ANTI-LIQUOR CAMPAIGN

Evening Star, Issue 15600, 17 September 1914, Page 7

ANTI-LIQUOR CAMPAIGN

DR SHELDON'S VISIT,

The Rov. Dr C. M. Sheldon, accoru-. panied by Mrs Sheldon and their son, passed through Dunedin on Tuesday afternoon en route for Balclutha. Everybody knows of the rev. gentleman as one of the most eminent preachers of Kansas Suto, and, indeed, of ths United States, an<\ as the author oi a. hook which attained a phenomenal vogue —'In His Steps, or What Would Jesus Do £— Amongst nis manifold and incessant activities Dr SheJ' don has mado himself tho leader of the campaigns against tho traffic in strong drink, and it i 3 under tho auspices of the New Zealand Alliance that he now visits this country. In a four or five minutes' chat on railway station it was not possible to do more than touch the fringe of the doctor's mission, but, generally speaking, he expressed his conviction that the story of the antiliquor fight in the United States of America is one of the most inspiring that can be told in any campaign for National Prohibition. Roughly, after 33 years of fighting, 50,000,000 of the 100,000,000 people living under tho Stars and Stripes are under some fcirm of prohibitory liquor law, and Dr Sheldon stated that a great wave of Prohibition sentiment is sweeping over the country, so powerful that this year the four States of California, Colorado, Wyoming, and Washington are to vote on the issue of State-wide Prohibition, such as has obtained in Kansas for 33 years. Dr Sheldon explained that onco State Prohibition was carried it could only be altered by legislative enactment, and it was not only necessary (before the issue could be reopened to the people) for the Legislature to carry it by a two-thirds majority, but tho electors in the State could afterwards reject it on a simple majority. When it was pointed out to the doctor that the penitentiary figures quoted by him for Kansas State had been publicly questioned, he stated that the figures quoted against his—namely, over 1,400 —■ were the figures of the year 1910, while his quotation of 724 referred to tho present year. Moreover, in 1910 Kansas was housing some from another State. Dr Sheldon went from Balclutha to Oamaru yesterday. He returns hero on Saturday, and will be welcomed at the Y.M.C.A. Rooms. On Sunday afternoon and evening he will deliver addresses, and he proceeds to Waimate on Monday.