MARCH 1, 1913 



165 



Our Homes 



A. I. ROOT 



Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be 

 called the children of God. — Matt. 5:9. 



Our readers will recall how much I have 

 had to say of late in regard to the need of 

 peace and harmony between Prohibitionists 

 and the Anti-saloon League — see p. 604, 

 Gleanings for Sept. 15, and Homes of 

 Nov. 1. Well, just before I left Ohio, Dan- 

 iel A. Poling, Prohibition candidate for 

 governor of Ohio, gave an address in Me- 

 dina to a very small audience. It rejoiced 

 my heart to find a man representing the 

 party .who had nothing but kind words for 

 the Anti-saloon League, and next morning 

 I had a long friendlj' talk with him. Well, 

 to be brief, the American Advance has just 

 gone into the hands of an " Advance " Pub- 

 lishing Co., and elected our good friend 

 Poling President of said company. The 

 clipping below from the American Advance 

 of Feb. 1 explains itself. Once more may 

 God be praised for answering my prayers, 

 and for having raised up a Moses to lead 

 his children " out of the wilderness." 



THa HANDCLASP VS. THE HAMMER. 



Are the battering-ram and the big stick effective 

 vote winners? 



Should thoy be used indiscriminately in assault 

 upon the enemy and in the recruiting quarters of 

 our civic reform army as well? 



There is no livelier question before the friends of 

 prohibition at the present hour; and so well is it 

 handled and answered by our clearvisioned young 

 president, Mr. Daniel A. Poling, that we here give 

 in full his views on the subject as detailed at the 

 national conference Friday afternoon, January 17. 

 We most emphatically agree with their spirit, their 

 logic, and their practical timeliness in this hour when 

 we realize as never before how gracious is our op- 

 portunity to increase our forces a hundred fold by 

 earnest, sincere, broad-minded optimistic invitation. 



Mr. Poling's remarks were specitlcally upon the 

 topic, " The Attitude to I e Assumed by the Prohibi- 

 tion Party toward Non-partisan Organizations." He 

 said: 



I am a party Prohibitionist. I hold no brief to-day 

 for the non-partisan organizations. But uppermost 

 in my mind and heart is the desire and consuming 

 passion that our cause shall triumph. And let it be 

 distinctly understood that I speak to myself as well 

 as to you. It must also be borne in mind as T pro- 

 ceed, that I am not presenting the philosophy of the 

 Prohibition party; that T am not expounding and 

 defending the principles of our organization. My 

 subject and the limit of time demand that I speak 

 only on " Our Attitude toward Non-partisan Organi- 

 zations." This is the subject assigned me. 



1. What has been the attitude of the Prohibition 

 party toward non-partisan organizations ? Too fre- 

 quently it has been that of the Pharisee. We have 

 congratiilated ourselves that we were not as other 

 men. With irony and bitterness we have held our- 

 selves aloof, and our political condemnation has been 

 as was the spiritual condemnation of the Pharisee of 

 old — we have not come down from the ballot-box 

 justified ! 



W'e have denied to the non-partisan organization 

 its very claim to efficiency. We have scoffed at white 

 maps, declaring that the campaigns they represented 



amounted to nothing, and have then demonstrated 

 the fallacy of our position by pointing out the de- 

 cline of the non-partisan movement when a dry 

 county has gone back into the wet column. If the 

 non-partisan movements had done nothing more 

 than call out from the ranks of silence Hobson and 

 Hanley and Folk and Blair and Stubbs and Little- 

 field, they would not have lived in vain. 



Too frequently we have refused to co-operate in 

 local tights where the issue was drawn squarely be- 

 tween the saloon and the home, between corruption 

 and righteousness, between good government and 

 lad, because we have insisted that the law under 

 which the voters were acting was inconsistent and 

 not in harmony with our party principles and the 

 true philosophy of the great reform. 



We have made indiscriminate and all-inclusive 

 charges where we have not been able to establish our 

 case in court. We have indulged in personalities — 

 iiave, in some cases, elevated them to the plane of 

 issues, and our charges have been couched in such 

 generalities that ten times ten thousand men as sin- 

 cere and brave and honest and unselfish as we can 

 possibly be have had occasion to take personal of- 

 fense. Our opportunity to reach and marshal them 

 in a conquering political host has been destroyed. 



The national speakers and the national press of 

 the liquor organizations vie with each other in 

 .searching out and quoting the defamatory utterances 

 of the Prohibition party when they direct their ven- 

 om against the Anti-saloon League. As for myself, 

 from this day forth I shall guard my tongue and 

 check my pen that the common foe may find no mis- 

 sile of mine to hurl against the onsweeping hosts of 

 civic righteousness. There is a time for honest dif- 

 ferences ; there is a place for the frank and rugged 

 discussion of conflicting methods in order that the 

 right plan be found. That time is not in the heat of 

 conflict; that place is not on the firing-line. I speak 

 that which I do know when I say that there are 

 countless men and women in the Anti-saloon League 

 and other non-partisan movements whose souls are 

 as clean and unselfish as the souls of the martyrs 

 whose memories are ray political inspiration. I am 

 convinced that in the future we shall make progress 

 only as we eliminate strife from among the temper- 

 ance forces when they are engaging the enemy. We 

 niunt f.itroe our spirit. 



Amos R. Wells, editor of the Christian Endeavor 

 World, who voted the Prohibition ticket for the first 

 time this year, received more cantankerous criticisms 

 — ten to one — because he had not " always been with 

 us " than letters of welcome and commendation be- 

 cause of his present " good confession." And he 

 remarks, tritely, " Brethren, those letters go far 

 toward explaining the small size of the Prohibition 

 party." 



The Prohibition party will never succeed by bitter 

 nnd unrestrained criticisms of organizations that 

 (lifer with it as to method, but stand with it for 

 (lie destruction of the liquor tralfic. The Prohibition 

 party will never succeed by " rough tactics," by vit- 

 riolic denunciations, in winning the temperance men 

 of the nation who are not giving it their approval 

 and support. 



We shall make progress faster and bring nearer 

 more rapidly the victorj's dawning by using our 

 full strength in showing the wisdom and power of 

 our way rather than by " showing up " the real or 

 fancied weaknesses of the other ways. It is possible 

 to insult the intelligence of men by trying to tell 

 them too much. Nine times out of ten, indirect sug- 

 gestion is more effective than direct. And when we 

 are sorely tempted, when we are refused by those 

 who should be our voting friends, let us remember 

 tliat "charity suffereth long and is kind." Ovt ot- 



