LICENSE A FAILURE AND A DISGRACE.
For over two hundred years in this country, and for a much longer period
of time in Great Britain and some of the countries of Continental
Europe, attempts have been made to protect the people against the evils
of intemperance by restrictive liquor laws. But as these laws were
permissive and not prohibitory, the evil was not restrained. Nay, its
larger growth came as the natural consequence of such laws, for they not
only gave to a few men in every community the right to live and grow
rich by doing all in their power to increase the evil, but threw around
them the protection of the State; so leaving the people powerless in
their hands.
HISTORY OF LICENSE IN MASSACHUSETTS.
The history of all restrictive laws which have stopped short of absolute
prohibition, is a history of the saddest of failures, and shows that to
license an evil is to increase its power.
Judge Robert C. Pitman, in his "Alcohol and the State," an exceedingly
valuable discussion of the "Problem of Law as Applied to the Liquor
Traffic," gives an instructive history of the license laws of
Massachusetts from early colonial times down to the year 1877. The
experience of Massachusetts is that of every other community, State or
nation, which has sought to repress drunkenness and its attendant evils
by the enactment of license laws; and we ask the reader's earnest and
candid consideration of the facts we shall here present.
As early as 1636, an effort was made in the Old Colony to lessen
intemperance by the passage of a restrictive law, declaring "That none
be suffered to retail wine, strong water or beer, either within doors or
without, except in inns or victualing-houses allowed." That this law did
not lessen the evil of drunkenness is plain from the fact that, in 1646,
in the preamble to a new liquor law it was declared by the Massachusetts
colony that, "Forasmuch as drunkenness is a vice to be abhorred of all
nations, especially of those who hold out and profess the Gospel of
Christ, and seeing _any strict law will not prevail unless the cause be
taken away_, it is, therefore, ordered by this Court,"--What? Entire
prohibition of the sale of intoxicating drinks? No. Only, "That no
merchant, cooper or any other person whatever, shall, after the first
day of the first month, sell any wine under one-quarter of a cask,
neither by quart, gallon or any other measure, _but only such taverners
as are licensed to sell by the gallon_." And in order still further to
protect and encourage the publican in his Tested and exclusive right, it
was further enacted that, "Any _taverners_ or other persons who shall
inform against any transgressor, shall have one-half of the fines for
his _encouragement_." This law contained a section which forbids any
person licensed "to sell strong waters, or any private housekeeper to
permit any person to sit drinking or tippling strong waters, wine or
strong beer in their houses."
THE EVIL STILL INCREASING.
Still the evil of drunkenness went on increasing under the license
system, until in 1692, we find in a preamble to certain more stringent
laws for the regulation of the traffic, this sad confession: "And
forasmuch as the ancient, true and principal use of inns, taverns,
ale-houses, victualing-houses and other houses for common entertainment
is for receipt, relief and lodging of travelers and strangers, and the
refreshment of persons on lawful business. * * * And not for
entertainment and harboring of lewd or idle people to spend or consume
their time or money there; therefore, _to prevent the mischief and great
disorders happening daily by abuse of such houses_, It is further
enacted," etc.--not prohibition of the sale; but further restrictions
and penalties. How far these restrictions and penalties were effective,
appears from the statue of 1695, in the preamble of which is a complaint
that divers persons who had obtained license to sell liquor to be taken
away and not drunk in their houses, did, notwithstanding, "give
entertainment to persons to sit drinking and tippling there," while
others who "_have no license at all_ are yet so hardy as to run upon the
law," to the "great increase of drunkenness and other debaucheries."
These colonial fathers, in their efforts to lessen the evil of drinking
by restrictive license, for which a fee to the State was required,
opened a door for the unlicensed dram-shop, which was then, as it is
now, one of the worst forms of the liquor traffic, because it is in the
hands of more unscrupulous persons, too many of whom are of the lowest
and vilest class, and whose tippling-houses are dens of crime and infamy
as well as drunkenness.
How this was in the colony of Massachusetts under license in 1695 is
seen above, and further appears in this recital taken from the statute
to further limit the spread of drunkenness, wherein it refers to "divers
_ill-disposed and indigent persons, the pains and penalties in the laws
already made not regarding,_ who are so hardy _as to presume to sell and
retail_ strong beer, ale, cider, sherry wine, rum or other strong
liquors or mixed drinks, and _to keep common tippling-houses_, thereby
harboring and entertaining apprentices, Indians, negroes and other idle
and dissolute persons, tending to the ruin and impoverishment of
families, and all impieties and debaucheries, and _if detected are
unable to pay their fine_." All such were sentenced to the
whipping-post.
Three years later, the curse of the licensed traffic had so augmented
that another effort was made for its regulation by the enactment of a
new and more comprehensive law entitled, "An Act for the Inspecting and
_Suppressing of Disorders_ in Licensed Houses."
WORSE AND WORSE.
How successful the good people of Massachusetts were in holding in check
and regulating the evil which they had clothed with power by license,
appears in the preamble to a new Act passed in 1711, "For reclaiming the
over great number of licensed houses, many of which are chiefly used for
revelling and tippling, and become _nurseries of intemperance and
debauchery_, indulged by the masters and keepers of the same for the
sake of gain."
