The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 44, July 1940 - April, 1941 Page: 422
546 p. : ill., maps ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
the dominant passions of the whole mass of citizens;
and when any party seeks to trample underfoot the
rights and liberties of the people, dishonor the consti-
tution and to sacrifice principle for the sake of power,
that party becomes a menace to republican institutions
and should be overthrown at the ballot box.4"
Undoubtedly the hottest imbroglio in which Editor Milner
found himself during the period prior to his entrance into active
politics concerned the question of prohibition. The matter had
been agitated on a small scale in Texas ever since E. L. Dohoney
of Paris secured the adoption of the local option clause in the
Texas Constitution of 1876; and after Miss Frances E. Willard
had spoken in Paris on March 9, 1882, thus making the first
Woman's Christian Temperance Union address ever delivered
in Texas, popular interest grew apace."
As a Jeffersonian Democrat, Milner felt that any effort on
the part of the government to regulate such a personal matter
was an insufferable intrusion upon the inherent rights of com-
mon man. He spoke his mind vigorously in his first extant
editorial. In the issue dated July 21, 1881, the Times emphat-
ically declared:
In founding our government, our fathers guarded
against absolute government, or despotism. This cry
for the government to put down this and to put down
that, to make this law that will deprive a free Ameri-
can citizen of the privilege of doing as he pleases so
long as he does not infringe on the rights of others, is
but another cry for absolutism, or centralism, as you
please. . .. The government has no right to say that
we shall not eat too much, or that we shall not sleep
too much. No man who believes that every American
is free, no man who is the believer in a republican form
of government can support measures that will deprive
the people of any right sanctioned by the Constitution.
It is mere folly to hold out the idea that people can
be legislated into morals. You cannot force people to
do right . . .
People must be taught and educated into morals.
Teach the people that it is degrading to drink liquor.
Teach them that . . . it is every man's duty to make
himself profitable to mankind. . . . Let us teach them
that the man who is deceived by wine is not wise, for
""The Duty of the American Citizen at the Polls," undated clipping in
Mrs. Milner's Scrapbook, p. 35.
"4Clarence R. Wharton, Texas Under Many Flags, 432-433.422
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 44, July 1940 - April, 1941, periodical, 1941; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth146052/m1/473/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.