The Temperance Debate Stirs King County Republicans
A local party platform faces internal friction as voters demand a clearer stance on the moral regulation of liquor sales.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The plank in the Republican platform of King County, adopted yesterday, will not be satisfactory to the temperance element of the party. While the present local option law is in many respects faulty, still there is no doubt that the majority of the voters of the Territory and of King County are in favor of a law that will allow each community to say whether it will permit the sale of liquors therein. The resolution on this question expresses nothing. One who opposes the local option law will decide at once that it has been given a fair trial and found wanting. An advocate of it will say it has either worked well or has not yet been given a fair trial. Men who may be elected to the Legislature will entertain similar views, and nothing in this resolution forbids them voting in that body to repeal the law, if in their own judgment it is not satisfactory. In my own opinion it would have been better to say nothing on this question than to send out to the world an utterance that may be construed according to the individual judgment of each voter.
“One who opposes the local option law will decide at once that it has been given a fair trial and found wanting.”
Long before Washington went dry in 1916, debates over 'local option'—giving cities the power to ban alcohol—dominated local politics. This early tension highlights the recurring difficulty of political parties attempting to maintain a 'big tent' while their base demands firm ideological commitments on social issues.
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