Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1867-05-14
Communicated
The License Question.


ME. CovER:--In your issue of 4 prii
80, yohr remarks in reply toss. d.
H." seem to me Inconsistent. You
start off by saying that "whiskey
appetite is more dangerous to the az
happy victim than Ieprosy in his
blood or cholera gnawing at his vital. !"
Their. again You say "a whiskey APP
petite is to theintellect what slavery is
to the mental man, giving him even
wcyse than niger on the brain. .
Nov cir, If all these things be true.
can you az a public teacher consist.
emily argue that it is right or even
polite to license men to sell that
which creates in his fellow man an
appetite which to him IS worse than
leprosy or Asiatic cholera? Your tile
DRY OF elevating the drinking eomulu.
nifty, and the character Of the drink
ing saloons, by appointing one of the
"rfghteouS TEN ia every town TO re-
tail liquors as a beverage in the base.
ment of the church, would prove a
very decided failure practically, and
even fguratlvely, as you used it, does
not as | view it, stand the test of in
vestigation. Good men very seldom,
if ever, engage in the sale of liquors
az a beverage. First, becaue they
consider it wrong; and secondly, they
do not like the associates which inva.
riably clusterrouua retail liquor shops
Then again men ere not and cannot
in the very nature and practice of
mercantile pursuits be appointed to
such positions, and admitting that
such appointments could be made,
wherein the community be benefit,
ted? Liquor taken as a beverage be-
gets the same appetite whether bot
and drank in the basement of q
church, or In q common rum saloon.
Would the righteous man whom you
propose to appoint feel at ease in his
conscience dealing out to his neigh>
bors' children and to his fellow men
that which creates an appetite which
is "worse than leprosy in his blood?'
Again you say, ga whiskey appetite
is parallel to any other incurable
disease. ," Then why license men to
create and stimulate an.incurable dis
ease? The idea of continuing to le.
galize the sale of liquors as a bevo-
rage, with the expectation Of ulti-
mately getting good men to sell it,
and on y occasional" drinkers to use
1T IS preposterous. As we'll might YOU
attempt to make poIigamy a virtue
by ousting Brigham Young and all
the Mormon Elders from their harems
and appointing good, substantial
christian? men to act the patriarch
indeed, | think the two cases paral
lei.
Slavery was legalized abomina,
ton with swarms Of votaries who
cried continually that it was ofDi-
vine origin, aud all it wanted to make
it a thoroughly Christian institution.
was to have the slaves all owned by
true Southern Christians. So Brio
ham Young and his followers tell Us
that poligamy is Divinely instituted
ordinance Of the true Church of God.
and that all it lacks Of being perfect,
is to root out the Gentle world-0et
good, moral? Mormona to rule over
the harems and conduct the affairs of
Church in accordance with their pes
culiar views. But I'VE can't see It.
Fully equal in magnitude, and
much more universal in its effect,
comes in the question ofintemperance
and with it the perplexing and all i'm .
portant question, how shall we un>
dertake to counteract it's seductinr
influences. You say it should be
done by licensing better men to sell
it. This we have endeavored to show
cannot be done. An Irishman once
trul y said that ut ooaS not much chars
actel' a man needed to sell rhjskey. -
You say that if you had to choose be-
tween allowing scallawags to sell un~
der license, or granting no license at
all, you would choose the latter.
Now, Mr.. Cover this is precisely
the question at issue. Under our pres
ent system liquor cannot be SOLD in
"church Easements by righteous
men," consequently very few indeed
except those you denominate SCALA.
wags do, or viii sell It, and since, ac~
cording to your own showing such
licensing is injurious and wrong, why
not give your entire influence in the
right direction, as fully as you have
done for the last twenty years in
squelching slavery and roofing out
other political wrongs?
Yours for sobriety,
May 8, 1867. NJ.
ICommunicatell