The Prohibitionists' Mistake

The Detroit Evening Journal states it exactly rigbt: "The Prohibitionists at Ann Arbor yesterday coinmitted the error of saying that Repnblicans ehould circuíate the petitions for county prohibition. It is not the duty of Repnblicans or Democrats or party Prohibitionists distinctively, but of all who, without regard to party, want the liquor traffic repressed and its power broken. In many counties this view is prevailing." This view was expressed in The Register two weeks ago. We are inclined to think that if there were any hope of carrying prohibition in Wash;enaw county, the Washtenaw Prohibitionists at their conference last week would have acted diffcrently. Their Drethren in other counties in which ;he amendment had majorit'es have not wasted their time cursing the older parties, but have gone to work as citizens to secure prohibition. It was unwise, from any point of view, for ,he prohibitionists to irrítate the temperance element that does not believe a great party can ever be made np on the prohibition idea alone. The massage of the local option law was a fair and etraightforward attempt to mt in legislation what appeared to be the nearest approach to the will of the people. Sweeping prohibition liad just been defeated ; but the vote for the amendment was so large tbat it was apparent that a county loca) option law would be used in a number of counties, and that we might have a prohibitory law, if not over the whole state, at least in force over a wide area. Common sense dictated the passage of such a law. It was the best thing possible. We repeat that the prohibitionists of Washtenaw county are making a mistake : they are crippling the efforts made in other counties to secure prohibition. Some of them go so far as to say that they would have notbing to do with the local option law under any circumstancee. That is very foolish. The old abolitionists, whom they are so fond of quoting, would have jumped at the chance any time to secure partial abolition of slavery. The Lansing Republican prints as its own a large part of The Register's article of last week on a new method of water analysis. No complaint would be made if the part necessary to a clear nnderstanding of the metbod had not been left out. Not only this, but it was made to appear that the Lansing water undergoing examination was from the general water-supply of that city, which does not appear in our article. Pbof. S. P. Langley who on Nov. 18 was elected to the important position of Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, made vacant by the death of Spencer F. Baird, is a brother of Prof. John W. Langley of Ann Arbor.