An Open Letter To Rev. W. H. Ryder

Bkv. asd Dear Brother: An article over your name rontaining five questions and a request tfaat "some advocate of the proposed amendment to the constitution answer them," has been placed on uiy table and I have been asked to aiiswer your questions. As you ask for a"candid" answer it s but fair to suppose that "the temperance men," who are in the dark, are seeking light through these openings, and not controversy, and are candid in asking them. I can ouly account for the fact that I, am asked to give a few answers, on the ground that I am so familiar with the lowa campaign. These and kindred questionsappeared throughout the lowa campaigrïs, and while perhaps they perplexed in a greater or less degree some "candid temperance men," they were chiefly used by high license men and liquor dealers as objections to constitutional prohibition. If these interrogatorios had not been promulgated from asource so high, and presumably in the fullest sympathy with any measure whichin the light of reason, experience and testimony, is best calculated to "utterly annihilate the liquor business," (Public Leader), the public naight think that they are still used in the interestof high license; "But, beloved, we are persuaded better tbings of you, and things that accompany salvation (not regulation), though we thus speak." Question I. "Will not our present constitution support as strict a prohibitory statute as could be based upon the amended constitutiob?" Ans. No doubt it would sustain as stringent prohibitory statutes as any legislative body elected on such an issue could enact. The United States supreme court has repeatedly and recerkly (see lowa) decided that pólice and nuisance laws and whatever they necessarily involve, are not antagonisticto the spirit of constitutional law, state or national. Question 2. "Ifthe present legislature will not pass a prohibitory stututu now, what reason is thers to suppose they will after April 4th, if the amendment carrieb?" Ans. A preceding legislatureenacted a lax law, which in effect conferred certaiu informal chartered rignts, conditionaily upon all saloon keepers. Whethtr that body fairly represented the sentiments and wishes of the mijority of voters (saying nothing of the nou-voting classes) of this commonwealih, ui that act, or whether that act now representa such majority is a matter of considerable duubt and controversy, indeed the rapidly changing sentiments everywhere mauilest, and the increasiug favor which -constitutional prohibition is receiving in the nation, and the 2ö,UO0 prohibition votes cast for a new and prohibitory politica! party last fall, seem to challenge the policy ut our present high license enactments. The present legislalure, which was not elecied on an - amendment issue would hurdly presume to make so radical a chungo as this "proposed amendment" would do, by passing prouibitury staiutes of an equivalent uamre, without the b.ickmg 01 a majority uf the citizens. How can they know what the "dear people" want until a direct vote is wktu on the matter in issuo. Having of their own acCOrd asked the peopíe'íor a epeedy decisión, s to whai changes they want in umtters pertaimng to liquor legislation, it is reaaonuble aml tuir to piesume that they are and will be honorable and will enuct suituble laws, well-calculated to eulbrcethe decisión and declaration of the pcople. Again, the proposed amendment declares that laws, uecessary to eníorce it, bhull be enuciLÜ upon its passage. I auderbiaiid thál several suca bilis are now pendiijg the decifcive vote of April 4h. li is hi.rdly lo be supposed that Uiis legiblaiurt wili viólate the constiiutionai i'tqiui'euu-iiLb in iliis respect. Que. 3. "ll ' we caunot elect a legislaiuie comuiuted lo tuch a stalule imw, why can we liope to elect sucha legislatui e afiei adupiing the ameudmeuiV" Ans. (A.) In Uu you assuuie that such a legislature could not uow be elecled. Thif you do not know aiid I scarcely need ask you 10 dittereuiiaíe betweeii ab.