PROHIBITORY LAWS AND THEIR EFFECTS.
We have now reached a point at which we may properly recur to a
topic already suggested and inquire a little more carefully into the
actual working of the prohibitory laws. On this head we shall confine
ourselves chiefly to the testimony of men who have made the matter a
thorough study, and that not at a distance, but in the very midst of
the operation of such laws, and as Maine is the state which led the
way in the prohibitory movement and has since followed that course
with most persistency, it is proper that it should occupy most of our
attention during the inquiry.
Not long ago a number of the most prominent men of the state, men of
different political parties, wholly above reproach, and especially
fitted by official position or private observation to form a just
opinion in the premises, became so well convinced of the evils of
the present system, and its detrimental effect on the people, as to
unite in an effort for its amendment. Their movement took form in the
presentation by Mr. Fox of Portland, a lawyer of high reputation and a
member of the Legislature, of the following proposed Act:
“_State of Maine, 1879._
“An Act in relation to Cider, Native Wines, Ale, Porter, Lager Beer
and Malt Liquors.
“Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives in
Legislature assembled, as follows:
“Cider, Native Wine, Ale, Porter, Lager Beer and other Malt Liquors,
when pure and unadulterated, shall not be considered intoxicating
liquors within the meaning of the laws of this State.”
The bill was referred to the Committee on Temperance and able arguments
in its favor were made by Gen. Gorham, L. Boynton, Hon. Nathan Webb
and C. G. Yeaton, all men highly respected by the people of the state,
of the strictest integrity, and with no inducement to make other than
an impartial statement. Three gentlemen who have successively held
the office of county attorney of Cumberland county for about fifteen
years past and who are all Republicans, have unanimously testified
against the present prohibition law. They are Gen. Chas. T. Matlock,
C. F. Libby, Esq., and Nathan Webb. Similar views are held by such men
as Gen. W. S. Tilton of Logan Springs, Judge Goddard, postmaster of
Portland, M. P. Frank of Portland, Speaker of the House, Dr. Edw. Dana
and many other influential citizens. No party, however, was willing to
go to the people on this issue and the bill failed to pass, although
there is good reason to hope that when the next attempt is made some
who have previously upheld the present law will have learned to take a
different view. Much new light is constantly thrown on the influence of
the present statute, and can hardly fail to produce an adequate effect.
A minority report of the committee was presented and contains so much
of interest and importance that we cannot do better than to reproduce
it in these pages. Its statements are those of men who understand the
subject of which they treat and are worth a careful reading.
REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON TEMPERANCE, OF THE FIFTY-EIGHTH
LEGISLATURE OF MAINE, 1879.
“The Committee on Temperance have listened to the able and exhaustive
arguments presented on both sides of the matter in hearing, and the
minority of said committee respectfully present their views in dissent
from the report of the majority. The law regulating the sale of
intoxicating liquors, commonly known as the prohibitory liquor law has
had a trial of more than a quarter of a century. Its severity has no
parallel in the laws of any other civilized country. Although enforced
with all the power of the state, court records show that the number of
prosecutions and convictions is increasing, at great expense to the tax
payers. Country towns pay their share for the enforcement of this law
in cities without corresponding benefit to themselves. The cost of its
execution is a burden on an over-taxed people. A detailed statement
which is hereto annexed shows the cost for officers to enforce the law.”
The details are here omitted but “the total reaches the enormous amount
of $220,000. The records of the Insane Hospital show a gradual increase
of patients caused by excessive use of intoxicating liquors. At the
present time that institution has nearly double the number of inmates
from that cause alone, which it had when the present prohibitory
law was enacted. While the law, with singular inconsistency, does
not recognize pure and beneficial kinds of intoxicating liquors as
property when intended for sale by other than city or town agencies,
and makes no distinction between the sale of adulterated liquors and
pure liquors, it authorizes their indiscriminate sale in numerous city
and town agencies. Liquor-drinking is not done openly to so great an
extent but the consumption is as large. It is notorious that quantities
of strong liquors have for years been transported into the state from
the Provinces, and especially from Massachusetts, which has drained us
of millions of dollars which might have been kept at home under liberal
laws. Liquor runners from New York and Boston penetrate every nook and
corner of our state to rob our people and eat out their substance.
