Biblical Recorder
RALEIGH, N. C, WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18. 1903.
JOSIAH WILLIAM BAILEY, Editor.
PACINO THE ISSUE.
The people of every town and city of North
Carolina that licenses the saloon will now be put
to the test. Under the terms of the Watts act
an election may be called at any time save within
ninety days of another local or general election.
In many of our towns there will be local elec
tions for town officers, etc. It is too late to
have an election before May. But in August, Sep
tember, October, November, or in any of the sev
eral months following, elections may be held. It
,is not too soon to begin preparations for elec
tions, even though they will not occur until Au
gust or later.
Not to call for an election is to surrender in
abject acknowledgement of weakness of heart
or of power. The issue is before the people, and
the moral forces must give battle or strike their
colors in surrender.
There are a number of things to be said. We
shall offer here some suggestions, and we invite
others to use these columns for the same pur
pose. First, we should have a Temperance Conven
tion and recognize our working forces. The
Convention might offer a broad plan of operation
and provide for the expenses, the literature and
the speakers in the campaign. To this meeting
should come every man that is interested. Up
on its success much would depend. The aggre
gation of our forces would be of inestimable
value in shaping views, in creating opinion, and
in eliciting enthusiasm.
Secondly, we must have strong local organiza
tions. This contest is local in its character,
4tut& general, in its sijrnificance. The fighting
will be hand to hand fighting. Campaign speech
es, newspaper articles, sermons, etc., are indis
pensable; but they must make way for rather
than make way with earnest, intense and reso
lute personal work. We cannot carry these elec
tions with a hip, hip and hurrah. There must
be organization and vehement leadership.
Thirdly, the line of battle must be clearly
drawn. Citizens may differ on the dispensary
question. Doubtless in one place a dispensary
would prove undesirable; in another quite the
only practicable step. Be this as it may in one
town or another, in every contest let this be em
phatically impressed, numely, that the saloon plan
is the worst plan of dealing with the drink evil.
For we are dealing with the drink evil at the
point of the drink supply. We are not to forget
that we have much work to do now and for long
years to come at the point of the victim our
main work will always be at this point but in
these elections we are dealing with the drink
evil at the point of supply. And while there
may be question of the expediency of attempting
to cut off the supply entirely or controlling it by
dispensary, there can be no question that the
saloon is of the three choices the worst, the most
damning. The saloon is destructive. Its ap
petite grows by what it feeds on. It is alluring.
It endeavors to create demand for drink; it en
courages the drink traffic; it aggravates the
drink evil. Moreover, it invades the domain of
politics and attempts to promote or to thwart
legislation. The saloon exists for the benefit
solely of the saloon owner; the dispensary should,
and if properly conducted will, exist with a view
to and a concern for the public welfare. The
saloon is destructive, its trend ia downward; the
dispensary is constructive, its trend is upward.
Send a boy along the street. The saloon reaches
out for him, and allures , him with pictures, with
boon companions, with sweet drinks and with
music. On the other hand the dispensary forbids
him to enter. There is a vast difference.
Then let the forces, divided though they may
be in opinion between prohibition and dispen
sary, fight in solid line of battle against the
saloon. Under the terms of the new law in an
election, the saloons must carry a majority. It
will not greatly matter if the moral forces shall
differ, if they will only vote.
There is another suggestion. On every hand
we may expect to be told that It's no use to vote
the saloons out, you cannot enforce the haw."
Let the moral forces of North Carolina sound
forth this answer, wWe can and will; we are not
going in merely to win a victory at the ballot box,
we are going in to enforce that victory, and if an
officer fails us, we will force him to get out of
the way and give room for one who will." The
same vote that carries an election can compel
officers to do their duty or choose better of
ficers. Once again, the issue confronts us. We have
brought it upon ourselves. We have no one to
blame. Let no one falter now. Bather let us
thank God that we can save our Commonwealth
in our day and generation and hand her down a
nobler and happier land than we found it. There
is a God of Battles; and mightily doth He use
brave men. That God fights on our side.
TOM DIXON ON THE NEORO.
