The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 12Brann, William Cowper
History
The Complete Works of Brann, the Iconoclast — Volume 12
Brann, William Cowper
Brann, William Cowper, 1855-1898; Essays; Reformers
ago some Grecian goddess would have stolen him. Bro.
Bill couldn't make an ugly face if he tried. If he ever
catches sight of his own personal pulchritude as reflected
in some translucent lake, I much fear that he'll meet with
the fate of Narcissus. Some of you Prohibs don't know
who Narcissus was. Well, he was one of those fellows
whom cold water killed.
I'm no professional anti-Prohibition spouter, and have
been jumped up here without preparation; but it occurs
to me that it requires no careful rehearsal of set orations
before an amorous looking glass, no studied intermingling
of pathos, bathos and blue fire to demolish the Prohibition
fallacy. Liberty is ever won by volunteers; the shackles
of political and religious slavery are forged by the hands
of hirelings. Prohibition cannot withstand the light of
logic, the lessons of experience, nor the crucible of the
commonest kind of common sense.
Milton tells us that the angel Ithuriel found the devil
"squat like a toad," distilling poison in the ear of sleeping
Eve; that he touched the varmint with his spear, and
forthwith Satan resumed his proper shape and fled shrieking
out of Paradise. Prohibition is another evil spirit that
is breeding trouble in man's Eden; but when touched by
the spear-point of legitimate criticism its disguise falls
away, and we see, instead of a harmless toad, a malicious
Meddlesome Mattie stirring up strife and bitterness among
brethren.
Whenever a man opposes the plans of the Prohibs he is
forthwith denounced as an enemy of morality, a slave of
the saloons, a hireling of the Anheuser-Busch Brewing
Association. Well, I had rather be the emissary of the
saloons than the assassin of liberty, the slave of a brewer
than the blind peon of ignorant prejudice, while if morality
consists in attending to my neighbor's business to the neglect
of my own, then I'm ferninst it, first, last and all the
time. As a good German friend of mine once remarked:
"Dot beoples who lives py stones of mine shouldn't trow
some glass houses, haind id?" Who is making money out
of this agitation? The Professional Prohibs. Did you
ever know of one of these gentry making a Prohibition
speech except for filthy lucre--unless he was electioneering
for office or taking subscribers for a cold-water
journal? They are the cattle who are OUT FOR THE STUFF;
they are the mercenaries--the men who pump foul air
through their faces for a fee. Did you ever hear of a
man getting paid for defending the doctrine of personal
liberty? Did you ever see a collection taken up at an
anti-prohibition meeting to pay some important spouter
for pointing out to the people their political duty? (A
voice: "Nix.") And you never will. These prohibition
orators have the impudence to denounce me as "the peon
of the rum power" while I am fighting the battles of
personal liberty at my own cost, yet not a dad-burned one of
'em will open his head unless paid for his wind-power!
They are "reformers" for revenue only.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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