It has been decided in many courts in various States that the
traffic in liquor can be regulated--that it is a police question.
It has been decided by the courts in Iowa that its manufacture and
sale can be prohibited, and, not only so, but that a distillery or
a brewery may be declared a nuisance and may legally be abated,
and these decisions have been upheld by the Supreme Court of the
United States. Consequently, it has been settled by the highest
tribunal that States have the power either to regulate or to prohibit
the sale of intoxicating liquors, and not only so, but that States
have the power to destroy breweries and distilleries without making
any compensation to owners.
So it has always been considered within the power of the State to
license the selling of intoxicating liquors. In other words, this
question is one that the States can decide for themselves. It is
not, and it should not be, in my judgment, a Federal question. It
is something with which the United States has nothing to do. It
belongs to the States; and where a majority of the people are in
favor of prohibition and pass laws to that effect, there is nothing
in the Constitution of the United States that interferes with such
action.
The remaining question, then, is not a question of power, but a
question of policy, and at the threshold of this question is another:
Can prohibitory laws be enforced? There are to-day in Kansas,--a
prohibition State--more saloons, that is to say, more places in
which liquor is sold, than there are in Georgia, a State without
prohibition legislation. There are more in Nebraska, according to
the population, more in Iowa, according to the population, than in
many of the States in which there is the old license system. You
will find that the United States has granted more licenses to
wholesale and retail dealers in these prohibition States,--according
to the population,--than in many others in which prohibition has
not been adopted.
These facts tend to show that it is not enough for the Legislature
to say: "Be it enacted." Behind every law there must be an
intelligent and powerful public opinion. A law, to be enforced,
must be the expression of such powerful and intelligent opinion;
otherwise it becomes a dead letter; it is avoided; judges continue
the cases, juries refuse to convict, and witnesses are not particular
about telling the truth. Such laws demoralize the community, or,
to put it in another way, demoralized communities pass such laws.
_Question_. What do you think of the prohibitory movement on
general principles?
_Answer_. The trouble is that when a few zealous men, intending
to reform the world, endeavor to enforce unpopular laws, they are
compelled to resort to detectives, to a system of espionage. For
the purpose of preventing the sale of liquors somebody has to watch.
Eyes and ears must become acquainted with keyholes. Every neighbor
suspects every other. A man with a bottle or demijohn is followed.
Those who drink get behind doors, in cellars and garrets. Hypocrisy
becomes substantially universal. Hundreds of people become suddenly
afflicted with a variety of diseases, for the cure of which alcohol
in some form is supposed to be indispensable. Malaria becomes general,
and it is perfectly astonishing how long a few pieces of Peruvian
bark will last, and how often the liquor can be renewed without
absorbing the medicinal qualities of the bark. The State becomes
a paradise for patent medicine--the medicine being poor whiskey
with a scientific name.
Physicians become popular in proportion as liquor of some kind
figures in their prescriptions. Then in the towns clubs are formed,
the principal object being to establish a saloon, and in many
instances the drug store becomes a favorite resort, especially on
Sundays.
There is, however, another side to this question. It is this:
Nothing in the world is more important than personal liberty. Many
people are in favor of blotting out the sun to prevent the growth
of weeds. This is the mistake of all prohibitory fanaticism.
_Question_. What is true temperance, Colonel Ingersoll?
_Answer_. Men have used stimulants for many thousand years, and
as much is used to-day in various forms as in any other period of
the world's history. They are used with more prudence now than
ever before, for the reason that the average man is more intelligent
now than ever before. Intelligence has much to do with temperance.
The barbarian rushes to the extreme, for the reason that but little,
comparatively, depends upon his personal conduct or personal habits.
Now the struggle for life is so sharp, competition is so severe,
that few men can succeed who carry a useless burden. The business
men of our country are compelled to lead temperate lives, otherwise
their credit is gone. Men of wealth, men of intelligence, do not
wish to employ intemperate physicians. They are not willing to
trust their health or their lives with a physician who is under
the influence of liquor. The same is true of business men in regard
to their legal interests. They insist upon having sober attorneys;
they want the counsel of a sober man. So in every department. On
the railways it is absolutely essential that the engineer, that
the conductor, the train dispatcher and every other employee, in
whose hands are the lives of men, should be temperate. The
consequence is that under the law of the survival of the fittest,
the intemperate are slowly but surely going to the wall; they are
slowly but surely being driven out of employments of trust and
importance. As we rise in the scale of civilization we continually
demand better and better service. We are continually insisting
upon better habits, upon a higher standard of integrity, of fidelity.
These are the causes, in my judgment, that are working together in
the direction of true temperance.
_Question_. Do you believe the people can be made to do without
a stimulant?
