the modern world owes ‘the immense benefits of intellectual enfranchisement.’ ‘Luther,’ he says, ‘was the restorer of liberty.’ And Lord Acton, a man of great ability and learning, himself a Roman Catholic, testifies that we owe to the Reformers the combination of liberty and order which is our most cherished possession to-day. And he adds that ‘religious liberty’ is rightly described as the parent of political liberty.’"

TWIN SISTERS OF LIBERTY

"In the American colonies, religious liberty was not at first understood nor conceded. But in time, it came as the twin sister of that political liberty which was so passionately maintained by our forefathers. And when the Revolution came, both religious and civil liberty were grafted upon the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States."

"The first amendment of that immortal instrument declares that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or of abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.’"

EVERY ONE OF THESE RIGHTS DENIED

"But it is remembered that every one of these fundamental rights of man is denied in the Encyclical Immortale Dei, issued November 1, 1885,—equality, personal liberty, liberty of opinion, government of the people, by the people, for the people, religious liberty, liberty of conscience, liberty of worship, liberty of the press. Remember also that Leo XIII distinctly declares all these to be the fruit of the Reformation."

THE CHIEF HEIR OF THE REFORMATION

"The historian Bancroft, so often quoted of late, declares that ‘America is the chief heir of the Reformation in its purest form.’ He also tells us that all the thirteen colonies were Protestant. Even in Maryland only one twelfth of the population was other than Protestant. So that America at the time of the Revolution was a most thoroughly Protestant country. In 1784 the entire Roman Catholic population amounted to only 32,000. Only one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence was a Roman Catholic,—the brave and noble Charles Carroll, of Carrollton."

"On the other hand, nearly two thirds of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, thirty-four out of fifty-six, were Protestant Episcopalians. The author of the Declaration of Independence was born and nurtured in the Protestant Episcopal Church. The immortal father of his country was a devout member of the same church. The father of the Constitution was a Protestant and an Episcopalian. So was the first chief justice, its great interpreter. So was Patrick Henry. So was Benjamin Franklin. So was Richard Henry Lee."

THE FIVE GREAT FOUNDERS

"John Fiske, the Massachusetts historian, has said that there were five great men who made the American nation,—Washington, Jefferson, Marshall, Madison, and Hamilton. But all of them were Protestants and sons of the Episcopal Church."

"Let me say then, in conclusion, that no fact in all the range of history is more clearly or undeniably established than that our American Constitution was established by a Protestant people, and under the inspiration of Protestant ideas. And then let me ask if we whose ancestors toiled and suffered and died to create this wonderful fabric of liberty and self-government, should supinely allow our heritage of freedom to be insidiously taken from us by a church which has in all lands and in all ages been the foe of liberty—a church one of whose organs did on November 21, 1912, publish these words:"

"‘Our heroes are the Duke of Alva and Catherine de Medici. They knew the Huguenots, and they drove them off the continent. We have never written a line in extenuation or palliation of the Inquisition. We never thought it needed a defense.’—The Rev. Dr. Phelan, in the Western Watchman."

"The same writer says: ‘The pope is the ruler of the world. All the emperors, all the kings, all the princes, all the presidents of the world to-day are as these altar boys of mine.’"

ORGANIZING FOR CONQUEST

"Surveying, then, the conditions that prevail in our country, seeing these millions of aliens pouring into our country from Roman Catholic Europe, observing the efforts of that church to organize them for the conquest of America, I feel it a solemn duty on this my twenty-fifth anniversary, to urge you, my brethren, to be prepared to meet this grand assault on our faith. We too must organize. We too must consolidate our strength. Above all, Protestants of every name must sink their differences, and unite their influence, to meet this danger that threatens our beloved country."

"‘I know of no way of judging the future,’ exclaimed Patrick Henry, ‘but by the past.’ And all past history makes it clear that the dominance of papal power spells the destruction of free institutions."

A REAL DANGER

"The danger is real. It grows greater every year. It may become imminent before many decades. And the only power sufficient to meet it—and, thank God, that is sufficient—is a united Protestantism, standing firmly and bravely in defense of our liberties."

It is indeed refreshing to hear so earnest and so eloquent a plea for liberty. It is gratifying also to know that some at least in the ranks of Protestantism are awakening to the fact that there is an enemy in the land, and that a crisis is at hand; that Rome has set to herself the task of taking this country, and of making America, ‘the chief heir of the Reformation in its purest form,’ Catholic. Here in this fair land, it is her purpose to make an ‘image to the beast,’—another union of church and state. Against such a calamity both Catholics and Protestants should be warned; for who, with a spark of liberty in his veins, desires to see the history of the Dark Ages repeated? Well would it be if every pulpit and every platform in the land should ring with such a warning message as that here quoted.

Protestantism and the Papacy

By Editor

THERE is a strong leading, in the Protestant Episcopal Church, in the direction of the papacy. This is particularly the case in England. Some in that body have strongly urged that the word "Protestant" should be dropped from their name. This is partly because of the tendency to unite with Rome, and to some extent it may be due to the contention that the papacy is not entitled to the word "Catholic," the papal power making the claim that she is the one and only catholic or universal church.

Without question, one of the greatest religious controversies of the ages is just before us. In this controversy, it will be an easy matter to allow prejudice and church affiliation to control, rather than the direct teaching of the word of God. God's word must be studied by each one for himself, because the whole ground of the claims of Protestantism as opposed to the papacy is about to be fought over again. If we are standing by the teachings of our church without knowing for ourselves what God's word says, we are not in a position to pass the definite tests of the Judgment-day. If things are said about us that appear to be unkind, we are not to allow them to enrage us. The appearance of unkindness may lie in the fact that they are true. We should study to know the truth, for issues of eternal moment are involved. EDITOR.

MY SHELTERING PEACE

By C. M. SNOW

IN the sheltering arms of Jesus There's a blessed place of peace. In that presence find we comfort; From our burdens, sweet release. Every sorrow He assuages, Every wound He mollifies. In the path of His appointment All that's good and gracious lies.

Threatening storms may fiercely gather, Foes assail, and tempests blow; But within His calm pavilion We are safe from every foe. From His hand no power can pluck us, In His hand no fears annoy. Every day He brings us gladness, Turns our sorrow into joy.

Cares and sorrows, griefs and troubles — What are they with Jesus near? With His promise and protection, Naught on earth should cause us fear. He our peace is, and our comfort, He our hope, our trust, our stay. Every doubt and dread He scatters. Every tear He wipes away.

This is Jesus, our Redeemer, Leader, Shepherd, Pilot, Friend, Who has promised that His presence Shall go with us to the end. O the blessed peace and comfort Trusting, resting in His hand, Then the sure reward awaiting In that brighter, better land!

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