The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1877-05-12

N P' 49, 80 ices az INJURIOUS OF
thousands of dolls'.r rs, or they could refuse
any and all lice. uses whatever, even for the
sale OF liquor for medicinal, mechanical or
chemical purposes.
Inc result was that the question was car
ried " the polls, and the question of license
determined by the personnel of the commits
81 oners. License and temperance tickets
were placed in the field, and the contest
was as animated, and often as bitter, as any
witnessed in the choice of town repre-
sentative in a closely contested election
during the hight Of most intense politi-
cal excitement. In some counties, the tenn
perance ticket would prevail and all licenses
would be refused while, in the neighbor-
ing county, commissioners would be elected
who would grant licenses to nearly every
applicant. The result was that one had
only to travel a short distance to obtain a
plentiful supply of intoxicants without ask
ing that the law be violated tor his sake !;
although, even this trouble was not often
required, for the effect of this law, even
even where licenses were refused, on the
suppression of tipping houses was not ap-
preciable. Moreover there was an element
of uncertainty which destroyed what little
force there might otherwise have been to
the law, as was shown in the varying re-
suits in the same county at different cleo
tons. A county voting against license the
first year, almost invariably voted in favor
of it at the next year, leaving confused
idea in the minds of keepers of respectable
houses of entertainment, who desired and
intended to obey the law, as to their exact
status under it-and where ignorance was
bliss, it was considered folly to be wise.
These and similar considerations created
public sentiment against the law, and the
ultra temperance men united with those
favoring general license law in advocating
Its repeal The law was repealed in 1916,
and new law enacted under which the
| question of "license" or ''no license" was
submitted to the people of the whole state
to be decided by ballot at the annual town
meetings in March; the statute providing
that if majority of the votes we're in IA
vor of ''lcense," the judges of the county
court should grant licenses "to all such
persons as shall make application there
" for; and who sustain good moral char
d" acter"-that refinement of morality had
| not then been reached which held that
every person who sold or used spirituous
liquors, wine, ale, beer or cider was devoid
| of good moral character-but IL the ma
jority vote was against license, then the
| judges should license only such persons
| Tor the sale of liquors for medicinal, chemi-
cal and manufacturing purposes, as had
been appreciated" By the board Of civil
authority. But, in any event, the board
of civil authority of the several towns
could license whomsoever they pleased to
sell beer and cider-in fact, anything but
"wine or distilled spirituous liquors, mix
{" ed or unmixed. This law, too, proved TN
satisfactory either as temperance or IL
cense measure; for, one year there would
be no licenses granted, ana tic next year
the popular vote would b. in favor of the
indiscriminate licensing of all who applied,
so that the line which separated drought
from food was so exceedingly narrow as
to make the whole law ridiculous.
The failure of this law was admitted by
all-it was one of those doubtful things
which are "mighty unsartin"-and its eff
feet was too uncertain to be satisfactory tc
either side-and 80 was stricken from the
statute book, and Vermont entered upon
the era of prohibition in 1850, and hat
been constantly increasing its stringency-
of enactments if not of entorcement-from
that day to this. Whatever may be thu
opinion in reference to the respective sys
TENS of prohibition or license, we take il
that there is but one opinion in Vermont
relat i've TO local option-and that is, that Il
is, and must necessarily be, farce Oh
worse than farce.
Massachusetts, after trying prohibition
and license, is now to renew our old exper.
iment of local option, and probably will
the same result. She may as well, per
haps, try this experiment as any other, for
this agitation of the best manner to regu-
late the sale of intoxicants will probably
continue until the millennium, and the un
easy spirits, on either side, may as well ag
itate in this direction as any other.