_Answer_. The history of the world shows that all men who have
advanced one step beyond utter barbarism have used some kind of
stimulant. Man has sought for it in every direction. Every savage
loves it. Everything has been tried. Opium has been used by many
hundreds of millions. Hasheesh has filled countless brains with
chaotic dreams, and everywhere that civilization has gone the blood
of the grape has been used. Nothing is easier now to obtain than
liquor. In one bushel of corn there are at least five gallons--
four can easily be extracted. All starch, all sugars, can be
changed almost instantly into alcohol. Every grain that grows has
in it the intoxicating principle, and, as a matter of fact, nearly
all of the corn, wheat, sugar and starch that man eats is changed
into alcohol in his stomach. Whether man can be compelled to do
without a stimulant is a question that I am unable to answer. Of
one thing I am certain: He has never yet been compelled to do
without one. The tendency, I think, of modern times is toward a
milder stimulant than distilled liquors. Whisky and brandies are
too strong; wine and beer occupy the middle ground. Wine is a
fireside, whisky a conflagration.
It seems to me that it would be far better if the Prohibitionists
would turn their attention toward distilled spirits. If they were
willing to compromise, the probability is that they would have
public opinion on their side. If they would say: "You may have
all the beer and all the wine and cider you wish, and you can drink
them when and where you desire, but the sale of distilled spirits
shall be prohibited," it is possible that this could be carried
out in good faith in many if not in most of the States--possibly
in all. We all know the effect of wine, even when taken in excess,
is nothing near as disastrous as the effect of distilled spirits.
Why not take the middle ground? The wine drinkers of the old
country are not drunkards. They have been drinking wine for
generations. It is drunk by men, women and children. It adds to
the sociability of the family. It does not separate the husband
from the rest, it keeps them all together, and in that view is
rather a benefit than an injury. Good wine can be raised as cheaply
here as in any part of the world. In nearly every part of our
country the grape grows and good wine can be made. If our people
had a taste for wine they would lose the taste for stronger drink,
and they would be disgusted with the surroundings of the stronger
drink.
The same may be said in favor of beer. As long as the Prohibitionists
make no distinction between wine and whisky, between beer and
brandy, just so long they will be regarded by most people as
fanatics.
The Prohibitionists cannot expect to make this question a Federal
one. The United States has no jurisdiction of this subject.
Congress can pass no laws affecting this question that could have
any force except in such parts of our country as are not within
the jurisdiction of States. It is a question for the States and
not for the Federal Government. The Prohibitionists are simply
throwing away their votes. Let us suppose that we had a Prohibition
Congress and a Prohibition President--what steps could be taken to
do away with drinking in the city of New York? What steps could
be taken in any State of this Union? What could by any possibility
be done?
A few years ago the Prohibitionists demanded above all things that
the tax be taken from distilled spirits, claiming at that time that
such a tax made the Government a partner in vice.
Now when the Republican party proposes under certain circumstances
to remove that tax, the Prohibitionists denounce the movement as
one in favor of intemperance. We have also been told that the tax
on whisky should be kept for the reason that it increases the price,
and that an increased price tends to make a temperate people; that
if the tax is taken off, the price will fall and the whole country
start on the downward road to destruction. Is it possible that
human nature stands on such slippery ground? It is possible that
our civilization to-day rests upon the price of alcohol, and that,
should the price be reduced, we would all go down together? For
one, I cannot entertain such a humiliating and disgraceful view of
human nature. I believe that man is destined to grow greater,
grander and nobler. I believe that no matter what the cost of
alcohol may be, life will grow too valuable to be thrown away.
Men hold life according to its value. Men, as a rule, only throw
away their lives when they are not worth keeping. When life becomes
worth living it will be carefully preserved and will be hoarded to
the last grain of sand that falls through the glass of time.
_Question_. What is the reason for so much intemperance?
_Answer_. When many people are failures, when they are distanced
in the race, when they fall behind, when they give up, when they
lose ambition, when they finally become convinced that they are
worthless, precisely as they are in danger of becoming dishonest.
In other words, having failed in the race of life on the highway,
they endeavor to reach to goal by going across lots, by crawling
through the grass. Disguise this matter as we may, all people are
not successes, all people have not the brain or the muscle or the
moral stamina necessary to succeed. Some fall in one way, some in
another; some in the net of strong drink, some in the web of
circumstances and others in a thousand ways, and the world itself
cannot grow better unless the unworthy fail. The law is the survival
of the fittest, that is to say, the destruction of the unfit.
There is no scheme of morals, no scheme of government, no scheme
of charity, that can reverse this law. If it could be reversed,
then the result would be the survival of the unfittest, the speedy
end of which would be the extinction of the human race.
