Litchfield enquirer., 1880-04-01
Temperance Politics.


 Bacon some two months since against the seectmen of Norwich and the county commits sloners of New London county. for licensing certain liquor dealers in Norwich where MT Bacon IS now pastor of church. The fact' of the case seem to be these:
 At it's annual town elections in October last Norwich voted license. Mir. Bacon. who hal favored that vote, thereupon began taking af interest in the due enforcement of the law While the applications for license were being filed at the town clerks office, he repeatedly asked the selectmen for hearing regarding the character of the applicants, and hearing was promised. Nevertheless, without granting any such hearing, the selectmen proceeded te recommend to the county commissioners sev era keepers of notorious brothels, others who had been convicted of selling to minors and o other violations of the license law, and others still who were themselves druEkards, as per sons whom, Ion due inquiry and investiga tion" they had found to be lift and suitable persons" to be licensed to sell liquor The cit izens of Norwich were very indignant, anG next applied to the county commissioners tr refuse these men license, offering proof of thei bad character such as the commissioners them selver admitted to be overwhelming. Int commissioners gave a written promise not te license several of the persons complained of Nevertheless they did license them all, on the pleathat they had taken legal advice and had come to the conclusion that they had no option in the matter; though, as MT. Bacon ayers the best lawyers of the vicinity were of 6 contrary opinion. This was done, too, without any notice to the complainants, SO that the first the people of Norwich knew of the matter wa. when the infamous wretches whose business was thus legalized, displayed the licenses they had received
 Most of the officials who did these things were Republicans, temperance men, and pro hibitionists. Their sole excuse, 30 far as we can learn, is, that the town had voted license, that it was their duty to comply with tha, vote, that one rumseller is just as bad as anoth. CT, and that they could attempt DO discrimina tion between the shades of crime to which i, was their official duty to grant license.
 Beginning with First Seectnan Avery Mr Bacon delivers the most scathing personal de. nunciation of these doings we have ever known put in print since Theodore Parker was wont to lash slavery and those who offered excuses for slavery the old Abolition times The Nor. wich pastor castigates these poor official crea lures till one involuntarily cries out against the cruelty of their torture. In fact SO accus toned are we to seeing these petty politicians of the baser sort wriggle into small offices that we are almost ready to concede that politics cannot go on without them. MT Bacon is utterly without pity. From end to end his discourse IS one continuous, insnpportable, hor- ribly ingenious torment.
 The first criticism that occurs is. Gan such small game be worth any such immense cx. penditure of ammunition? Why hunt lizards with artillery?" It is this apparent dispropor. tion of means to end that turns one almost to compassion for these poor hunted political yer. min of Norwich, "a feeling that will very like ly turn public opinion in their favor Still, on reflection, we are not sure that this indig- nant religious teacher is not nearer right, after all, than he at first SC ems to the blunted moral perceptions of the average layman of the peril cd.
 Is it, really, little matter that our local officials should so grossly neglect great duty Is not the attitude of the Connecticut select. man, county commissioner or grand juror, towards this license law, precisely that of the noted Maine politician who, being closely questioned about the prohibitory statute then recently passed, was found to be ''in favor of the law, but agin' it's enforcement ?" This recreancy of the local official, patent even as regards the enforcement of "no license" is still more obvious in his total neglect of duty under vote of license. The Norwich select man, greatly contemptible ss he appears un. der the Bacon microscope, is but a sample of the officials of large class of towns in the State of Connecticut. So strong, in fact, is the influence of rum in politics. that the poli- tician visibly covers before it. He sometimes pretends ardor for temperance work but he privately lets the liquor.dealer know that he is not in earnest. Nowhere else is his hypocrisy so gross as in his treatment of the temperance question; and does not this hypocrisy deserve just such scathing as MT. Bacon gives it9
 One other feature of this matter deserves at. tention. The rumseller and the prohibitionst often strike hands on election day to carry a vote of ''no license" which the former knows can never be enforced, and which will there. fore excuse him from paying $1OO into the town treasury. They also agree in consider. ing all liquor selling alike right or alike wrong. The bitter prohibitionist claims that it is a crime of so aggravated nature that there are no degrees in its wickedness, and he consid. CTS it no worse to license the sale of liquor iu brothel than ID drug store. Hence the prohibitionist selectmsn is precisely the per. son preferred by the worst dealers of a town that has voted license. They arrive at the same conclusion by different roads; the reck. less dealer seeks license meaning to misuse 1t ; the teetotal selectman grants him his license, hoping he will misuse and make 1t odious. So the chief sinners and the chief saints of tenn. perance work tremendously together to render the law of no avail. Do not these partners Tn iniquity richly deserve the scatbing MT. Ba- con has given themf
 Furthermore, do not the facts detailed in this address offer additional evidence. if any were needed, of the complete divorce of morality from politics in the current political work of our day. Here are the grossest violations of dccency and morality; in small offices, to be sure; but are there any less in great? Do not politicians openly scoff st honesty, morality. decency and do not these very politicians dictate the nominees for whom our votes are to be cast at the most important elections ? Richly as these small Norwich specimens ot the breed have deserved extermination, we venture to suggest to this plucky Norwich par