666 



NORTH CAROLINA. 



than a dead letter on our statute-books, will beget 

 disrespect for other and better laws, and looseness in 

 their administration. Because it proposes a monopoly 

 hateful to the instincts of a free people, and seeks to 

 establish that monopoly in the hands of a class who 

 have neither sought nor desired it, and whose best in- 

 terests would be subverted in its success. Because, 

 in the light of its working in other communities, we 

 see that it opens the door to more sin, misery, and 

 wrong than it prevents, and prepares the ground for 

 a new crop of crimes and abuses. Because it proposes 

 to impose upon the monopolists it creates, the drug- 

 gists and physicians lici-nsed under its degrading 

 conditions, and otters a premium for the debauching 

 of two noble professions. Because it discriminates 

 against our own people in favor of others, by prphib- 

 itinir the manufacture of liquors that the act itself 

 declares are necessary to the medical, mechanical, and 

 sck-ntinc uses of our "people. Because it discriminates 

 K'tween classes among our own people, and offers 

 privileges to one it denies to another. Because, under 

 it, the" giving away of liquor not being prevented, 

 will spring up a custom among merchants of treat- 

 ing their "customers, susceptive of great abuse. Be- 

 cause it decreases the sources of State, county, and 

 municipal revenues, makes new taxes necessary, and 

 prepares a new and onerous burden for tax-payers lit- 

 tle able to bear it. Because it will rob the public 

 schools of moneys necessary to their support, and 

 makes no provision for the gap in their revenues. 

 Because under it no form pi inebriety can be re- 

 strained, and, where open drinking is suppressed, se- 

 cret drinking will ensue. Because the best and most 

 perfect forms of such legislation are inadequate to the 

 suppression of a temptation common to all mankind, 

 and ordained, in fact, by the Creator of the universe. 

 Because t\vo thirds of the entire spirituous product 

 of the country being used for scientific, mechanical, 

 and medical purposes, it is impracticable to stop its 

 manufacture, unless every industry connected with it 

 is first killed outright, and our people are brought 

 back to the ways and methods of barbarous days. 

 Because, not only powerless to cure the ills it treats, 

 and sure to engender and foster new and greater evils, 

 it is, for the reasons recited, and many others, obnox- 

 ious to the cause of virtue, morality, peace, pros- 

 perity, and happiness among our people : therefore, 

 be it . 



Resolved, That we, the real representatives of the 

 cause of temperance in North Carolina, the anti-pro- 

 hibitionists, here in convention assembled, find the 

 said bill unworthy the support of enlightened free- 

 men and good citizens : 



And, be it resolved further, That we pledge our- 

 selves to resist its adoption by every worthy means at 

 our command, and call upon our* fellow-citizens of 

 every creed and race, of every shade of religious and 

 political opinion, to join with us in condemning at the 

 ballot-box this most unjust, unworthy, and improper 

 law. 



Subsequently the following address was is- 

 sued by the Executive Committee : 



It often happens, in the march of progress, among 

 enlightened nations, that the attention of a community 

 is Caroused to the existence of some great evil in its 

 midst. A recognition of the evil begets desire for its 

 remedy. Agitation ensues, measures of reform are 

 hastily projected, and experiments in legislation are 

 proposed lor the suppression or limitation of the 

 evil. 



Of all the problems that thus seize upon the public 

 mind periodically and thrust their claims for solution 

 upon civilization and the spirit of progress, none is of 

 greater importance, perhaps, than that which is in- 

 volved hi what is commonly known as the " temper- 

 ance question." 



The people of the State of North Carolina have been 

 suddenly and rudely plunged into consideration of 

 this perplexing problem, while a specious, ready-made, 



legal solution is held out for their adoption, the pro- 

 moters of which give currency to such promises of 

 happy results, such prophecies of good obtainable, as 

 most readily appeal to those emotions of generosity, 

 charity, and morality characteristic of high civilization. 

 A new alliance between Church and State is proposed, 

 and Christian organizations, grown numerous and 

 powerful in a civilized land, are demanding legislative 

 control of the public conscience. 



The gravity of the subject requires that it should 

 not be handled lightly, but considered with a calm 

 and even mind, and every step of attempted reform be 

 based on truth and right reason. Great dangers must 

 be met by great prudence not by headlong impulse 

 for errors that enhance the ills we seek to cure grow 

 from blunders into crimes. 



History shows on every page of its record that with 

 growth of power the Church comes often to demand 

 State assistance to enforce its teachings pleading 

 always a good to be gained, a truth to be sustained by 

 civil enactment. And just as often, too, it shows that 

 such alliances are fruitful only in evil to the Church, 

 to religious sentiment, and the cause of morality, 

 while through them weakness and demoralization 

 creep upon the State to canker the very heart of gov- 

 ernment and sow beneath its foundations the seeds of 

 corruption and decay. 



Legislative edicts free from the entanglements of 

 false alliances, free from taint of prejudice or suspicion 

 of iobbery, instinct with the wisdom of true state-craft 

 and responsive to the practical demands of society 

 alone, should have the support of the judicious, acting 

 in such a cause. They must not rest in the emotions 

 and prejudices of goocl though unthousrhtful people, 

 but appeal to the common sense of thinking and rea- 

 sonable men ; they must not deal falsely with Script- 

 ure ; they must not defy the mandates of science ; 

 they must not ignore the lessons of history. Obnox- 

 ious to these plain first principles of a wise public 

 polity, they are worse than useless, and their enact- 

 ment a return to false systems that shackle us in slav- 

 ery to new abuses without enfranchising us from the 

 dominion of the old. 



We hold the interests of truth, morality, religion, 

 and a high standard of public policy to be opposed to 

 the usual forms of prohibitory legislation. vVe hold 

 that the errors, inaccuracies, inefficiencies, and re- 

 acting evils common to this form of legislation are 

 glaringly exemplified in that special enactment known 

 as the rrohibition Act, now under consideration by 

 our people. The certainty of aggravating evils sought 

 to be cured, while engendering, multiplying, and los- 

 tering new and greater wrongs, is foun'd in its false 

 theories and pernicious methods. 



A iust and fair treatment of the question is safest at 

 first because it must come at last. Those who would 

 obstruct this treatment by a blind and tenacious ad- 

 herenceto so-called systems of reform, false in theory, 

 fanatical in methods, incapable of beneficial results. 

 and fruitful in reactive evils, are, before God ana 

 man, chargeable with the grave responsibility of seek- 

 ing extension of the ills thev deplore and assisting to 

 spread a curse they themselves declare threatens to 

 sap the foundations of morality and decency, and, if 

 not checked, to overthrow the social fabric 01 civiliza- 

 tion itself. 



And, therefore, we hold that the rejection of the act 

 by the electors at the polls is the first great step in the 

 cause of temperance reform possible to the people of 

 North Carolina. 



The result of the vote was as follows : for 

 prohibition, 48,370 ; against prohibition, 166,- 

 325; total vote, 214,695; majority against 

 prohibition, 118,955. Only four of the ninety- 

 six counties gave majorities for prohibition, 

 viz., Cherokee, Clay, Transylvania, and Yan- 

 cey. With respect to the composition of the 

 vote the Raleigh " News and Observer " says : 



