Prohibition censorship is one of these specious pretexts; but censorship invariably arrogates to itself the prerogatives of monarchy and the exactions of martial law. Government of an Emperor is as well as government by unreasoning, tyrannous =majority=. In government, middle ground is rarely found, and if it is, it is only for a temporary period and for reasons of expediency: it; is a question of republic or empire, freedom or slavery, liberty or despotism, the life or death of the people! Censorship by =the majority=--as to what the individual shall eat, or drink, or wear, or religiously or irreligiously do or observe--is as hateful to the genuine American citizen as would be the censorship of =a Czar=! Censorship is dictatorial and despotic: it overrides American law and American ideals; it is the rule of =a suzerainty= in place of =fundamental government=: it claims to be acting =under= government, but it is actually acting =above= government. Censorship is not =freedom=; the very word itself precludes the view: censorship is =slavery=, intensified or modified; it is the same thing whether it be under American rulers or the Great Khan of Tartary. Prohibition censorship is only the =beginning=: it is not the end. Beneath it all, lie the claws of the tiger--the claws of fanatical bigotry and misrule--and ultimately, if not checked, the whole American people =will feel those claws=. =But then: IT WOULD BE TOO LATE!= Long ago John Quincy Adams sounded a timely warning. He said: "Forget not, I pray you, the right of personal freedom: =self-government is the foundation of all our political and social institutions=. Seek not to enforce upon your brother =by legislative enactment= the virtue that he can possess =only= by the =dictates of his own= conscience =and the energy of his will=." In conclusion: John Stuart Mill is right, when he says Prohibition is "so monstrous a principle" as to be "far more dangerous than any single interference with liberty"; a principle that there is "=no violation of liberty which it would not justify=." All religious despotism commences by combination and influence, and as well-said by Col. Richard M. Johnson in his memorable U. S. Senate Report of 1829, "when that influence begins to operate upon the political institutions of a country the civil power soon bends under it; and the catastrophe of other nations furnishes an awful warning of the consequence." Will the people of this great nation listen to the siren voice of this modern destroyer of personal freedom, and cutting loose from ancient moorings, turn back to the hateful paths of despotism? Will the republic deny the sacred principles of religious and personal liberty, whose first purchase-price was the blood of the minutemen of Lexington? Or, like a political rock of Gibraltar, stand fast upon the fundamental principles of its being, continuing to safeguard and maintain the constitutional guaranties of all its citizens?