The world never sees anything or knows any
thing until it hears both sides. You can't hush
up a question like this. It is the largest and
most dangerous problem before this nation to
day. The war never settled the negro question.
It only settled 'the Union question. We have
not yet squarely looked the negro problem in the
face. The establishment of the Union on its in
evitable centralized national basis at Appomat
tox, only complicated this negro question and
made it more difficult and dangerous.
You say the negro will be "regenerated, re
deemed and disenthralled." I hope so. He has
my profoundest sympathy and pity. What you
are going to do with them when the millions who
are now humble peasants and servants are ham
strung morally with a smattering of education
and turned loose, I don't know. You are wiser
than I am if you can see the end of it. You
say my book is a libel on the New Testament be
cause the Book declares "God hath made of one
blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face
of the earth" (Acts 17:26). Exactly, but you and
all muddled sentimentalists persist in leaving out
the most important clause in that passage of
Scripture, viz.: "And fixed the bounds of their
habitation." God never meant a negro to bo a
white man or to dwell with white men, but made
a negro a negro and fixed his habitation in the
tropics. One of three things the white South
must do in this century sink to the level of the
negro, raise him to their own level, or remove
him. The negro race will number 60,000,000 in
the United States by the end of this century at
their present rate of increase. I do not say the
negro is a brute. I do say he is 3,000 years be
hind the Caucasian in the evolution of civiliza
tion, and that he cannot be lifted to your level"
within a; thousand years even by inter-marriage.
Will you sink to this level, or will you separate
him from contact with your children? Which
of these three things will you undertake?
Soul, that a thought divine
Bears into heaven, thy first ascent survey I
What charmed thee most on earth is castaway-
To soar is to resign!
Bulwer Lytton.
VOLUME 68, ' NUMBER 37.
ONLY ONE.
Only one May a year,
One mystery
Of bloom, by mount and mere,
Coming to be.
Only one youth a life,
One passionate spring,
Tender, and warm, and rife
With blossoming.
Only one dawn of love,
Apocalypse,
Lifting the soul above
Its self-eclipse.
And May and youth may fly:
If love remain,
Joy will be always by,
And frost be gain.
THE flAN OF NAZARETH.
See how the Man of Nazareth has consecrated
the commonest things ; transfiguring water into
baptism, eating and drinking into holy commun
ion, society into church, cross into brooch. In
sum, we see how the Lamb of Calvary is reorgan
izing human chaos, reversing human instincts,
revolutionizing human tendencies, marshalling
human powers, disclosing human potentialities,
celestializing human character, uprearing the
temple of the New Humanity. Jesus, the Christ,
is the Universal Seminary at which mankind is
evermore learning. He is the contemporary of
all ages; the water-shed of humanity, all yonder
side of him flowing into oblivion, all this side of
him flqwing into immortality himself the
Lever to uplift the earth,
And roll it in another course.
From the "Problem of Jesus," by Geo. Dana
Boardman.
The Fight Against Disease.
Mr. John D. Rockefeller ha3 offered to place
the huge sum of several millions at the disposal of
Rush College, the medical department of -the
University of Chicago, for the study of conta
gious diseases, especially tuberculosis. It is gener
ally understood that Mr. Rockefeller's interest
was aroused in these investigations because of the
death of a grandchild about a year ago from scar
let fever, and he formed the purpose of providing
experts with the resources for discovering and
combating the germs of these diseases. The
practical object of these researches will be the
discovery of a serum that will be as satisfactory
a specific for other diseases as antitoxin has
proved to be for diphtheria. The desired discov
ery of course may be made by a country physi
cian, working with the meagerest equipment, and
Mr. Rockefeller's millions afford no stable guar
antee that it will be made in Chicago by profes
sors who are working with every appliance. The
discovery, if it is ever made, will be the achieve
ment of some genius. But this endowment will
provide every material aid to the work of a genius,
if he happens to be able to avail himself of its
assistance. The Watchman.
nail to the coming singers;
Hail to the brave light bringera;
Forward I reach and share , , ,
All that they sing and dare.
I feel the earth move forward,
I join the great march onward,
And take, by faith,, while living,
My freehold of thanksgiving.
ill