Liquors are also imported in bond, and under the protection of the
Federal Government they cannot be seized in bulk. They are consumed in
families and in club-rooms which have been organized in large towns
and cities, under that most dangerous guise of social drinking. The
liquor agencies authorized by law have vended in some years more than a
hundred thousand dollars worth of liquors for medicinal, mechanical and
manufacturing purposes only, as is supposed. We consider these liquor
agencies as leeches upon the people. The question is whether a law,
the severity of which is without example, having failed to accomplish
the ends for which it was designed, according to experience and the
testimony of officials serving under it, who with singular unanimity
give their verdict against it, ought to be so amended that cider,
native wines, ale, porter and particularly lager beer, shall not be
considered within the meaning of the statute.
“History shows that every nation has its peculiar stimulants in
stronger or milder forms. Men crave stimulant. It is an undeniable
fact, both in the light of history and experience, that in countries
like Germany, France, etc., whose climate is not unlike ours,
drunkenness is known scarcely more than the strong liquors which cause
it. Cheap light wines and nutritious malt beverages supersede strong
drink. Everybody uses them at his meals and as a common beverage. The
people of those countries are among the healthiest, happiest, most
prosperous and temperate on the face of the globe. We appeal to the
wisdom of this Legislature and the consideration of the people whether
it would not promote the cause of temperance and the material welfare
of our state to give the amendment proposed a fair trial. It would
tend to promote harmony by removing an irritating and festering sore
from our politics. Good citizens without distinctions of party view
with alarm the inroads that this law in its operation is working upon
our social and material interest, driving away business, depreciating
real estate, shackling enterprise, cheating labor, increasing taxes,
educating intolerance and hypocrisy, influencing elections and
encouraging bribery and perjury and the clandestine compounding, sale
and use of poisonous liquors.”
DARIUS H. INGRAHAM of Portland.
GORHAM L. BOYNTON of Bangor.
F. B. FARREL of Van Buren.
ARTHUR MOORE of Machiasport.
This is the statement of men whose characters stand so high as to give
great weight to their opinion and leave nothing to be objected to their
statement of fact.
Again, Governor Garcelon is not a man to make hasty or unfounded
statements in an important matter and he has been for many years
an eminent physician of large practice and a close observer of the
habits of the people. But read this summary of an address delivered
by him before the Maine temperance convention: “He called attention
to various kinds of intemperance, which have generally escaped the
notice of reformers in that state. He spoke of the use of tobacco as an
increasing evil, especially among the young, and said that in addition
to chewing and smoking, snuff-dipping was becoming prevalent, a fact of
which many are ignorant and which excites surprise. The use of opiates,
Governor Garcelon remarked, had increased to an alarming extent. Many
a man, he said, had appeared upon the stand advocating temperance,
who had in his pocket a bottle of laudanum or black drops, which pave
the way to an early grave. The ladies carry chloroform and ether to
moisten the handkerchief with which to allay nervous excitement. As a
practicing physician and observer of human nature, he placed all these
forms of intemperance in the same category with the intemperate use of
spirituous liquors, all of which demand correction. Is the change from
the intoxicating liquors to opium an improvement? Governor Garcelon
has, undoubtedly, done the people a timely service by directing
attention to this and other evils, and if followed up it will be found
that the ‘Maine Law’ has not been the grand instrument of reform which
it is claimed to be.”
At a convention held at Bangor, Me., July 1, 1879, a resolution
in favor of local option was presented by Mr. Charles F. Swett, a
considerable part of whose speech is here reproduced, as it deals in
facts of great importance to the present discussion:
“In supporting this measure, I wish to distinctly define my position.