So it went on, from bad to worse, under the Colonial Government, until
1787, when the State constitution was adopted. To what a frightful
magnitude the evil of drunkenness, provided for and fostered by license,
had grown, appears from an entry in the diary of John Adams, under date
of February 29th, 1760, in which he says that few things were "so
fruitful of destructive evils" as "licensed houses." They had become, he
declares, "the eternal haunts of loose, disorderly people of the town,
which renders them offensive and unfit for the entertainment of any
traveler of the least delicacy." * * * "Young people are tempted to
waste their time and money, and to acquire habits of intemperance and
idleness, that we often see reduce many to beggary and vice, and lead
some of them, at least, to prison and the gallows."
In entering upon her career as a State, Massachusetts continued the
license system, laying upon it many prudent restrictions, all of which
were of no avail, for the testimony is complete as to the steady
increase of drunkenness, crime and debauchery.
TESTIMONY OF JOHN ADAMS.
Writing to Mr. Rush, in 1811, John Adams says: "Fifty-three years ago I
was fired with a zeal, amounting to enthusiasm, against ardent spirits,
the multiplication of taverns, retailers, dram-shops and
tippling-houses. Grieved to the heart to see the number of idlers,
thieves, sots and consumptive patients made for the physicians in these
infamous seminaries, I applied to the Court of Sessions, procured a
Committee of Inspection and Inquiry, reduced the number of licensed
houses, etc., _but I only acquired the reputation of a hypocrite and an
ambitious demagogue by it_. The number of licensed houses was soon
reinstated; drams, grog and sotting were not diminished, _and remain to
this day as deplorable as ever_."
OPENING A WIDER DOOR.
In 1816, so demoralized had the sentiment of the people become, and so
strong the liquor interest of the State, that the saving provision in
the license laws, which limited the sale of liquor to inns and taverns,
was repealed, and licenses were granted to common victualers, "who shall
not be required to furnish accommodations" for travelers; and also to
confectioners on the same terms as to inn-keepers; that is, to sell and
to be drunk on the premises. This change in the license laws of
Massachusetts was declared, by Judge Aldrich, in 1867, to be "one of the
most fruitful sources of crime and vice that ever existed in this
Commonwealth."
Up to as late as 1832, attempts were continued to patch up and amend the
license laws of the State; after that they were left, for a time, to do
their evil work, all efforts to make them anything but promoters of
drunkenness, crime and poverty being regarded as fruitless.
"Miserable in principle," says Judge Pitman, "license laws were found no
less inefficient in practice." Meantime, the battle against the liquor
traffic had been going on in various parts of the State. In 1835, a law
was secured by which the office of county commissioner (the licensing
authority) was made an elective office; heretofore it had been held by
appointment. This gave the people of each county a local control over
the liquor question, and in the very first year the counties of Plymouth
and Bristol elected boards committed to the policy of no license. Other
counties followed this good example; and to bar all questions of the
right to refuse every license by a county, the power was expressly
conferred by a law passed in 1837.
A CHANGE FOR THE BETTER.
The good results were immediately apparent in all places where license
to sell intoxicating drinks was refused. After a thorough investigation
of the matter, the Judiciary Committee of the Legislature reported the
evidence to be "perfectly incontrovertable, that the good order and the
physical and moral welfare of the community had been promoted by
refusing to license the sale of ardent spirits; and that although the
laws have been and are violated to some extent in different places, the
practice soon becomes disreputable and hides itself from the public eye
by shrinking into obscure and dark places; that noisy and tumultuous
assemblies in the streets and public quarrels cease where license is
refused; _and that pauperism has very rapidly diminished from the same
cause_."
An attempt to prohibit entirely the retail liquor traffic was made in
1838, by the passage of what was known as the "Fifteen-Gallon Law,"
which forbade the sale of spirituous liquors in a less quantity than
fifteen gallons, which had to be "carried away all at one time;" except
by apothecaries and practicing physicians, who might sell for use in the
arts and for medicinal purposes.
But this law remained in operation only a year and a half; when, in
concession to the liquor interest of the State, which had been strong
enough to precipitate a political revolution and get its own men in the
legislature, it was repealed.
"But the State," says Judge Pitman, "while the memory of license was
fresh, was not to fall again under its sway. The struggle for local
prohibition was at once renewed, and in a few years license had ceased
throughout the Commonwealth. The statement may surprise many; but I have
the authority of the city clerk of Boston for saying, that 'no licenses
for the sale of intoxicating liquors were granted in Boston between 1841
and 1852.' * * * And so the chapter of license was apparently closed. It
had not only had its 'day,' but its centuries in court; and the
well-nigh unanimous verdict was: '_disgrace_--_failure_'"
So strong was this conviction in the minds of the people of
Massachusetts, that Governor Bullock, in 1861, while acting as chairman
of the Judiciary Committee of the House, gave it expression in these
notable words: "It may be taken as the solemnly declared, judgment of
the people of the Commonwealth, that the principle of licensing the
traffic in intoxicating drinks as a beverage, _and thus giving legal
sanction to that which is regarded in itself as an evil, is no longer
admissible in morals or in legislation_"
THE LIQUOR POWER IN THE ASCENDANT AGAIN.
