God is a politician; so is the devil. God's politics are to protect
and defend mankind, bringing to them the highest good and finally
heaven. The devil's politics are to deceive, degrade and to make
miserable, finally ending in hell. The Bible fully explains this. The
two kinds of seed started out from Abel and Cain, then Ishmael and
Isaac, Esau and Jacob. There are but these two kinds of people. God's
crowd and the Devil's crowd. The first law given and broken in Eden was
a prohibition law. God said: "Thou shalt not." The devil tempted and
persuaded the first pair to disobey. He did it by deceiving the woman.
The fact of redemption now is to bring them back to the law of God. What
is law? God says that sin is a transgression of law. Blackstone says:
"Law commands that which is right and prohibits that which is wrong."
Law is one, as truth is one. It is not possible to make a bad law. If it
is bad, it is not a law. We have bad statutes. Law is always right.
Nothing is wrong that is legal, and wrong may be licensed, but never
legalized. I find lawyers who do not understand this. I often hear the
term "legalized saloon". When I was passing the building of the supreme
court in New York City, on Madison Avenue, I read an inscription on one
of the marble statues representing a judge with a book on either side of
the door: "Every law not based on wisdom is a menace to the state." This
is a false, misleading sentence for all law is wisdom. It might have
read: "All statutes not based on wisdom, are a menace to the state."
Then at the base of the statue of a soldier, on the other side of the
entrance, was this statement: "We do not use force until good laws are
defied." Which ought to read: "We do not use force until laws are
defied." Such ideas as these are corrupting courts, and biasing the
public mind, and the injury is more than apparent to the observer. If
law is not a standard, what standard can we have? We must have one. We
repeat again: "Law commands that which is right and prohibits that which
is wrong." Any statute that does this is lawful. Any that does not, is
anarchy.
God is truly the author of law. The theocratic form of government
was perfect and the only perfect government that ever existed, we need
no other statutes than those that God gave. He said: "We must not
kill a bird sitting on her young; must not see our enemy's beast fall under
his burden and not help him rise." And the refinement of mercy was
taught in the statute that said: "You must not kill the mother and lamb
in one day; must not seethe a kid in its mother's milk; must not muzzle
the ox that treadeth out the corn." The use, and the only use, of law is
to prevent and punish for sin. All law has a penalty for those who violate
it. Governments that are the greatest blessing to its citizens are those
who can prohibit, or abolish the most sin or crime. Crime is not prevented
by toleration, but by prohibition. Nine of the ten commandments
are prohibitive and begin with: "Thou shalt not."
The success of life, the formation of character, is in proportion to
the courage one has to say to one's ownself: "Thou shalt not." It is
not the man or woman who has no temptation to sin, who has the strong
character, but the man or woman who has the desire but will not yield
to sin. Some people ask: "Why did God make the Devil?" The Devil
is God's fire. Like an alchemist God is purifying souls. The Devil is
an agent in salvation. "Every Devil in hell is harnessed up to push every
saint into heaven."
Those who are counted worthy to enter into the delights of that
heavenly land are those who have had their "fiery trials," tried and made
white. Man would have no credit and could not hear: "Good and faithful
servant;" if he had no temptations to do otherwise, man would be
but a mere machine.
God has never used for his work, any but those who prohibit evil.
The pilgrim fathers were forced from the mother country because this
principle of prohibition burned in their hearts. When England would
oppose the colonies, it was prohibition that smashed the tea, over in Boston
harbor. George Washington was put at the head of the colonial
armies that prohibited, by much bloodshed and suffering, the oppression
from the mother country. Our Civil War was the result of the principle
to abolish or prohibit the slavery of the colored race. Now we have a
worse slavery than England threatened us with or the poor blacks suffered
at the hands of their taskmasters. This slavery of soul and body,
is one that leads to eternal death. The forces of God are with the abolition,
or prohibition of wrong. The forces of darkness and death are with
those who are willing to be led captive by the Devil at his will, and to
lead others under this grievous yoke of those who are trying to perpetuate
the cause of evil.
There are men who desire to be loyal, who are voting for license
or in license parties, because they do not stop to think. The people are
generally right on all questions. They go wrong more for lack of thought,
than for lack of heart. Edmund Burke, the greatest English stateman,
said: "The people have as good government as they deserve." Because
the people have always had the power, and in America especially, they
are sovereign. The president and all others in office, are but servants
of the people. In another chapter I have given what the supreme court
says about the impossibility of licensing wrong by law, or according to
law.
Hear the language of the Declaration of Independence: "We hold
these truths to be self evident, that all men are created free and equal,
that they are endowed by their creator, with certain inalienable rights,
that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, that
to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed." The licensing of
intoxicating drink results in suicide and murder, whether or not the
saloon-keeper or state be held responsible. Some one is. Who? The man
who consents to or aids by his vote is most criminal. It is said that
drink kills a man a minute. Suppose that we had a war that killed a man
every five minutes. Would there not be howling for an end of bloodshed.
This is more than ten times worse, for the soul is more valuable than
the body.
Freedom or liberty in animals is following instinct and underlying
appetite. Not so with man; to the reverse. It is the freedom of conscience
and will, from the bondage of ignorance of the person, the gratification
of appetite and passion. The body is a good servant, but a tyrant
when it is master. A man must be master or slave. One must first, like
Daniel, "purpose in his heart that he will not defile himself". Liberty
or freedom is only attained by prohibition of opportunity to do wrong
to ourselves or allow any one else to do so. Citizenship not only requires
one to obey law but must see that others do so also.
The principles of government are founded on liberty and
self-control. Drunkenness is a loss of self-control. Anything that
animalizes men, is a menace to the life of the state and prevents the
purpose of government. Thus replacing the weapon of destruction in the
hands of its foes and the danger is great, because so many citizens are
under the domination of their own will and passion. This class is being
multiplied by this licensed crime. These willing classes are an integral
part of the nation. By licensing rum, we are fostering a power that is
increasing the weakness, and preventing the self-control of its
citizens. This is conspiracy, treason, black as night. Some plead the
revenue of our wealth. Our wealth is in our citizens. The state can not
add to its treasury at the expense of its manhood without punishing
herself. The state must guard the character of its citizens. It can not
make them honest but it must punish dishonesty; can not make them
humane, but it must prohibit an act of inhumanity; and should oppose and
forbid every license that man would desire or try to obtain that which
would allow such gratification of the animal over the moral.
The nation is what its homes are. The family first, then the nation.
Nothing can injure an individual or a family that is not an injury to
the state. The fight for firesides means a fight for our national life.
Our revolutionary sires fought for this. This is the fight that Carry A.
Nation is making. It is the heart of love, liberty and peace. Some of
these thoughts I have copied from an article I read on a few leaves of a
torn pamphlet, no name. But the writer has the true meaning of government.
I am a prohibitionist because I am a christian. I want to get
to heaven. None but prohibitionists ever do. Hell is made for those
who take license to sin.
