Statewide-Ionia County MI Archives News.....TEMPERANCE November 17, 1882
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Marilyn Johnson McDowell texas26@gmail.com May 7, 2009, 12:18 pm

St Albans Daily Messenger November 17, 1882
Prohibitionists Not All Republicans.
General Clute, a prominent Democrat of Ionia, Michigan writes a letter to the
Ionia Sentinel on the political situation of which he says:
On the question of temperance I find the democratic party drifting almost
without protest wholly into saloon control. In Kansas, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana,
Ohio and Michigan the organization has taken sides with rum. I put Michigan on
the list, for I note the platform of the democrats at the last convention is
silent on the liquor question and silence at this time of general temperance
agitation means a quiet acquiescence in the idea that any man who pays the
license fee can shall be allowed to sell intoxicating liquor. The whole drift of
progressive civilization is against the use of spirit, (illegible) liquors as a
beverage, and the men or parties who seek to sustain the right to sell it for
such purposes will not in the end prevail. 
We must try not to shield the sale and use of rum on the pretense that sumptuary
laws ought not to be enacted; the sooner "personal liberty" is so far curtailed
as to make it an offense punishable by imprisonment for a person to sell
intoxicating as a beverage the better it will be for the men, women, boys and
girls of Michigan. 
That the democratic party is not on the side of temperance in this struggle I
very much regret. I refer of course to this party as managed by it's leaders. I
trust a very large proportion of its members will not sustain any  effort to
further saloon interests no matter in what form the effort may be made. 
I submit to every candid father having a boy who habits are not formed that the
best interest of the boy lies in as far as possible stopping the sale of rum.
The saloons in Michigan are doing a fearful work, and in my judgment the
republican party has done a noble act in not only favoring but demanding the
submission of a prohibitory amendment to the people.

               

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