Personal Recollections of Pardee ButlerButler, Pardee
Religion
Personal Recollections of Pardee Butler
Butler, Pardee
Kansas -- History -- 1854-1861
I have before me his temperance scrap-book, beginning with the
proposed amendment to the State Constitution, March 8, 1879, and
coming up to the time of his death, in which I find fifty-five
newspaper articles written by him, of from one to three columns in
length, presenting, in his own terse, humorous, glowing, vigorous,
convincing way, all sides of this chameleon-hued question; now
analyzing the amendment and the laws to enforce it, turning aside here
to answer the cavil of some carping critic, then to demolish and bury
some blatant political defender of the whisky element; arraigning the
Governor, Senate and House of Representatives for their gingerly
treatment of the great question, and sending a trumpet-call to the
honest, brave, and sincere temperance workers, both men and women,
urging them to greater vigilance and closer compact. These, with
numerous short and pithy articles, added to all his sermons and
lectures on the subject, occupying a much larger space and far more
time, will give an idea of the labor of heart and brain bestowed upon
this one question, during this one decade. We have room in this
chapter for only one short article from his pen, as an example of the
many, indicating how he felt, thought, and wrote during those stirring
years. The title of the article is, "The Prohibition of the Liquor
Traffic, The Constitutional Amendment in Kansas." He says:
This is, perhaps, the first case in which any government
in the world has incorporated into its constitution a
clause prohibiting forever the sale of intoxicating drinks
as a beverage. This is a struggle in which the churches,
the preachers, and the Sunday-schools are arrayed in
mortal antagonism to the saloons and saloon-keepers. Both
parties are instinctively conscious that this is a contest
in which the issue is to kill or be killed. No truce or
peace is possible. 'I will put enmity between thy seed and
her seed.' The people are drawn into one or the other of
these parties by a sort of elective affinity. One class
goes with the churches and the Sunday-schools; another
gravitates to the drinking-house. The one class are swayed
and controlled by the law of love--"Thou shalt love thy
neighbor as thyself;" the other by the principle that
governed Cain--"Am I my brother's keeper?" "Who cares?"
"Let every man look out for himself?" "If a man chooses to
make a beast of himself, it is none of my business."
One of the peculiar things connected with this movement is
the fact that by far the most determined and effective
opposition to this law comes from foreign-born and
naturalized citizens. They have, so to speak, monopolized
the liquor traffic; they are bound together by a kind of
free masonry, and with small regard to whom they vote
with, Democrats or Republicans, they give the whole weight
of their political influence in favor of free liquor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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