Personal Recollections of Pardee ButlerButler, Pardee
Religion
Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler
Butler, Pardee
Kansas -- History -- 1854-1861
I have spoken freely of the evils wrought by our border troubles; but
now we had to realize that, taking all the men murdered in our early
feuds, and comparing them with the men murdered by strong drink in the
city of Atchison, counting man for man, there have been more men
murdered by strong drink than by all our border troubles. There have
been more women that have had their hearts broken, more children
turned into the streets, more fortunes squandered, in the single city
of Atchison than in all the Kansas war. But there is another point of
comparison. The men who wrestled with each other in that early
conflict verily thought they were right. They may have been mistaken,
but they thought they were in the right; they therefore maintained
their own self-respect. But those who have died in this battle of the
bottles and the beer glasses have lost everything--self-respect,
reputation, honor, everything; and they went to the dogs and their
souls went to perdition.
I have been a somewhat voluminous writer on many subjects now for forty
years, but all this would scarce exceed in amount what I have written in
Kansas newspapers, during a series of years, on the single subject of
temperance. Besides, I spent much time in lecturing, for the welfare of
the church and of the nation was at stake; and yet, what was done by
myself was only a drop in the bucket compared with what went to make up,
year after year, a great agitation. At length the people became so
aroused that the lawmakers at Topeka came to understand that something
must be done in the way of temperance legislation; and they gave us a
local option law. But crafty politicians obtained that cities of the
first and second class should be exempted. This was nothing but mockery.
The cities were the very places where the law was most needed, for men
from the country went into the city and there they encountered their old
enemy, the saloon. And so we kept up the agitation, and demanded that
the saloon should be prohibited throughout the State. At length the
pressure became so great that the politicians understood a second time
that something must be yielded to the popular demand, and they tried
another dodge. They said: "We will give you the privilege to vote an
amendment to the constitution incorporating prohibition into the
constitution of the State." This would at least put off the evil day for
two years, for it would take two years before such an amendment could go
into operation. But here again was seen the usual treachery. The
amendment to be voted on read as follows: "The manufacture and sale of
intoxicating liquors shall be forever prohibited in this State, except
for medical, scientific and mechanical purposes." This was a
stumbling-block laid in the way of feeble-minded Christians, for was not
this an attack on their Christian liberty to use intoxicating wine at
the Lord's table, and would not this be awful? Moreover, it forbade a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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