Judge — December 25, 1920 — page 14: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Reveen P. Stercner, President Grorce | toner, Secretary Pererron Maxwett, Editor Jaues S. Mevcaure, Contribu \. E. Routaver, Treasurer Grast E. Hastnros, fet Editor ng Editor J. A. Watprox, Associate Editor T is coming time to write the obituary of Joy. Less than year ago the Cheering Cup was removed from American life. Now we are told that just as soon as enough Con- gressmen can be intimidated—not a difficult job—the Soothing Weed is also to be extinguished by an amend- ment to the Constitution, Following that and by the same means Sunday Relaxation is to be interred and from the grave is to be resurrected the Sabbath Gloom which was so hideous to all the children and most grown-ups of earlier American generations. No statistics are available, but it is a fair wager that, in the days of Sabbath Gloom, Sunday and Monday showed a higher percentage of suicides than the other days of the week. Certain it is that many a boy and girl took the first steps on the way to hell through the deceits and resort to forbidden (although per- fectly cent) pleasures incited by the stern and stupid re- pressions of what was wrongly labeled God's day. HE way in which Prohibition was sneaked through the State legislatures and Congress and into the Constitution has been an inspiration to further effort by about as mean body of grafters as ever fattened on the purses of credulous church-folk. With Prohibition attained, their source of rev- is gone and it becomes necessary for them to look about me other means of milking a livelihood out of persons with religious beliefs The cunningest of them are aware that anti-Toba nothing like the appeal that was so powerful in getting easy contributions of large and small amounts towards wiping out the saloons. Too many good Christians use tobacco to make its abolition on religious grounds, or asa religious movement, a source of the great revenue employed to lobby Prohibition through. Anti-Tobacco may be all right for the small-fry reformers but the big fellows want something with a stronger religious appeal. In a movement to put the Puritanical Sabbath into the Con- stitution they have found just what they want. It will enlist the crusading spirit, the crusading enthusiasm and—what is more important to the promoters—the crusading generosity of every member of the narrower sects. It may be that the amendment will meet with opposition. So much the better for the grafting gentry. Their jobs will be better and last longer for there is nothing which stimulates the crusader more than opposition. If the amendment should go through with a rush, it will be another feather in the caps of the amenders and make it all the easier for them to get contri- to add still other amendments. The poor old Consti- co has bution tution never dreamed its own possibilities as an income producer. WHAT is everybody's business is nobody's business is 4 maxim which explains the slipping of Prohibition into the Constitution. It is also relied upon the Gloomists to secure the elimination of tobacco and Sunday pleasure from American life. There is no one to organize the opposition to these attacks on personal liberty. Esau-like, the American people is cheated of its birthright through indifference to its value. The paid reformers who make a living out of capitalizing reform are not indifferent. They hold their jobs by exerting a continuous pressure on Congressmen and other legislators They never miss a session of any legislative body or committce which is considering or voting on any measure in which they and those from whom they draw their contributions are inter ested. They and their threats are kept constantly before the eyes of the men you have clected to make your laws. Can you blame Congressmen and other legislators for paying more attention to these persons and their dupes than they do to you? Fou never do anything to protect your personal liberty except stay around home and air your views aimlessly to your limited circle. Yo:; make no contributions to support lobbies in Washington and at the State capitals. Vou don't help to bombard your law-making representatives with letters and telegrams. The reformers do. Y' JU may be wondering what you are going to do about it Individually you can’t do much by permitting everything else to be more important to you than your duty as a citizen. You are kept in complete ignorance of what your legislators are doing in the committees where laws are really made. Your newspapers would be glad to keep you informed if you cared one-tenth as much about such news as vou do about the gossip of baseball players or the latest bulletins telling how much shorter skirts are going to be worn next spring It’s all right though. You are going to get just what you are entitled to. You will realize it some bright Sabbath morning when you wake up with no tobacco to smoke, no Sunday news- paper, no gasoline to be had for your car, no trolleys or trains to take vou to the golf which has been made a crime, nothing but hymns on the victrola and nothing for the kiddies to do but scrap with their parents and one another. You will be permitted, however, to listen to the church bells and go to hear the Rev. Jabez Longface describe the compar: tive pleasures of hell.