The Looming Legislative War Over Temperance
A local editor warns that stalling on the anti-saloon 'local option' bill will only lead to future political ruin for state lawmakers.
The senate had the grace to greet the local option bill, but this temporary victory will only be storing up trouble against a future day of reckoning. If the anti-saloon bill has unreasonable or unfair features, they can be eliminated. But the people are not in the mood for a bill drawn by the Royal Arch, and the haste with which some politicians of national prominence seek to get out of the wet should be a lesson to state legislators who have no great desire for the prefix 'ex' before their official title.
“The haste with which some politicians of national prominence seek to get out of the wet should be a lesson to state legislators who have no great desire for the prefix 'ex' before their official title.”
This reflects the massive cultural shift that eventually led to the 18th Amendment. Much like today's polarized political discourse, the 'wet' vs 'dry' conflict forced politicians to weigh intense lobbying against the shifting moral priorities of their local constituencies.
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