Local Option Or Prohibition And High License

Editor Argus: The great hue and cry is "Put down the Saloons!". You are told if you don't vote against the saloons you vote for them. We have now a law to control them. If this cannot be enforced how can a law to prohibit? Have prohibition laws destroyed the evils elsewhere? The reports do not say so. Why prohibit the manufacture of beer? Is it not a legitimate business? The respectable Germans in Germany say it is not a disgrace to take a glass of beer or wine. So say the English . They have their Bass ale for dinner in respectable families and wine at suitable times. It is not the use but the abuse, wherein the evil consists. You do not kill all beasts or birds because some are dangerous. Why shut up the wine press and prevent the making of wine even in our homes? If it is right to drink a glass of wine or use it in our churches or if it was right to have it at the marriage feast of old, who has the right to prohibit the making of it? We are taught by Holy Writ to be temperate in all things. There is excess in eating as well as in drinking, and in dressing also. Where shall we draw the line? Is the land of the free to become the land of the law - law for everything but law not respected or enforced?
One clergyman recently said he did not believe in sending missionaries into heathen countries, merely to destroy their idols. He believed in giving them something better to worship in the place thereof. In voting; against prohibition we vote in favor of the high license enactment of the legislature which controls the sale of intoxicants but allows the right to make wine in our own homes. This law is practical in large cities. It lessens the number of saloons and causes the remaining saloons to look after the secret ones. Before this law is destroyed let a better one be given us in the place of it.