I am a practical temperance man; a total abstainer. I have belonged,
and do now belong, to every temperance organization in the state
of Maine, except the Reform Club. I have had much experience in
endeavoring to ‘reclaim the fallen and save others from falling,’ and
I therefore claim to be as conversant with the practical workings of
our prohibitory law as any man in this hall, and I declare, from my
experience, that that law, so far as it contributes to lessening the
evils of intemperance, is a complete failure, and a costly one to the
people of this state. * * * In Cumberland county there are four deputy
sheriffs, whose business it is to enforce the liquor law. These men
get from $7,000 to $9,000 per year for their services. Of course they
never reform a drunkard, but they can afford to contribute $3,000 a
year towards the campaign fund—and they do—and the people furnish the
money. Every liquor-seller thrown into jail for sixty days pays the
high sheriff a profit of $1.50 per week. When there is an average of
say fifty of these cases his profits will be $4,000 per year, from this
source alone. The people furnish the money, and the sheriff ‘comes down
handsomely’ for the campaign fund. True, there are no men reformed, but
the party gets the ‘sinews of war.’ And so it is all over the state.
“The cost of the execution of the prohibitory law is a burden upon
our over-taxed people. The report of the temperance committee of our
last Legislature showed that although the ‘law was enforced with
all the power of the state,’ court records prove that the number of
prosecutions is annually increasing, at great expense to the tax
payers. From June 1, 1877, to June 1, 1878, the cost of enforcing
the prohibitory law, in Cumberland county alone, reached $28,000. In
the same ratio, applied to the population of the whole state, the
cost reaches the enormous sum of $220,000, annually. But we would not
complain of the expenditure even of this vast sum if the results were,
in any degree satisfactory. But they are not. The advocates of the
Maine law make bold claims, but their claims are not substantiated
by the facts. Outside of Maine, and even in the back towns of this
state, remote from the cities, people are given to understand that
liquor is not sold in Maine, and therefore there is less crime here
than formerly. Neal Dow says, ‘We have little crime here because we
have banished its cause.’ Let us look at the facts. In 1851, there
were 87 convicts in the state prison. We had then a population of
584,000, while to-day it is probably 625,000. Last year’s state prison
report shows the number of convicts to be 206, while 69 more were
serving in jail work-shops. So the number of convicts has increased,
_under the prohibitory law_, over threefold, while our population has
remained comparatively the same. Does that speak well for prohibition?
Now, take the city of Portland. In 1856, there were 650 arrests
for drunkenness, in a population of 27,000. In 1876, twenty years
later, with a population of about 30,000, there were 1800 arrests for
drunkenness, and in no year of the last eight has the list fallen
below 1,200. And this under a vigorous enforcement of the prohibitory
law. Does that speak well for prohibition? During last week, over 200
barrels of liquor were brought into Portland, by the various railroads
and steamboats, _for home consumption_. Does that speak well for
prohibition?
“The secret drinking in club-rooms in Portland is threefold that which
formerly took place at open bars, while the traffic outside has been
driven into worse and worse hands every year, until it has, with a
few exceptions, been taken away from respectable men, whose interest
it would be to conduct it with some show of decency, and given into
the undivided management and control of the low and criminal, so that
while ‘the law is enforced with all the power of the state,’ the upper
classes get drunk at the club-rooms, and the lower classes get drunk
at the shops in the slums. Does that speak well for prohibition? The
vilest liquors possible to make are manufactured for the market in this
state, and even our state liquor agent could not, or did not, _keep
pure_ liquors even for medicinal purposes.