But in 1868, adverse influences prevailed, and after all her sad and
disgraceful experience, Massachusetts abandoned her prohibition of the
traffic and went back to license again; but the evil consequences began
to show themselves so quickly that the law was repealed in less than a
year.
Governor Claflin, in his message to the legislature in January, 1869,
thus speaks of the effect of the new license law: "The increase of
drunkenness and crime during the last six months, as compared with the
same period of 1867, is very marked and decisive as to the operation of
the law. _The State prisons, jails and houses of correction are being
rapidly filled_, and will soon require enlarged accommodation if the
commitments continue to increase as they have since the present law went
in force."
While the chaplain of the State prison in his annual report for 1868,
says: "The prison never was so full as at the present time. If the
rapidly increasing tide of intemperance, so greatly swollen by the
present wretched license law, is suffered to rush on unchecked, there
will be a fearful increase of crime, and the State must soon extend the
limits of the prison, or create another."
This law was repealed, as we have seen. A year of its bitter fruit was
enough for the people.
SUBMITTING AGAIN TO THE YOKE.
But, strange to say, after all she has suffered from license laws, the
old Bay State has again submitted to the yoke, and is once more in the
hands of the great liquor interest. In 1874, she drifted out from the
safe harbor of prohibition, and we find her, to-day, on the stormy and
storm-wrecked sea of license. A miserable attempt has been made by the
friends of this law to show that its action has been salutory in Boston,
the headquarters of the liquor power, in the diminution of dram-shops
and arrests for drunkenness. Water may run up hill in Boston; but it
obeys the law of gravitation in other places. We leave the reader to
draw his own conclusions from this extract from the report of the
License Commissioners of that city, made February 1st, 1877: "It must be
admitted that the business of liquor-selling in this city is, to a very
large extent, in the hands of _irresponsible men and women_, whose idea
of a license law ends with the simple matter of paying a certain sum,
the amount making but little difference to them, _provided they are left
to do as they please after payment_. Besides the saloons and bar-rooms,
which are open publicly, the traffic in small grocery stores, in cellars
and in dwelling-houses, in some parts of the city, _is almost
astounding. The Sunday trade is enormous, and it seems as if there were
not hours enough in the whole round of twenty-four, or days enough in
the entire week to satisfy the dealers_."
The experience of Massachusetts is, as we have already said, the
experience of every community, State or nation in which an effort has
been made to abridge the evils of intemperance by licensing the
dram-shop.
And to whom and to what class of citizens does the State accord, under
license, the privilege of making gain out of the people's loss? For
whom is every interest in the nation taxed and every industry hurt? For
whom are the houses of the poor made poorer; and the supply of bread
diminished? For whom are a crime-assaulted and pauper-ridden people
driven to build jails and poor-houses, and insane asylums, and maintain
courts and juries and a vast army of police, at the cost of millions of
dollars every year?
For great benefactors to whom the nation owes a debt of gratitude? For
men who are engaged in great industrial or commercial enterprises?
Promoters of education? leaders in the great march of civilization? Even
if this were so, better not to have accepted the service than pay for it
at so fearful a cost.
Who and what are these men?--this great privileged class? Let us see. In
Boston, we have the testimony of the License Commissioners that
liquor-selling is in the hands of "irresponsible men and women," who pay
a license for the privilege of doing "as they please after payment." And
for the maintenance of these "irresponsible" men and women in their
right to corrupt and degrade the people, a forced tax is laid on every
bit of property and every interest in the great city of Boston! What was
the tax on tea to this? And yet, Boston patiently submits!
Is it better in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Chicago
or any other of our large cities? Not a whit! In some it is worse,
even, than in the capital of the old Bay State. In one of these
last-mentioned cities, where, under the license system so dear to
politicians, and for which they are chiefly responsible, between seven
and eight thousand places in which liquor is sold at retail exist, an
effort was made in 1876 to ascertain the character and antecedents of
every person engaged in dram-selling. We are not able to say how
carefully or thoroughly the investigation was pursued, but it was in the
hands of those who meant that it should be complete and accurate. One
fact elicited was, that the proportion of native-born citizens to the
whole number engaged in the business was less than one-sixth. Another
was, that over six thousand of these dram-sellers belonged to the
criminal class, and had suffered imprisonment, some for extended terms
in the State prison. And another was, that nearly four thousand of the
drinking-places which had been established under the fostering care of
State license laws were houses of ill-fame as well! Comment is
unnecessary.
We cannot lessen the evil nor abate the curse of drunkenness so long as
we license a traffic, which, from its essential hostility to all the
best interests of society, naturally falls into the hands of our worst
citizens, who persistently violate every salutory and restrictive
feature in the laws which give their trade a recognized existence.
What then? Is there any remedy short of Prohibition? We believe not.