70G> LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. ( •iiai)..L?.(^€opyriglit No. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. PRICE. 20 CENTS. By Rev. Wallace R. Struble. A JAB AT THE DEVIL AN ARGUMENT FOR A CHRISTIAN POLITICAL PARTY REV. WAIvIvACE R. STRUBLE (Evangelist) COLON, MICH. V THE EXPRESS 1S95 ■5n Copyright, 1895 By WAI.LACE R. Struble Colon, Mich. p SOME OF THE JABS. A HufFj Preacher 12 A New Political Part.v - - - - - 8 A Political Eunuch 17 A Racket Needed - ~ > . . . iq Bangr! - - ----- 16 BeelzebuVs Fleas - - - - • . - 15 National Christian Ticket - - - - 11 Picture of a Fool 14 The American Duke ----- 22 The Foolest Fool 21 The Goats - - - - - - - 20 The Old Soldier - - - . . -is The Political Devil 15 The Spineless Ang-el - - - - - 12 Volleyinof an Ass 17 A TWANG OF THE BOWSTRING S> Christ hath no concord with Belial. Hence, Christ- ianity in its personal application means that its possessor is a christian, and that is as much as to say that he can be trusted by both God and man. He may be elected to pub- lic office and he will regard it as a sacred trust ; he will not backslide when he goes to congress. He may be given the custody of houses and estates, and he will not make him- self the chief beneficiary of his opportunity. As an em- ployer of labor he will not Mottstreet the masses and Fifth- avenue himself. The world demands one of two things of Christianity— that it put its homiletics into practice or yield up the ghost. WtHEX YOU arrow the Folitical Devil you puncture I the most vindictive imp outside of headquarters. ^^__^_^__^_^.| He may wear a Presbyterian dress-coat, an Epis- copalian gown, or a Methodist business suit, but when he is 16 A JAB AT THE DEVIL hit you will see his tail wiggle and hear his hoofs and teeth Castanet in symphony. The point of this "Jab" will likely enow spear something, and when you hear it howl, whether in the republican or democratic language, you may conclude that its political epidermis has been knifed, and that's what's the matter with that demon. I do not mean to charge that a man may not have been a christian and been a democrat or a republican, but I pur- pose to declare that it is now beyond the pale of possibility for any good christian (hearing with his ears, see- ing with his eyes and thinking with his brain) to A be a good democrat or a good republican. That Sweeping is plain talk, is it not ? You may slam this book Charge. down at this point and brand its author as a fool or a bigot, but that will only be evidence of your unchris- tian impatience. Better read it through with care and then re-read it and ponder and pray thereover. Remember, 1 am now particularly addressing the christian ; for 1 do not deny that a sinner may with consistency be a good repub- lican or a good democrat — in fact 1 am not able to per- ceive just how he can truthfully claim to be an expert, fin- ished and polished sinner without being a rep. or dem. — but ( returning to our christian) 1 declare with all my heart that the only possible way for a man to be a good christian and a good republican or democrat is to be born with stra- bismus of the thinker and softening of the ears and roar- ing of the eyes. Bang ! What was that ? C^h ! that was Mr. Methodist McKinley and Mr. Iowa Allison A JAB AT THE DEVIL 17 — they have dropped their books and gone out to play see- saw with Mr. Maine Reed and Mr. Presbyterian Harrison. Returning- to our christian again. 1 am sug- Revenons gested by a meek-eyed brother at my elbow that A NOS I should make allowance for the weaknesses of MOUTONS. men and remember the apostle enjoins us that " we have this treasure in earthen vessels." To this sapiency I bow acknowledgement, and beg to assure my brother that I am competent to distinguish between an ass's skin and a clay pot. I promise to be mindful of the pottery, but 1 will not cease to volley the ass. A'**""*}RGU>1EXTS FOR A Christian Political Party will I multiply as we pursue the subject. It will not be l^^^^^^J. practicable to consider them all ; and it will be noticed as we proceed that every argument for a Christian Party is an argument for every christian to leave the ranks of the politicians and enlist under the banner of Decency. I believe that a political party is impotent and worthless unless it stands primarily for morals in government. To my mind clean morals and clean politics are natural allies; hence a political party without one or more moral ques- tions as the foundation and explanation of its existence is to my thought a eunuch in the household of progress. The issues which gave life to the Republican Party were moral issues; they gave to it a force and dignity which no dominant American party before or since has ever possessed. The fact of its moral virility brought to its support the terrific force of the aroused christian conscience of the 18 A JAB AT THE DEVIL North ; it gave to it the prayers of sanctified hearts and the young hot blood of a hundred thousand christian firesides. By this force