The Enterprise

A Moral Issue

Certain pastors down in Dixie are raising cane about Al Smith's chances to be President and are using the prohibition issue as a smoke screen. The words "Rum, Rome and Rebellion" placed in the mouth of a candidate called the plumed knight some years ago, lost that brilliant statesman the presidency. He was not a Catholic but it was believed that his wife was one, although she was not running for office.

The pastors say they have a patriotic right to raise and fight for a moral issue and that prohibition and Rome are moral issues. We have no quarrel with them on these points but we do think their consciences have been asleep a long time. The ten commandments are the basis of moral law and in them lynching, a form of murder, is forbidden. Also the constitution of the United States forbids cruel and unusual punishment to persons charged with crimes, but up to date we have not heard of these pastors getting excited about the custom of burning men, women and children alive down in Dixie.

When the Dyer Bill was being advocated in the U. S. Congress, we did not hear of any district preacher delivering any burning sermons against mob rule. Yet these preachers think the inalienable right of American citizens to get gloriously drunk at his discretion is a great moral issue. The result of this agitation is a disruption of homes, breaking of friendships and the stirring up of sectarian bitterness. It is especially pointed out that Negroes must be kept from liquor. We suppose this unusual interest for the Negro is based on the fear that black men will fail to show up for their daily grind of making bricks without straw.