The Findlay Jeffersonian. [volume] (Findlay, Hancock County, Ohio) 1870-1881, 1874-08-14
READ AND REFLECT.

Every man engaged in liquor selling
/ knows il 70 be dishonorable While all
| other businesses goods, groceries.
| hardware, any business except this, seek
| the light of the sun, with open front.
| plate glass windows, and the blaze of
gas light. the grog shop is shielded under
a false name and by painted windows
green blinds inside the door, behind
which the customer can hide the moment
he enters. And it is this business. thus
seIf-condemned, that We are asked TO
throw the shield of license around
Another objection to licensing tippIing
shops. No other business is thus IL
censed. All are open alike to every cit
izen, except the right to retail intoxica-
ting drinks. Before the State, through
the legislature, will license this, it must
conclude it To be subversive of the pub
lie good, and therefore it is determined
to control it, TO limit it, and for that
purpose, to let few have a monopoly
of it, by their paying for the privilege;
and this small number must be nen of
repute, persons of good moral character.
That is, the State selects as her agents
to do this dishonorable, this demoraI-
iZing busineSs-a business which it is
engage in-men of good repute, men of
good moral character, and authorizes
them as her agent, under her seal, to
engage in this warfare against her best
interests, this attack on her very vitals.
Strange as it may seem, there are but
two appointments, so far as is now rec
objected, in which the State requires this
endorsement of good moral character.
n IL ,INav-. Of NArn-
gress, and all other officers up and down,
to President and constable, without the
law so much as suggesting a thought
about moral character, and in only two
cases is such qualification required, the
grog-seller and the school teacher.
The history of the world may be chal-
lenged to show an instance in which tip
pling shops and drunkenness have not
increased under a license system. Eng
land, after 25O years trial of license, has,
by the last report received 1S6, GO licens-
ed shops, with 131, SIS drunkards arrest
ed in 1870, and drunkenness is the mon
ster evil of the country. Pennsylvania,
after a trial of a century, has 7S, 500 rum
sellers, and only 16, so teachers, and
over SO, 900 arrests for drunkenness in
Philadelphia, in 1872. In the city of
New York in 1865, under rigid license,
there were one and a half gallons of
beer drank per head for all the inhabit-
ants and in 1873 seven gallons; while
the Commissioners of Internal Revenue
estimated the value of intoxicating liq-
uors, consumed in that city in 1868, at
seventy million dollars, and in the whole
country at six hundred millions.
If the proposed license clause of the
new constitution should be adopted, it
would give the legislature no power not
now possessed, except the power to
grant license to traffic in ''spirituOus,
vinous, or malt liquors." and if it did
not prohibit, would at least render very
doubtful the power to prohibit. Should
the no license clause be adopted, it will
grant the power possessed by the legis-
lature under the presint constitution
"to provide against the evils resulting
from the traffic in intoxicating liquors."
under which the Adair law was passed,
and the McConnelsyille ordinance adopt |
ed; and in addition, the Legislature may
RESTRAIN and prohibit such traffic" at |
its discretion.
In view of the facts herein stated, are |
We not justified in calling upon every |
voter, if he loves his country and its in
stitutions, if he is friend of the peace
and good order of society, to put the
seal of his condemnation on their most
potent enemy, by voting No-License on
the 18th of August next. j. JdrLey-