Prohibition

Prohibition BY DR. JOSEPH M. TANNER _ Prohibition is really intrenching itself in many states of the Union, and is reasonably certain to be adopted by the people of Utah. A note of warning, at this time, therefore, may not be altogether out of place. Political parties are not now gathering their forces for conquest. The people are therefore politically sober-minded and free to deliberate on a question that is of far greater importance to them than the political advantages of their party. One of the greatest enemies of prohibition is politics. Where it is made a party question, the party hoping to derive advantages from it, as a plank in its platforms, does everything to make it successful. The party that has been compelled, for whatever reason, to take the opposite view does everything to make its en- forcement a failure. What is still more serious, where prohibition is a party question — one party poisons the minds of all its adher- ents, and especially the younger generation, against the principle of prohibition. If the people of this state could submit the ques- tion of the sale and importation of liquor as a referendum for the people to decide upon, separate and apart from other matters, they would get a truer sentiment and a more solid support for that for which they are now contending so earnestly, as a rule, throughout the state. In some of the eastern states at regular elections there is on the ballot the words ''Prohibition : Yes" and "Prohibition : No." If the majority of the people decide in favor of prohibition, whichever party comes into office carries out the will of the people as expressed at the polls. If, when our political parties meet, they would by resolution agree to submit the question of prohibition as a referendum to the vote of the people, and leave it there without making it a party question, or claiming advantages at the polls as the highest and best champions of prohibition, many difficulties that now lie in the way of the enforcement of that principle would be easily over- come. As a rule, among the number that seek the abolition of the saloon there are three classes — the radicals, the moderates and the so-called indifferents. As a separate question the latter two classes would be perfectly willing to have prohibition, but many, if not a majority of them, would refuse to surrender political ad- vantages to a party against which their prejudices run high, in order to support prohibition. Experience in many eastern cities has shown the wisdom of this course, and it is to be hoped that the people of Utah, in the interests of sobriety and improved morals, will see the wisdom of avoiding every movement which tends to make prohibition a partisan issue in any way.