it conquered in the grandest struggle for the rights of man which the world has ever witnessed. And if it is enshrined in the hearts of veterans, and mothers, and fathers to-day it is because it was the incarna- tion of those principles of right for which The brother bled with brother and friend died with Grand Old friend in the internecine tragedy of '62. It is Party. the vitalizing power of the moral principles of its youth which has carried the Republican Party in remin- iscent grandeur beyond the period of it lawful existence. The politician (synonym for the Devil) understands this fact; hence he will invariably refer, in his florid appeals to the popular ear, to the grandeur, and the glory, and the pathos, and the sacrifice of the past. And the old soldier, and the old soldier's mother, and the old soldier's wife and widow and friends drink in the sirenic strains, and loll and simper and sigh in reminiscence, while the hand of God is writing a new death-warrant upon the horizon and Satan's hosts are entering the citadel of Liberty. Oh ! veterans of Gettysburg and Appomattox, heroes of Vicksburg and Chattanooga, as I look into your scarred faces (radiant with youthful patriotism in '62) and behold now your de- votional dotage, your senile worship at the tireless shrine of party fetichism, this thought transtlxes me, this question travails my soul : — Do you wish us to be driven to the con- clusion that you have lived too long .? — and per consequence to wish that your graves were occupied ? In the saguinary scenes of the past you were not unfamiliar with the com- i A JAB AT THE DEVIL 19 mand, " Bury the dead, for the battle will be on to-mor- row." Issues of moment confront us now. Every live soldier who loves God and his fellow men should be in line for battle. Let the dead be buried. God beckons to more glorious battle-fields. Let not the heroes of '62 be- come the mumbling mendicants of '96, with one eye on party and the other on the pension bureau — a chattering, childish demonstration of how the warriors of one age may become the drivillers of the next, — but let them lead, as they should, in the conflicts of right against wrong in the perillous days that shadow us now. MJORAL ISSUES are the sinews of political strength I and the pledge of political perpetuity ; conse- i^^^J" quently that political party which would present an ever-victorious front to the enemies of humanity must armor itself with righteousness and inspire its soldiery with the love of humanity. 1 believe The Christian Po- litical Party will measure up to this requirement; that its womb will be versatile in moral conception and its soul true in instincts of honesty and mercy. Its conscience will be right upon the whisky question, and the narcotic ques- tion, and the labor question, and the social question, and the kindred tribe of moral questions that jostle for prefer- ment. It will have as its basis the eternal axiom of the Man of Gallilee: "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." It can face all problems not upon the basis of expediency 20 A JAB AT THE DEVIL or policy, but upon the principle of right, which is the true principle of settlement of every question. The organization of this party would call for the separa- tion of Church and Satan. Upon the side of conscience and right should be found every follower of the Lord Jesus Christ and every friend of the religion of the Nazarene ; and I believe that, the number of such will constitute a ma- jority of the suffragists of America. On the opposing side will naturally be found the The Goats thugs, and the thieves, and the bulldozers, and ON the the highwaymen, and the ward strikers, and Left Side. the whisky contingent, and the politicians. No thief, during his thiefship, will wish to affiliate with a party that discounts his worth as a voter and requires hon- esty as a qualification of suffrage. No beer vender will (until he reforms) wish to train with a crowd that neither swallows his swill nor countenances its brewing. This party will welcome recruits upon confession of faith, but it will thank all who have not genuinely repented to march on with the Devil, and the rascals, and the politicians. 0]lT< IHKI8TIAX POLITICAL TARTY proposes I warfare not against the rights of men, but ^^^^^J against the wrongs of men ; it will uphold the magna charta of Liberty but overthrow and despoil the Satanic forgery of License ; it will guarantee every man in the peaceful pursuance of honest, humane occupation, but A JAB AT THE DEVIL . 