Prohibition Censorship Despotic

Let us not forget the principles for which our great American republic stands. Recollect, that the tendency toward imperial government and despotic rule is here today as it has been in every nation and in every age of the world. Menaces to the rights and privileges of the people are ever-present: the continued structure of safeguarding laws and constitutions presuppose the enemy to be ever near:—tyranny may slumber, but let bigotry and intolerance call ever so softly, and it springs into active life and being, and on every occasion, with consummate cunning, justifies its demands with a specious pretext—censorship for the good of the people.

Prohibition censorship is one of these specious pretexts; but censorship invariably arrogates to itself the prerogatives of monarchy and the exactions of martial law. Government of an Emperor is as well as government by unreasoning, tyrannous majority. In government, middle ground is rarely found, and if it is, it is only for a temporary period and for reasons of expediency: it; is a question of republic or empire, freedom or slavery, liberty or despotism, the life or death of the people! Censorship by the majority—as to what the individual shall eat, or drink, or wear, or religiously or irreligiously do or observe—is as hateful to the genuine American citizen as would be the censorship of a Czar! Censorship is dictatorial and despotic: it overrides American law and American ideals; it is the rule of a suzerainty in place of fundamental government: it claims to be acting under government, but it is actually acting above government. Censorship is not freedom; the very word itself precludes the view: censorship is slavery, intensified or modified; it is the same thing whether it be under American rulers or the Great Khan of Tartary. Prohibition censorship is only the beginning: it is not the end. Beneath it all, lie the claws of the tiger—the claws of fanatical bigotry and misrule—and ultimately, if not checked, the whole American people will feel those claws. But then: IT WOULD BE TOO LATE!

Long ago John Quincy Adams sounded a timely warning. He said:

“Forget not, I pray you, the right of personal freedom: self-government is the foundation of all our political and social institutions. Seek not to enforce upon your brother by legislative enactment the virtue that he can possess only by the dictates of his own conscience and the energy of his will.”

In conclusion: John Stuart Mill is right, when he says Prohibition is “so monstrous a principle” as to be “far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty”; a principle that there is “no violation of liberty which it would not justify.”

All religious despotism commences by combination and influence, and as well-said by Col. Richard M. Johnson in his memorable U. S. Senate Report of 1829, “when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country the civil power soon bends under it; and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequence.”

Will the people of this great nation listen to the siren voice of this modern destroyer of personal freedom, and cutting loose from ancient moorings, turn back to the hateful paths of despotism? Will the republic deny the sacred principles of religious and personal liberty, whose first purchase-price was the blood of the minutemen of Lexington? Or, like a political rock of Gibraltar, stand fast upon the fundamental principles of its being, continuing to safeguard and maintain the constitutional guaranties of all its citizens?

It is the American people that must answer these momentous questions! And answer them they will! There is no escape from the responsibility! The future of the Republic rests upon their decision!

It is the bounden duty of every American freeman, to speak against, to write against, to vote against the menace of Prohibition!

PROHIBITION IS A MENACE TO

THE PROSPERITY OF THE COMMUNITY.

THE PEACE AND TRANQUILLITY OF THE PEOPLE.

THE CONSTITUTIONAL LIBERTIES OF THE CITIZENS.

THE POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS OF THE LAND.

THE STABILITY OF THE REPUBLIC.

A vote against Prohibition is a vote against THESE MENACES!

The Menace of Prohibition

Should be widely circulated by every advocate and champion of Personal Liberty and Constitutional Rights

Right at this time—in the crisis of American Liberty!

There is nothing just like it

The arguments are not of the stereotyped class

The facts given are indisputable

It does not offend the man on the other side of the question

It appeals to the citizen who desires fair play—and wants to see the American Republic continue a free nation, safeguarding the interests of ALL and granting “special privileges to none”

REMEMBER ALWAYS— “Eternal Vigilance is the price of Liberty”

SINGLE COPIES, 10 CENTS EACH

BY MAIL, POSTPAID

Special rates on large quantities—100, 500 and 1000 lots—will be given upon application

Address the Author—

Mrs. LULU WIGHTMAN

314 West First St., Los Angeles, Cal.

Footnote:

[1] Inter-church Conference was the beginning of the National Federation of the Churches, which maintains a Prohibition department and is committed to the programme of Prohibition.

Transcriber’s Note: Punctuation has been corrected without note.