“Private club-rooms have multiplied in Portland, under the operation of
the prohibitory law, (there being over 80 in that city at the present
time,) and our young men just starting out in life are exposed to all
the dangers of the drunkard’s life, and no law can stop them. In these
club-rooms, boys who would never go to saloons to get drunk, who would
never learn to gamble were it not for their club-room temptations,
who would, in short, grow up honest and respected citizens, are being
ruined every day. This evil ought to be remedied by prompt and decisive
action. Fathers who love their sons; mothers who pray for their boys;
sisters who mourn over their disgraced brothers; wives who weep over
the wreck of what were once good men and true husbands; citizens who
care for the good name and prosperity of their communities, ought to
labor to shut these accursed gates of hell! Let us commence the good
work by striving to repeal the prohibitory law, which is a positive
detriment to the cause of temperance, an incubus upon the mercantile
interests of Maine, and a curse to the young men of our cities.”
In Massachusetts we have very important testimony to the same effect, a
part of which is very ably and carefully summarized in an article which
we insert here, retaining for convenience a portion at the beginning
which might equally well be placed under a different heading:
“The state Board of Health of Massachusetts, in the Tenth Annual
Report, published in January, 1879, say, under the head of
‘Intemperance’: ‘A more severe public judgment of drunkenness, in
recent times, has undoubtedly tended to very much decrease its
prevalence; and it is generally believed that light German beer is
used more and more each year, at least in our state, to the exclusion
of stronger liquors—_a change which it is of course desirable to
hasten by legislation, so far as that can be done, either by removal
of restrictions on the sale of mild liquors, and heavily taxing the
stronger spirits, or by any other just and proper means_.’ This is the
reiterated public expression of men to whom the state of Massachusetts
has committed the general care for the health of her people. For the
former public utterance of this opinion the chairman of the Board, for
years past, has been most bitterly assailed by prohibitionists; but,
undaunted by these intemperate and abusive attacks, the state Board of
Health confirm the statement of their honest conviction by repeating
the same, and embodying it in an important public document.
“In harmony with this public expression of opinion by the state Board
of Health, appears the action of the Committee on License of the Board
of Aldermen of the city of Boston. In their report of September, 1878,
to the City Council, this committee say: ‘It may be objected that the
committee have been too liberal in their recommendations of the issue
of licenses, but their experience has convinced them that the “lunch
rooms,” established chiefly for the sale of lager beer and edible
refreshments, ought to be regarded as victualing saloons, even if
facilities are not maintained for regular meals, and no cooking is done
on the premises. The committee feel satisfied that the consumption of
lager beer, now so general, tends, in fact, to exclude from sale and
use more ardent spirits, and thereby diminishes crime and pauperism.
It is well known that in the old countries, where beer and light wines
are accessible, without restraint, at a small expense, and are freely
used by all classes of people, cases of intoxication are very rare. The
committee are confident that drunkenness, and consequently pauperism
and crime, will be diminished in this state, if no restrictions were
placed on the sale of lager beer, for it then could be provided at such
a low price as to effectually supersede the use of strong liquors.
They therefore submit for the consideration of the City Council the
following order:
“‘_Ordered_, That his Honor the Mayor be requested to petition the next
Legislature for such amendment of chapter 99 of the statutes of 1875 as
will allow the sale of cider and lager beer without any license being
required therefor.’
“It must be admitted, that in the state of Massachusetts, the liquor
question has been as fully discussed, and the various legal expedients
connected therewith have had as fair and full a trial as in any other
state in the Union. It may therefore be claimed, without presumption,
that to the results there attained, and the opinions there formed, when
coming from official and authentic sources, the careful consideration
of other state governments should be given. Acting from this view, we
draw the attention of the reader to a very instructive report of the
results of an investigation relative to drunkenness and liquor selling
under prohibition and license legislation contained in the Tenth Annual
Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, issued as
a public document in January, 1879. This investigation was undertaken
at the special request of Governor Rice, whose object was to place on
record a statement, as a basis for an intelligent consideration of the
question, of as reliable a character as could be secured by impartial
statistics. These statistics are drawn from official sources, and, as
far as the figures are concerned, are thoroughly reliable.
