Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1873-10-09
THE RUTLAND HERALD
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4, 1873.
PROHIBITION AGAIN.


At the annual meeting of the Massa-
chusetts temperance alliance, held in
Boston on Tuesday of the present week,
resolution was adopted unanimously,
as follows:
Res0lged, That a committee of five be
appointed to inquire why the prohibitory
laws are not effectually and impartially
enforced by the officials OF the State,
and that the committee be instructed to
seek information from those upon whom
the responsibility of enforcement rests.
In this State we have had a prohibit
ory law of the most stringent character
for the last twenty-one years, and our
experience has been just what this re-
solution implies to be the state of affairs
in Massachusetts 1t is not effectually
and impartially enforced in the large
commercial and business centers of the
State, and what is more, until the public
sentiment of our Commonwealth is
radically changed npon the subject of
prohibition there can be no effective en-
forcement We know that there are
many Intelligent men who claim that
the public sentiment of Vermont upholds
this law, but we know that such a claim
is wholly unfounded in fact. ...-
We have no doubt but what if vote
was taken to-day upon the subject of
prohibition, that it would stand in favor
of the present law, and we are equally
confident that if an application was
made to the men who voted to retain it,
to take some active responsibility in its
enforcement, they would be as prolific
of excuses, and if pressed, more than
seventy-five per cent, of that majority
would peremptorily refuse to have any
lot or part in an effective and impartial
administration of the law. This is not
sheer guess work We know whereof
we speak, and have seen enough of these
same men to know what they would do.
Our prophecy is founded upon Patrick
Henrys rule of judging of the future by
the past.
It is not so long since the A. J. Smith
! affair, that people have forgotten it,
and no one doubts that it was corrupt
scheme to protect a wealthy and intlu-
entail rumseller from the penalties of an
| outraged law. At that time we heard
the warmest and most determined eX-
preston from some of the earnest pro-
fessed friends of prohibition, and men
who would look upon a suggestion
of the repeal of the prohibitory law as
rank treason in a temperance man. We
suggested that the proper time had ar
rived for an investigation, and after a
suitable time of waiting for some friend
| of the law to move in the matter, a
learned and earnest clergyman took a
petition addressed to the States Attorney
of the county, praying simply that the
charges we had publicly made, might
be investigated by the Grand Jury, and
| presented it to the men who were
| loudest in their denunciations of others
for their failures in executing this law,
few signed it on presentation, but a
large majority excused themselves, and
declined to even do as much as sign
paper asking for an investigation.
When men make loud proclamations
of their allegiance to law, and yet when
they know it is being treated with con-
tempt, and daily violated, they refuse to
do even as much for its vindication as to
give the influence of their names, we
lose all faith in their honesty of purpose,
and in looking for the balance of public
sentiment on that subject, we have no
hesitation in counting them as opposed.
We frankly acknowledge that we believe
the prohibitory law of this State as now
enforced, to be impolitic and unjust, and
believe it would be for the interest and
good name of the State to have it i'm
mediately repealed. When the powerful
and wealthy can treat it with contempt
and violate its provisions with impunity,
it is a disgrace to the name of the State
to visit its penalties vigorously upon poor
Irish women and negroes. We know
that officers who will do their duty in
this matter, will not be sustained, and
what is further the first to desert and
denounce them will be the professed
friends of prohibition, who vote for the
law but shrink from its enforcement.
The officers in this town who have
sought to do their duty impartially have
been left time after time, when the hour
of trial came, to fight the battle alone,
the earnest advocates of prohibition
finding one pretext after another to wash
their hands of all responsibility, and we
respectfully protest against their making
the sacred name of law a reproach and
disgrace to the fair fame of our State
and people, by making prohibition an
instrument to crush out the weak and
poor offenders, that the rich and power
full may make greater gains thereby.
We hope the committee of five appoint
ed in Boston will go to the bottom of
this thing, and we know that they will
find an adverse public sentiment at the
bottom of this whole affair, and that the
best remedy is to repeal all the laws that
are not in accordance with the credence
of the people.
The Evangelical Alliance