182 



GIvEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Mar. 1. 



in obtaining au audience. We are told the 

 President courteously listened while the whole 

 matter was placed before him and explained 

 in detail. These ladies then showed him let- 

 ters from more than 200 prominent ministers 

 and educators, protesting against the Griggs 

 interpretation. What did he say ? Just noth- 

 ing, more than that the said decision would 

 have to stand. Let me digress a little right 

 here.* 



Although the President himself has not said 

 any thing in extenuation of this awful out- 

 rage, .some excuses have been trumped up for 

 such a decision. One came out in the daily 

 last fall. It said the question had been asked 

 to 600 army officers as to whether the army 

 canteen was deleterious or otherwise to the 

 morals of the soldiers. I have not the docu- 

 ment at hand, but it was claimed the result 

 was something like this : Only two or three 

 officers — perhaps half a dozen in the whole 

 (500 — voted agamst the canteen t Now, first, 

 let us suppose this to be true. Does even that 

 justify breaking law and defying it ? j I sup- 

 pose every friend of temperauce kneiu the 

 statement was untrue at first glance. No 

 doubt the brewers and their agents did get the 

 names of 600 officers in the army who were in 

 favor of open saloons among the soldiers. 

 Perhaps they worked so sharply and carefully 

 that they ran on to only half a dozen (by mis- 

 take, doubtless) who voted against the can- 

 teen. The National Anti-saloon League now 

 has its headquarters at Washington, and an 

 office there, so I am in a position to know 

 what I am talking about. Furthermore, a rel- 

 ative of mine has been in the employ of the 

 government in a position that takes him among 

 soldier camps, and he has given me a true 

 statement of affairs. 



The laws of the LTnited States are pretty 

 well enforced in almost every thing that does 

 not touch the liquor-traffic. The only reason 

 why the offenders in this line escape is because 

 of the immense amount of money they hau- 



*By the way, what sort of example is the Attorney- 

 General of our nation setting before the younger at- 

 torneys and the lesser attorneys of our land? With 

 all the other improvements and advancements, has 

 not the legal profession advanced also? or are we to 

 understand that the summit of legal attaiaments at 

 the present time is to find out how we can besrt evade 

 law or avoid it? or, if you choose, ignore law and 

 trample it under foot ? What .sort of precedent is this, 

 standing out so prominently at the very heart and 

 head of our government? And if the thing is not bad 

 enough as it is, must we have a President who stands 

 by such an Attorney-General, and says such law, or 

 evasion oi \^v}, x2X\\.ftr, has got to stand? Not only at 

 every State capital, but at every county-seat, we may 

 expect to see tliis thing duplicated. In fact, it is be- 

 ing duplicated, ^right along. May God help us ! 



t By the way, what a tremendous tribute( !) this is to 

 the morals and temperance principles of the officers 

 in our United States army— that is, if the statements 

 are true ! 



X Our good friend W P. Root suggests, while I am 

 dictating this, that if some great lawyer had said, 

 when Lincoln issued his proclamation freeing the 

 slaves, that, instead of abolishing slavery, it was de- 

 signed to keep them in bondage for all time to come, 

 it would be on a par with the Griggs decision. Thank 

 God there was not any lawyer at that time to make 

 •such an iniquitous decision ; and even if there had 

 been he would have had a rough and tumble fight 

 with the stalwart rail-splitter of Illinois before he 

 ruled the nation even for six or seven wowi/zi as Griggs 

 has done. 



die, and because of the tieniendous sums that 

 the traffic yields, day and night, week days 

 and Sundays. The liquor-dealers and brewers 

 occupy high positions. We know all about 

 this. It makes trouble to wage war or even to 

 try to enforce the laws. Thtse whisky-loving 

 millionaires have got into politics as a matter 

 of course. They have intrenched themselves 

 and fortified themselves through all the ave- 

 nues of the nation. They have their agents 

 and "missionaries" (?) m all lines of busi- 

 ness. They are getting into our schools just 

 as fast and as far as 'hey can, and they are 

 doing the same with our Christian churches. 

 Some of our religious periodicals are defend- 

 ing them. Members of churches are persuad- 

 ed to fight the Anti-saloon League, and then 

 their statements are heralded far and wide. 

 Why, if there was not a righteous and just 

 God above, and if we had not his promises in 

 his holy word, we might as well give up and 

 let the liquor-traffic own every thing and man- 

 age every thing. God forbid ! There is a 

 righteous and just God who rules the universe 

 in spite of Satan and all he can bring to bear. 

 Let me digress again a little. 



We take and read the intemperate periodi- 

 cals as well as the temperance and religious 

 papers. Now, the whisky politicians of Ohio 

 do not, of themselves, claim they can muster 

 up more than 30,000 or possibly 40,000 to vote 

 on their side. They have really been snow- 

 ing us under with this limited number, when 

 we have here in Ohio not less than 200,000 

 voters who are members of churches. The 

 reason why this small number prevails over 

 the larger is because Christian people are in- 

 different to matters of state. They are hard- 

 working, busy, peace-loving, and law-abiding 

 people, and sometimes do not even take the 

 trouble to go to the polls and vote at all. God 

 is punishing us for our half-heartedness and 

 for our sins of omission. 



Now, there is just one religious periodical 

 that makes a sort of defense of our President, 

 and I wish to make some extracts right here 

 from the Independent for Feb. 8. The Ittde- 

 pendent first takes up this matter ( of criticising 

 the President) because, as he is a member of 

 the M. E. Church, he can not have the privi- 

 lege of acting according to the dictates of his 

 own conscience in the matter of drinking in- 

 toxicating liquors at public banquets. We 

 will not quarrel with them^at least just now 

 — on this ground. Read the following ex- 

 tract : 



But a more serious charge is made against him by 

 the same persons, who attack him for not banishing 

 liquor, under the canteen law, from the military can- 

 teens. The question was a legal one, whether the law 

 forbade the sale of intoxicating liquors, and, as he 

 was obliged to do, the President referred it to his Con- 

 stitutional legal adviser. Attorney-General Griggs 

 told him the law forbade the employment of soldiers 

 to sell beer, etc., but not of civilians. He was obliged 

 to follow that opinion, or get it reversed by other 

 special advice. Secretary Root is a fine lawj'er, and 

 he told the President the same thing. The lawyers of 

 the Cabinet agreed with Mr. Griggs. That had to end 

 the matter so far as the law was concerned. We do 

 not wonder that the interpretation seemed strange 

 and forced, for it was supposed that it was drawn up 

 to suppress all sale of alcoholic beverages on military 

 premises. But we suspect that there was some chi- 

 canery in the wording of the bill. It forbids, first, 

 that any soldier or enlisted man shall sell intoxicat- 