“The years 1874 and 1877 were selected for comparison, because 1874
represented the last full year under the operation of the prohibitory
law, and 1877 the last full year under the license law. The advantages
resulting from this selection of years, if any, are on the side of the
prohibitory law, because that law, in 1874, had been in operation for a
number of years, while the license law, in 1877, had only been in force
a year and a half.
“Four circulars were prepared and addressed by the chief of the state
Bureau of Statistics and Labor to town clerks, city clerks, chiefs of
police, to standing justices, clerks of district, municipal and police
courts, and trial justices. These circulars solicited information
regarding the sales of liquor, prosecutions therefor, and arrests and
convictions for drunkenness for the prohibitory year 1874 and the
license year 1877. The completeness of the investigation may be seen
from the following statement:
“Circular ‘A’ was sent to 325 Town Clerks; 322 answered.
“Circular ‘B’ was sent to 19 City Clerks; 19 answered.
“Circular ‘C’ was sent to 19 Chiefs of Police; 19 answered.
“Circular ‘D’ was sent to 132 Court and Trial Justices; 130 answered.
“This is a total of 490 returns of 495 circulars of inquiry sent out.
There can be no question that the investigation was exhaustive, for
the few towns which did not answer are unimportant places. From the
information thus obtained and tabulated in detail in the Report, the
following totals are derived:
ARRESTS FOR DRUNKENNESS.
Under the prohibitory law, 1874, 28,044
Under the license law, 1877, 20,657
CONVICTIONS FOR DRUNKENNESS.
Under the prohibitory law, 1874, 23,981
Under the license law, 1877, 17,862
NUMBER OF PLACES WHERE LIQUOR WAS ILLEGALLY SOLD.
Under the prohibitory law, 1874, 5,609
NUMBER OF PLACES LICENSED TO SELL LIQUOR.
Under the license law, 1877, 5,273
JUDGMENTS ON COMPLAINTS FOR ILLEGAL SALES.
Under the prohibitory law, 1874, 3,644
Under the license law, 1877, 1,693
“It will thus be seen that the number of arrests for drunkenness under
the operation of the license law, during the year 1877, as compared to
the prohibitory year 1874, shows a decrease of fully twenty-five per
cent. In the number of convictions for drunkenness the difference in
favor of the license year is at the same rate. The number of places
where liquor was _illegally_ sold under the prohibitory law of 1874,
was larger by 336 than the number of places _licensed_ in 1877. It
is evident from these returns that the prohibitory law has failed to
prohibit, or even to regulate, the sale of liquor, while it is equally
apparent that the license law, as a legislative measure, not only
regulates the sale of liquor, but decreases drunkenness.
“A law, to be effective, must have the support of the people; the
prohibitory law will never be thus supported, as common sense will
teach that it is neither just nor judicious, to make somebody else than
the drunkard himself responsible for his failing; and is not just this
the questionable theory upon which prohibition is based?
“The prohibitionists condemn the use of alcoholic beverages of every
kind, as the prolific source of sin and vice. Nothing less than total
abstinence finds favor with them. To them, the terms use and abuse
have no distinctive meaning, and their curse falls upon brewery and
distillery alike. It must be admitted that as long as alcoholic
stimulants are used, intemperance will exist, and that the evil of
drunkenness will only disappear with their total suppression. In view
of the actual state of social habits, and the position which alcoholic
beverages hold in civilized life, as now constituted, no sane person
will believe such a total suppression possible. There are no means by
which a habit, transmitted from generation to generation, and forming
so important an element in the development of the civilization of the
human race, can be uprooted. Alcoholic stimulants once invented are
never again abandoned, and seem to be destined to co-exist with man.
The deplorable vice of drunkenness has always accompanied their use,
and all attempts of rulers and philanthropists, the severest penalties
and the sincerest compassion, have alike failed to suppress the evil.