Temperance men say that it is wise, in so far as possible, to remove
temptation from our fellow-men.
Let us look at this in regard to other matters. How do we do away
with larceny? We cannot remove property. We cannot destroy the
money of the world to keep people from stealing some of it. In
other words, we cannot afford to make the world valueless to prevent
larceny. All strength by which temptation is resisted must come
from the inside. Virtue does not depend upon the obstacles to be
overcome; virtue depends upon what is inside of the man. A man is
not honest because the safe of the bank is perfectly secure. Upon
the honest man the condition of the safe has no effect. We will
never succeed in raising great and splendid people by keeping them
out of temptation. Great people withstand temptation. Great people
have what may be called moral muscle, moral force. They are poised
within themselves. They understand their relations to the world.
The best possible foundation for honesty is the intellectual
perception that dishonesty can, under no circumstances, be a good
investment--that larceny is not only wicked, but foolish--not only
criminal, but stupid--that crimes are committed only by fools.
On every hand there is what is called temptation. Every man has
the opportunity of doing wrong. Every man, in this country, has
the opportunity of drinking too much, has the opportunity of
acquiring the opium habit, has the opportunity of taking morphine
every day--in other words, has the opportunity of destroying himself.
How are they to be prevented? Most of them are prevented--at least
in a reasonable degree--and they are prevented by their intelligence,
by their surroundings, by their education, by their objects and
aims in life, by the people they love, by the people who love them.
No one will deny the evils of intemperance, and it is hardly to be
wondered at that people who regard only one side--who think of the
impoverished and wretched, of wives and children in want, of desolate
homes--become the advocates of absolute prohibition. At the same
time, there is a philosophic side, and the question is whether more
good cannot be done by moral influence, by example, by education,
by the gradual civilization of our fellow-men, than in any other
possible way. The greatest things are accomplished by indirection.
In this way the idea of force, of slavery, is avoided. The person
influenced does not feel that he has been trampled upon, does not
regard himself as a victim--he feels rather as a pupil, as one who
receives a benefit, whose mind has been enlarged, whose life has
been enriched--whereas the direct way of "Thou shalt not" produces
an antagonism--in other words, produces the natural result of "I
will."
By removing one temptation you add strength to others. By depriving
a man of one stimulant, as a rule, you drive him to another, and
the other may be far worse than the one from which he has been
driven. We have hundreds of laws making certain things misdemeanors,
which are naturally right.
Thousands of people, honest in most directions, delight in outwitting
the Government--derive absolute pleasure from getting in a few
clothes and gloves and shawls without the payment of duty. Thousands
of people buy things in Europe for which they pay more than they
would for the same things in America, and then exercise their
ingenuity in slipping them through the custom-house.
A law to have real force must spring from the nature of things,
and the justice of this law must be generally perceived, otherwise
it will be evaded.
The temperance people themselves are playing into the hands of the
very party that would refuse to count their votes. Allow the
Democrats to remain in power, allow the Democrats to be controlled
by the South, and a large majority might be in favor of temperance
legislation, and yet the votes would remain uncounted. The party
of reform has a great interest in honest elections, and honest
elections must first be obtained as the foundation of reform. The
Prohibitionists can take their choice between these parties. Would
it not be far better for the Prohibitionists to say: "We will vote
for temperance men; we will stand with the party that is the nearest
in favor of what we deem to be the right"? They should also take
into consideration that other people are as honest as they; that
others disbelieve in prohibition as honestly as they believe in
it, and that other people cannot leave their principles to vote
for prohibition; and they must remember, that these other people
are in the majority.
Mr. Fisk knows that he cannot be elected President--knows that it
is impossible for him to carry any State in the Union. He also
knows that in nearly every State in the Union--probably in all--a
majority of the people believe in stimulants. Why not work with
the great and enlightened majority? Why rush to the extreme for
the purpose not only of making yourself useless but hurtful?
No man in the world is more opposed to intemperance than I am. No
man in the world feels more keenly the evils and the agony produced
by the crime of drunkenness. And yet I would not be willing to
sacrifice liberty, individuality, and the glory and greatness of
individual freedom, to do away with all the evils of intemperance.
In other words, I believe that slavery, oppression and suppression
would crowd humanity into a thousand deformities, the result of
which would be a thousand times more disastrous to the well-being
of man. I do not believe in the slave virtues, in the monotony of
tyranny, in the respectability produced by force. I admire the
men who have grown in the atmosphere of liberty, who have the pose
of independence, the virtues of strength, of heroism, and in whose
hearts is the magnanimity, the tenderness, and the courage born of
victory.
--_New York World_, October 21, 1888.