21 it will oppose evil-doers by moral suasion, enactment, pros- ecution and penalty. It will be maintained that the dominant political parties exemplify these principles. I answer, that is true in theory, but lame in practice ; the dominant political parties are long on platform and promises but short on enactment and enforcement. No political party, coached and captained by politicians, dare administer the statutes against the law- less element of its voting strength. It may cajole, or deceive, or insult, or outrage its respectable, moral and christian constituency (for it knows from experience that the respecta- ble, moral and christian fool is the most easily The deluded fool in the great fool fraternity), but FOOLEST with the bum, and the burglar, and the beer- FOOL. man, and the boss it is dilTerent — it knows that to seriously statute and to execute these will be to harikari itself beyond recovery. The political manager may smile with a " smile that is childlike and bland," but let nobody on that account pick him up for a fool ; for there be two ailments that never affect the party manager, viz., softening of the brain and softening of the conscience. W>E ARE soon to engage in a national campaign tor * the selection of an administration. The pros- 1^^^^^^ pective contestants are training for the race. The issues are the offices; the question at hand is. How to get there, Eli, and get there quickly, and get there with both feet. The ward strikers are practicing on dumb-bells and 22 ^ A JAB AT THE DEVTL bag; the brewer is brewing his campaign bock; the Tivery keeper is varnishing the turnout in which he will whirl the bishop and the whoremonger, the deacon and the gambler side by side to the polls, where, in the interest of "the party,'" the priest and the pimp, the bishop and the bum will vote in identical harmony. Orators are searching the thesaurus of hell for cunning periods for the garnishment of their campaign casuistry, while the Devil, with each hand com- placently on the heads of the dominant parties, says, '* Bless you, my children, bless you," Meanwhile the satanic show goes merrily along on the American political and social stage. Drunken congress- men woo Venus and toast Bacchus in the nation's capitol; millionaire senators strut the corridors of congress and covet life tenure and nobility;* corporation lawyers misrepresent the people and serve their corporate masters in the senate chamber; bank presidents direct the financial policy of the administration and tap the government for gold-bearing- bonds, with millions in commissions as a side-winning. The thousands of distilleries, and breweries, and dram-shops run night and day under government license, and are hard pushed to meet orders for drunkards' souls from the Infer- nal Regions; the army of inebriates goes marching on, bury- ing 100,000 of its number every year and hailing with *" When Secretary Carlisle was in New York several days ago he was approached by a Gotham millionaire with the proposition that the gov- ernment could raise all the money it needs or is likely to need by estab- lishing and selling patents of nobility. The man wasn't joking either. He was in dead earnest. He told Mr. Carlisle that he believed there were more than one hundred men besides himself who would gladly pay *1, 000. (X)0 or more for a title similar to that of Duke in England and the privilege of a lifetime seat without pay in an American House of Lords, which it is a part of his scheme to estjiblish."— The Express. A JAB AT THE DEVIL 23 idiotic laugliter the new recruits who crowd in to replete the ranks. The million -voiced shriek of drunkards' moth- •ers, and wives, and children pierces the sky of Liberty, and echoes back from Freedom's slopes. The narcotic carrion typhoids our viales and watercourses, while the vulture of obscenity spreads its putrescent pinions and darkens the horizon of our youth. The groans of bur- dened artisans, and enslaved laborers, and defrauded farm- ers surge the air, while penury zeros the temperature, and hunger blizzards ten thousand homes. This under the be- nign, the fostering influence of the grand old Republican Party and the glorious old Democratic Party — co-equally the pride of their managers, the politicians, and their mas- ter, the Devil Jf { RISB TO MOVE in the name of God and humanity: i I * in the name of decency and honor ; in the name of i^Jj our country and our hearthstones, that we at once proceed to hive the Christianity, the conscience, the heart, the manhood of this nation into a political party that will run " Righteousness " to the masthead, and fight for- ever not for place, nor pelf, but for "God, and Home, and Native Land." The hour has struck for the hosts of Israel to come out of Egypt. I call upon every christian of whatever house- hold—whether of Rome, or Luther, or Calvin, or Knox, or Wesley, or Campbell, or Roger Williams— to march out from the bondage of their republican and democratic po- 24 A JAB AT THE DEVFL litical taskmasters, through the Red Sea of purpose, and front face toward the Promised Land. It may be that there will be years of wilderness and wandering. It may be that Amalekites and Jebusites will resist. There will doubtless be Achans who will harlot with the gold, and the silver, and the commerce of greed. But in the end we shall see Gibeon, and the Sun of Righteousness will tarry in the heavens while the armies of God triumph over every foe. I V ^p & t LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 788 993 6