The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1874-07-16
Jbe Aigblono Neps
xELE.SRORoUGH, OHIO.
Thursday, July 16, 1874
License or No Licrnse.

Most emphatically we say, "No
License, and will give in q few
words, some reasons.
First. Believing that the retail
traffic in liquors is the greatest evil
of the times, we think it ought not
to be licensed, and thus protected by
law, instead of being under the ban
of the law, as it now is to q great ex-
tent.
Second. We have now laws on
onr statute books prohibiting the sale
of liquor to be drank on the premis-
es, or to minors, or to drunken men,
or those in the habit Of getting drunk.
If the License" clause of the New
Constitution should be adopted, these
laws would be repealed, because
liquor selling would then be permit
ted by the fundamental law of the
State. The Adair law, under which
liquor r-sellers and owners of places
where liquor is unlawfully sold, are
now made liable for all damages re-
sulting from the sale, would also be
repealed. Theseare wholesome laws,
and they only need to be faithfully
enforced, to put stop 20 p;ne- tenths
of the liquor traffic in our State.
Even with their present partial enforce
ment, we are great deal better off
than we would be without any laws
to restrain, or intimidate the
liquor-seller, but on the contrary
with laws to protect him in his de-
moralizing and ruinous business.
Under our present laws, debts
due forliquor sold unlawfully cannot
be collected by Lam. Under a IL
.cense system, they could be collected
the same as other debts.
Third. We do not believe the sale
of liquor would be diminished by
lessening the number of places where
it would be sold under license sys-
tenn. The business would then be
made lawful, and hence respectable,
in the eyes of many, who now regard
it as disreputable because unlawful.
Being in the hands of a compare
lively small number, the business
would be more profitable, and hence
the liquor seller could well afford to
make his "saloon" far more attrac-
tive and tempting to the youth of our
land, and many more would be led
to ruin than now.
Fourth. Every liquor manufac-
turer, seller, and habitual tippler,
will go for License very good
reason of itself why every Temper
ance man should oppose it.
Fifth. To change from "No Lii
cense" under our present Constitu-
ton, to "License" under the new one,
would be long step backward, in
stead of forward. We live in an age
of Progress-moral, intellectual and
physical-let US not retrograde on
this great question of Temperance
Sixth. A triumph of ''No License"
in Ohio would give great impulse
to the cause of Temperance in other
States-Ohio being the State where
the latest and grandest Temperance
movement of the age originated, and
to which all eyes are turned, in anx-
ious expectation of the result On
the other hand, triumph of Iii
cense" at this time in our State
would be disastrous to the cause of
Temperance here and everywhere
These are briefly some of the reas-
ons why it seems to us the friends
of Temperance should rally as one
man, to the support of mo License"
in the coming election. Let us
huckla on o11r arnoor and ,vorL with |
all our energies for this great object, |
and never let it be said that Ohio, in
the year 1874, in the full light
of Christian civilization, voted to
Iegdlize a traffic which destroys soul
and body ofits helpless victims, and
spreads crime and misery throughout
the land.