But it does not follow that, because the temptation of excessive use is
too strong for some to be resisted, the great mass of people, who can
and do use these beverages in moderation, should be made responsible
for the weakness of the few. Nor does it follow that the intensity of
the temptation is to be regarded as an excuse for the drunkard. Excess
in the gratification of a desire, however natural, to the injury of
others, is to be condemned morally and legally. Many actions of man,
which the moral and legal code of society brands as a crime, and
punishes as such, are the result of an inordinate gratification of
instinctive desires implanted by nature, upon the proper indulgence of
which the very propagation and the happiness of the human race depends,
as for example, the instinct of self-preservation, of procreation and
of acquisition. The more civilization advances, the more moral and
intellectual discernment governs natural impulse, the less excess
in the use of alcoholic stimulants the world will see. The vice of
intemperance prevails to a far greater extent among the ignorant and
uneducated than among the cultured classes of society. The spread
of culture and education will do far more for temperance than the
indiscriminate prohibition of the sale of alcoholic stimulants and
the signing of pledges; it will divest the indulgence of the social
cup of vulgarity, and will punish immoderation by social ostracism;
by giving to the pleasure of exhilaration an ideal character, it
will make the vine and the hop the emblems of harmless enjoyment.
A clearer perception thus establishes a standard of ethics, which
recognizes a proper gratification of the innate craving for enjoyment
and exhilaration, as an essential to human happiness, but draws the
line between what is permissible and what is not, between the becoming
and the unbecoming. The craving for improvement of condition and for
enjoyment is strongly developed in man—happily for him, for it is the
very spur that urges him on to the physical improvement which is the
necessary concomitant of mental advance. The love for exhilarating
stimulants is but one phase of this craving. As such it is entitled
to and has found recognition in our social laws, and the temperate
use of alcoholic beverages is sanctioned by a practice as wide-spread
as civilization itself, and by all classes, whatever their station or
condition in life. Contravening legal statutes will always be found
either wholly inoperative, or to fall far short of the intended effect.
Whenever and wherever the temporary enforcement of a law prohibiting
the manufacture and sale of such beverages has taken place, the cure,
as far as the suppression of stimulants is concerned, has generally
proved worse than the disease.”
The following particulars, taken from the report under the title of
“Nativity of Prisoners,” given by the Chief of the Police of Boston,
become very interesting when considered in reference to the usual drink
of the classes mentioned. The table shows first the number in Boston
of Irish and Germans, the number of prisoners of each nation and the
percentage of prisoners to the whole population:
---------------+-------------+--------------+----------------
| | | PERCENTAGE OF
| POPULATION. | NO. OF |PRISONERS TO THE
| | PRISONERS. | POPULATION.
---------------+-------------+--------------+----------------
Irish | 56,900 | 14,673 | 25.78
German | 5,606 | 364 | 6.49
---------------+-------------+--------------+----------------
Similar general results are found more or less marked wherever such
laws are in force. Druggists tell us that as a rule the consumption
of opium in various forms from paregoric to laudanum has increased,
bitters are more extensively used and in some places Scotch snuff for
“dipping” has come into demand. The amount of opium annually imported
is greater than that received by China a hundred years ago, and there
is reason to suppose that many who are called reformed drunkards have
adopted opium in some form and thus given themselves to a new bondage
no whit better than the old. Notice that the increase in the sale
of opium keeps pace in a very fair measure with the enforcement of
prohibitory laws. One dealer in drugs in Hartford, Conn., recently
advertised for sale five thousand pounds of opium, certainly a good
dose for the land of steady habits. In the state just mentioned both
prohibition and “local option” laws have been tried and neither can
be considered a success. Under the present “local option” many towns
wholly forbid the sale of spirituous and malt liquors, and this fact
has given great prominence to suits arising out of the sale of what is
called Schenck beer, which is substantially lager beer. The courts at
last decided that this article is not intoxicating within the meaning
of the act, and though the decision as to intoxicating quality is just,
the fact that this beer is allowed while lager beer under its own name
is forbidden shows how great a part prejudice instead of reason has
played in the contest. “Peripatetic gin mills” are increasing in about
the same ratio as “temperance societies” and “temperance detectives.”
