The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-01
WHY WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN PR0RI-
BITTON.

correspondent asks us for q confession of
faith as to the possibility, or, il possible, the
expediency of preventing the sale of alcoholic
drinks, being prompted to do SO by having
perceived what he considers indications of
hopelessness about it on our part, and by the
increasing zeal of the prohibitionists in his
own neighborhood. We supposed that our
opinions on this point were pretty well known
to such of our readers as cared anything about
them, and were much interested in the ques-
tion. We have not only, however, no biec-
ton to saving out fully all we have to say on
the subject but are glad to be furnished with
en- excuse for saying it.
We are opposed to prohibitory legislation,
and consider all time spent in agitating for it
almost wasted, first and foremost, because we
believe no such legislation can be effective.
In a certain sense, of course, this may be said
of all legislation. No law is ever completely
enforced; but law prohibiting the sale of
alcoholic liquors would, we believe, be dis
obeyed and evaded to an extraordinary de-
gree, and by large number of persons of
good character who usually do obey the law
faithfully; and, as q consequence of this, the
proportion borne by the violations of it to
the penalties inflicted for violating it would
be SO large as to weary the officers rapidly,
and consign it to total desuetude. All laws in
every country require fair amount of sup
port from public opinion to ensure their exc
cution. This is true even of laws which
affect matters in which only small portion
of the community has any personal interest.
1t is doubly true of a law like this, which
would be highly inquisitorial in its opera
tion and involve incessant interference with
the habits and inclinations of persons of
ordinarily good repute. Suppose seven against
five TO represent the ajority whose support
is necessary to ensure the enforcement of q
piece of ordinary legislation, and it is safe to
say that a prohibitory liquor law would need
the support of O ma jority of eleven
to one. If you could count on such
majority, however, liquor selling would be
so thoroughly disreputable that either no
legislation would be necessary for it's suppress
sion or there would be no opposition to it,
and, therefore, none of the incessant discus
sion of its expediency which now goes on
The traffic would be given up to justice as
readily as brothels and gambling-houses are,
and the only debates to which it would give
rise would be debates about the discipline and
eff cheney of the police.
If you ask the reason of the great difficulty
which its advocates experience in procuring
this legislation, the answer is, strange as it
may seem, that the mass of mankind, in
cluding some of the best and purest of the
race, do not believe the drinking of alcoholic
liquor to be wrong; in fact, vast body of
them, in all countries truly and sincerely be-
lieve it to be beneficial. The great majority
have from the earliest ages been, in fact,
moderate drinkers. No race or nation has
yet been lighted on of which the great body
of the males do not take stimulants in some
form or other, not only without shame or
fear, but with great gusto; indeed, the taxing
of stimulants is associated in their minds
with the happiest moments of their lives,
with births, with weddings, with the meeting
of friends, and so on. The drinking GUS
toms of society,"" to use the teetotalers
phrase are, in short, apparently as old as
the race itself, and may be almost said to
have worked themselves into the very con-
stitution of human society. We do not
say that this is thing to be rejoiced over, or
a thing not to be deplored. We simply say
that an attempt to eradicate such habit sud-
denly by legislation would, in any country, be
hopeless enough to make it seem ludiorous.
No habit so deeply rooted has ever been
eradicated except by the influence of an
accepted and revered prophet Mahomet is
the only prehibitory legislator who has ever
succeeded, but he succeeded not as prohibi-
tionist but as the founder of new religion
among a barbarous people. We could imagine
liquor-dealipg and liquor-drinking being
swept away, here, by an outburst of moral or
religious enthusiasm, in the nature of "a re-
vival, if it were not that no communities are
ever swept by storms of this kind which are
not homogeneous. The American community
is now anything but homogeneous.
1t is scored in every direction by
differences of origin, religion, tenn
permanent, antecedents, and habits, and
though you might light your fire very success
fully among native Americans, and especially
New Englanders, and make it blaze iercely
here and there, it would speedily be arrested
by German and Irish patches, on which the
flames of GREAT EsmOral ideasn Would find
nothing to feed them. Moreover, there is
little or no doubt that, for other reasons than
this, "great uprisings" on moral or social
questions will never again be seen. The in
tense publicity and intense activity of modern
life, and the incessant criticism which results
from publicity, have made them impossible,
except where there is within reach some such
sudden and energetic mode of expressing feel
ing as taking up arms. The work of reform,
like the work of charity, is done more and more
every day in cold blood, with books of statis-
tics on the table. There are, however, fea-
lures in American society and manners which
make prohibitory legislation here seem more
objectional than in any other country within
our knowledge. The manners and traditions
of the people make all police interference with
their habits peculiarly odious and offensive
They are not broken into it as Europeans are,
and, though the custom of drinking in bar
rooms, which prevails here to an extent un-
known in Europe, makes it apparently very
easy to put stop to liquor dealing by merely
closing the bar-rooms, we must remember
that bar-rooms exist because they are con-
venient and lawful; close them, and the
habit of secret drinking in houses will at once
spring up, and has sprang up wherever they
have been closed, as in Maine and Massachu-
sets; or, in other words, our drinking Gus
toms will be to some extent assimilated to