This is the second installment of an ongoing series that will investigate theHoughton Star archives.
If you would like to check out some old issues of the Star, they can be found in the periodicals stacks on the basement level of the Houghton Library. The full college archives, also located on the basement level, are open to the public from 1-4 p.m. every Friday afternoon.
The included on this page was originally published roughly one hundred and one years ago, in the February 15, 1917 issue of the Houghton Star.
No longer is anyone in doubt as to the success of Prohibition. Already has the public-mind with loud acclim and with hand outstretched to heaven declared that Rum shal be no more. And why this extreme confidence?
First—Because of the world-sentiment against it;
Second—The legislative action taken by the governments and states;
Third—Because the right must win;
Not only have the belligerent nations adopted the no Rum propaganda, but other nations are petitioning for its destruction. The world as a unit is awakening, and thinking twice, loses its desire to remain a dupe or to permit others.
This very moment we have twenty-four states who have voted “no liquor,” and besides there is cold, bleak Alaska, and the “islands who lift their frouded palms in air” called Hawaiian. Then too, the District of Columbia has been voted and passed many other bills favorable to the advancement of prohibition. The spirit of America free from Rum is impelling, the victory is sure.
The press is especially intolerant against it. Not many papers are open for the advertisements of the liquor interests. No, their fight is lost!
Alcoholism must go for it is right that it should go. The Supreme Court has decided the constitutionality of the Webb-Kenyon Bill. The people are saying prohibition is right, old John Barleycorn is wrong. “Truth crusht to earth shall rise again.” The eternal heavens stand back of it. Righteousness will ever win. Booze will lose, is losing—nearly lost. And when she is once gone, her hope like Lucifer’s will be no more. Then strike with a hand of fire! Believe as we act, —for “to doubt would be disloyalty, to falter would be sin.”
—G. BEVERLY SHULTZ
