LIBERTY TO ENSLAVE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 89, 28 November 1911, Page 5

LIBERTY TO ENSLAVE.

The Liquor Party quotes what it calls a great speech by Governor Patterson, of Tennessee; Now, State Governors are sometimes very respectable men and sometimes mere puppets of a clique, put into office to carry out fine orders of party bosses who are “not in politics for theit health.” Governor Patterson may be the one or ; he may be the bthtfi: we don’t know. ' He lias certainly a fine flow of language 1 of the tallest high-falutin type. Here is a specimen: “Prohibition,” he says, “is the present bane of our civilisation, the ,• future peril of our land. Our fathers fougint as no soldiers did since war among the human race began; suffered as none others have suffered; died as none others have died since the annals of man were first recorded.” Is not eloquence such as this, we are asked by the Trade’s commentator, enough to induce everyone to strike out the bottom line ? It would certainly cause a Stratford audience to strike—strike out for home to escape such a torrent of bombast. The Southern armies fought bravely enough and suffered the usual miseries of war, but in what cause ? That of •slavery. Technically the immediate cause was that of the right to secede. \ The South seceded because of the de-L-termination of the North not to allow y slavery in the new western territories c'J to which the South wished to extend its cherished institution. In the sacred name of liberty the South fought for the right to hold men in bondage, and in the sacred name of liberty brewers and publicans are to-day fighting for the ririht to hold men in bondage to the drink habit. Make no mistake, you moderate men who can take a glass or leave it, your aid at tlie poll is welcomed by the publican and he likes to see you at other times to give an air of respectability to his bar, but you are not the “gintleman that pays' the rint,” you do not create the enormous goodwill values. That is the part of the men with the perpetual fihirst, who are in very truth the slaves of the liquor trade, without whom it would sink to the lebel of that of the mere butcher or baker. Still, you are of importance just now. Your vote for continuance may be just the one vote necessary to rivet for another three years the chains of this slavery on the limbs of scores of your fellows. You know some of them personally. Are you going to give that vote ?