-uinpnou and kuowledgo. (B.j Under tue usual inelhods ol coustructiug a legislative boüy, it ís very oillii-uiL lo divest the ballot of partisan design so as to obtain a í'air expression of ihe people touching the presence of ilie baloon, but ttiousands of people can, ana will vote for the amendment itas it ib uflered now,whocould;not sufficiently iiee themselves from the iïilluence of parüsan politics and candidates to vote uirecily agaiust the rum iüterests on any other plan. This plan seems to carry wherever tried. (O.) Should a majority of he citizens vote for the ameuduient, it is but fair to presume that they will vote so as to construct a legislature plodged to enact laws sufficient to eníorce it whenever the issue irises. E very state which has carried the amendment in these latter days has been able to do so.andthe enforcement party grows stronger yearly. - See laiest from Rhode Island, lowa, Kansas, Georgia and others. Afier more than twenty-five years of trial of statutory prohibition, Maine by 47,000 majority, hat recently put prohibition into her coiiStitution to stay. The people who voted on the amendment in lowa were suffiwent and proud to elect subaequent legislalures pledged to enact laws suffleient to prohibit, and 6upreme couris to give unbiased judicial decisions. Ques. 4. "If we adoptjthe amendment, and thus annulall our present restrictie lawe, and"the ltgislature fails to giye us a workable prohibitory statute, will we not be worse off than we are now?" Ans. Perhaps so if it were possible. We however, should not sell any more rum than we now do. I have never heardof the failure of any man who had "spot cash" to obiain all he wanted and I doubt if men will all at onceswell out and greatly enlarge their capacitie?. I have never heard of an instance of any dealer being so restrained by our tax law, as not to sell all he could find purehasers for. And, indeed, the liquor dealers have told us over and over again (whcn we were askine asmall tax only) that ' vhere rum is aold without restraint or tazation many ol the incentives to drinking do not exist, and consequently there is less drinking, drunkenness, poverty and crime under free rum than under high license." The New York liquor dealers in a recent convention, called to oppoae Dr. Crosby's high license bill, eaid : "Whereas the passage of BUch a law, instead of diminishing the number of saloons, would increase the present number, since it would attract to illicit and secret selling, the worst class in every neighborhood, and the increased revenue derived from ihose who would be able to pay the general fee of $1,000 would not be suflicient to detect and prosecute the lawless seller. Resolved, That in the interest of public morality and true temperance we protest again8t the high license bill." ft Again, so far as the present amount of liquor sold and drank, the number of children and drunkardsadmkted to the saloons generally, and the amount of idleness, poverty and crime produced by the business, are concerned, I do not see how we could "be any worse off." Indeed the liquor dealers think we would be better off. We should protably lose our present revenue through the saloon, but who wants to exchange his boy for tax money in the liquor mans. All saloon revenue is collected from the people by the saloon-keepers, it is not brought into the state by him, nor dug out of the earth by h;s hands. Question 5. "Is it wise or right for the temperance men of the state so to bind themselves that they mustsubmit to "free rum" until they can secure and enforce absolute prohibition?" Ans. No man claims for a prohibitory aor.endrnent that it will of itself secure absolute prohibition of the use of liquor. We claim that it will prohibit public places of selling, debauchment and crime as effectively as agatlinggunwill prohibit riotous processions and mobs. God hasnever yet secured the absolute prohibition of any evil on earth, but notwithstanding this, He still insists on prohibitory laws, with severe penalties attached, and while some are seeking their repeal, and others are declaring them unconstitutional, and still others are violating them, God moves on undisturbed, maintaining that it is both wise and right to bind himself and the earth to just such a system, submitting as He does, and we do, toomany infraclions of the same. God declares, I believe, that He will yet on the part of .countless numbers, secure the absolute prohibition of evil, and on the part of the disobedient He will secure the eñaction of the penalties of the P. Laws which say "thou shalt not," and thus secure their enforcement. I see no real or imaginary hindrance in these suppositions which should cause any man for a moment to hesitate or waver, if he has at heartthedetermination to ' do with his might" whatever his hands find to do in ilie present crisis. It'is enough for me that the liquor dealers don't want the amendment and have raised the flag of distress. Let us push on to victory with such means as are at hand. The ey es of many rum-cursed states are hopefully looking to Michigan. I am an anti-saloon republican. (Pastor lst Cong. Ch., Kalaraazoo. March 22nd, 1887.