The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-19


total abstinence, their efforts have not been
crowned with success, and the liquor drinkers
and sellers have always managed to prac-
tically keep the upper hand. The Maine
Liquor law was total failure for all prao-
tical purposes, as all similar measures have
been. Notwithstanding this fact, the friends
OF the temperance cause have not allowed
themselves to despair, but in Massachusetts,
particularly they have carried on a vigorous
war against dram drinking and selling. At
the last session of the Legislature they pro-
cured the enactment of law of unusual
stringency, which it was hoped would have
the desired effect of reducing the liquor
traffic. The authorities appear to have ex-
erted themselves with far more zeal than
was to be expected to carry out the pro-
visions of the law, in spite of its very
great unpopularity with large number of
citizens, but the result thus far has not been
such as to indicate that any very decided
moral reform will be accomplished by its
agency The sale of liquors at open bars has
to certain extent been diminished, and large
quantities of alcoholic fluids have been seized
by the State constable. This has compelled
the dealers and their customers to resort to
various evasive devices, such as the formation
of drinking clubs, by which they are enabled
to get around the law. The measure has also
met with the decided OPPOSITION of many in
fuentiol persons who are in the habit of using
spirituous liquors in moderation, who do not
think that they ought to be deprived of the
use of them because some persons abuse
them, and who oppose the operations of the
law as unjust and as infringing on their natu-
raj liberties
The fact of the matter is, that neither in
Massachusetts nor anywhere else can a law
like this be made to operate. Most men who
are not drunkards will admit that, in view of
the evils resulting from the abuse of intoxi-
eating liquors, there ought to be some super
vision of their sale by the legal authorities;
but experience has amply shown that the
most the law can do is to aid the cause of
moral reform, and not to force it. Such is
the perversity of human nature, that men who
would freely give their influence to the tenn
perance cause will oppose it when it appeals
to the law to do what it is unable to accom-
plish by persuasion. 1t is well enough that
experiments like this should sometimes, how
ever, have full trial, if only to demonstrate
their fallacy; and the fact that practically the
law can do little or nothing to check intempe-
rance should encourage the friends of
the temperance cause to work more
zealously to do by moral suasion what they
can never do by force. There is no doubt
that the introduction of an abundant supply
of drinking fountains in our large cities, with
an abundance of light wines and cheap unin-
toxicating beverages will do more for the
temperance cause than either moral suasion
or legal enactments. The advocates of tenn
perance are too often visionary and impracti-
cal in their ideas, and consequently they en-
barrass themselves by difficulties that need
not exist. The subject is one of great diff
Guilty at the best, and to deal with it at all re-
quires rare discrimination and tact, together
with large sympathy with the weaknesses of
average human nature, and practical measures
of reform are those alone which will accom-
plish anything