Those who pass by the name of temperance reformers seem in many cases
to lose the sense of human charity and brotherly kindness, and little
else can be expected when we remember how often they are the slaves
of this single idea and how in all ages of the world bigotry has been
attended by cruelty. Before giving one striking instance of cruelty
which it is to be hoped has since been sincerely regretted by all
concerned, we must reiterate that any law which every one knows to be
constantly violated brings law into disrespect and demoralizes the
community so far forth. The case to which reference was just made was
mentioned in the New York _World_, and although other matters are added
the whole is of sufficient interest to bear reproduction. The article
is as follows:
“Some time last September an old lady by the name of Stack who kept a
farm at Northfield, Vt., sold two glasses of cider to a man by the name
of Timothy Hogan, who informed against her and secured her conviction
and a fine of $20 and expenses. In consideration of her age, sickness
and poverty, she was allowed a short time to pay her fine, but not
being prepared with the cash in January, she was arrested by Deputy
Sheriff Avery, and, notwithstanding the severity of the weather,
hauled off to prison in an open sleigh to Montpelier insufficiently
clad. While in confinement sickness and poor treatment combined caused
a rapid decline, until her niece, a domestic in a hotel, borrowed
sufficient money to pay her fine and effect her release. Her death
followed shortly afterward, caused, no doubt, by the treatment she
had received. This at the hand and in the cause of philanthropic
reformers is bad enough, but worse remains. Here is a temperance man’s
description of the system by which these reformers are guided, and
which one of our conscientious judges in Connecticut not long since
truly denounced as infamous. The state referred to is the state of
the ‘Green Mountain Boys,’ and noble Ethan Allen—Vermont. The manner
of prosecuting liquor cases is by what is known as the ‘spy system.’
Every informer who can secure the conviction of any person receives a
portion of the fine imposed. A respectable justice of the municipal
court in one of the most important towns in the state is authority for
the statement that there are certain justices of the peace who make
a special arrangement with these informers and come in for a share
of the profits, so that outside of the merits of the case conviction
is a foregone conclusion every time. The prohibitory law in force in
this state makes it a crime for a man to sell even a glass of cider.
In the past few weeks the _World_ correspondent has visited Rutland,
Burlington, St. Albans, Montpelier and other towns in the state, and
found in every place that at the hotels and elsewhere liquor was sold
and no questions asked. In this, as in every other state, where a
similar law has been in force, people with money and influence can
freely engage in the traffic with none to molest or make them afraid.
The class of spies or informers who engage in the work of prosecuting
liquor cases are the lowest people in the community. They are despised
by everybody except fanatical temperance reformers, who employ and
encourage them. A prominent citizen, who has held high office in the
state and is one of the substantial business men, said the other day:
‘The result of the prohibitory law has been to honey-comb the social
community with hypocrisy and immorality. I have closely investigated
the course of events since this “temperance wave” has swept the state,
and while drunkenness is not on the decrease other forms of immorality
are certainly on the increase. I would not permit my daughter, or any
respectable young lady over whom I might have any influence, to even
attend the evening meetings of these temperance societies, as I think
it has been conclusively proved that they promote immorality.’ Such a
statement coming from an influential and respected citizen, who himself
practices and inculcates temperance principles, shows the tendency of
the prohibitory movement in this state.”
It would be an easy matter to collect volumes of evidence on this
question of the real effect of prohibitory laws, all going to show
that they do not prevent intemperance, that they do lead to the use of
other stimulants, that they undermine the character of the community,
and that, from whatever point of view regarded, they must be considered
harmful to the individual and to the state. Enough, however, for our
present purpose and for the space at command has been already said.
Those best informed will be most ready to say that the presentation
above given does not overstate, but rather falls short of displaying
the corruption that creeps in where a prohibitory law is in force.