Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-02-21
COLUMBUS, O., Feb. 20.-The State Prohibi-
ton convention met here to-day about 100 ner
PrOfaibitory Legislation.

To the Editor of the Globe.
In your daily issue of February 10Th, YOU
take occasion under the above caption to speak
against the pending constitutional amend
ment, prohibiting the manufacture and sale of
intoxicating liquors. The usual bare asser-
t1ons are made upon this subject without one
fact or hgure to sustain them.
Permit me to say in the first place, that a.
proh1bltory statute Is not sumptuary law. If
1t were then all license laws ought to be abol-
ished. There is just as much sumptuarv in
making it illegal to cell liquor on Sunday as
on Monday; to sell to inebriates as to sober
men. Prohibitory law forbids the sale, not the
use 1t is not true that prohibition increases
the use of liquors. This oft-repeated fallacy
l have challenged the proof of again and
again, both through the public press and from
the platform, and it has never been given. If
the GLOBE thinks that the principle of prohibi-
ton increases the crime against which it is
aimed, would it not be we'll to apply for an
amendment to the decalogue. What mistake
the Lord made when He commanded, s.Thou
shalt not kill, y Thou shalt not steal" ''Thou
shalt not commit adultery
How much wise- it would have been to have
licensed all these crimes-sold indulgences for
instance.
Maine is referred to as an exhibition of the
failure of license First it tends to opium-
eating, beside which drunkenness almost as
sumes the dignity Of virtue" Is it possible
Sncn sentence in the nineteenth centurvi
VIII the GLOBE show where and how opium
eating increases taxation? When has there
been single crime committed through its
use! What victim on the gallows ever laid his
terrible fate to opium? Docs it bring three
fourths of our convicts to their prison? The
absolute absurdity of this assertion would
shade ten columns of truth as black as night.
1t is claimed that prohibition DIES not decrease
drunkenness, but does increase it. In the next
paragraph 1T is admitted that in Maine it is
nearly suppressed. This is for the sake of in
Producing the opium argument. The assertion
is true. There is not one-tenth the amount of
drunkenness nor one-tenth the amount of
liquor sold in Maine, as before the enactment
of the law.
In 1882 the population of Maine was 49,
600. There was then 1000 licensed saloons
Their sales were $l0,G0OO 900 annually. The
population now is 625, 900. There is not now
an open bar IN the State. Who says SO? Here
are the witnesses. Over their own SIGNATURES
they assert it:
Hon Neal Dow, Hon. VIM. P. Frye, Hon. Ex
Gov. Perham, Hon. Hannibal Hamlin. Hon.
Judge Rockberry Davis, Hon. Ex Gov. Nelson
Dingtey, all from Maine, her honored sons.
can produce hundreds Of like testimonials.
The widest estimate of secret sales does not
exceed Sl.OOO,0OO, reduction of .nine-tentbs.
In 1880 there were thirteen distilleries. now
not NJ one. In 1883. by official report, there were
lO,UOO persons, 500 of them women, accustomed
to get drunk. This was one to forty-five.
Now there are 1900, or one to 800.
Now, sir, there may be class of temperance
men men who love to spend their time saving drunk
ssa oon sL enoug p to vote for the opening of
10 drunkard making shops in this country.
Dut your humble servant, although an earnest
WORKER e. IN this reform, is not one of that kind
Ironloit!on does prohibit. If it increases the
s "a OF liquor, then the rum sellers should he
Its friends. Why are they not?
w. w. SATTERLEE.