Morning journal and courier., 1881-03-10
Thursday Morning, March 10. 1881.
PROHIBTTION ys. LICENsE.

| PROHIBITION Vs. LICENSE.
 l A notable temperance meeting was held il
 Fremont Temple, in Boston, Tuesday
 The call for the meeting was signed by si1 hundred ministers of all denominations, anc
 it is estimated that half the signers were present. Three sessions were held and
 large number of addresses made. The prac
 tical result of the meeting will probably bt
 in the direction of constitutional amend
 ment prohibiting the manufacture and sale ot Intoxicating liquors in the State of Massa I chusetts. This proposition, although made 1 late in the day, was received with great
 favor and was enthusiastically supported. Ii was urged as platform upon which all the
 temperance people of the State could be
 gathered.
 Two of the most interesting and important addresses made at this meeting were those of l the Rev. E. E. Hale and the Rev. Dr. Miner. These gentlemen both spoke concerning what they think the misleading statements of those who use figures in a way to show that prohi- bition and the strictest license laws have not had much effect for good. Rev. MT. Hale said the course of legislation since 1852 had
 been to throw upon Boston the. most of the
 manufacture of intoxicating liquors in Massa-
 chusetts, and a singuIarly large proportion of
 their sale. The city of Boston, he continued,
 because it sold liquor readily to all appli-
 cants, received into it's population the men
 who were driven by morbid appetite from
 places in New England where such tempta-
 tions were not offered them. This vitiated
 the statistics of temperance and intemper-
 ance. ''Take the figures in regard to arrests
 for drunkenness. In villages where there are
 no policemen there were no arrests in cities
 where there are policemen arrests would be
 made. If then, in series of years you
 throw the incorporate people, by your strict
 egislation, on the cities where there are po- icemen, you will have more arrests for drunkenness. In a series of years when your legislation is lax the drunkards will be left unmolested in the country villages where there are no policemen. Then some doctri- naire who never looks for men and knows nothing of square visible fact will look at the returns in public document and will tell you that there is most drunkenness in the years when there is the strictest legislation. Local option, which closed the rum shops in the towns, resulted in, first, the steady influx to the large cities, and notably to Boston, of the weakest men in New England and sec ond, the burden of crime and pauperism which immediately follow the presence of such population, and the unlimited oppor- tunities given to them for the qualification of their incorporate desires.''
 Hon. James M. Bugbee, member of the Massachusetts Legislature, recently made a minority report in which he justified license by statistics. The Rev. Dr. Miner took issue with MT. Bugbee. He showed that during a greater part of the period which Mir. Bugbee had given as under prohibitory law the sale of cider, beer, etc., was allowed and that during his license time there was local option clause in the law, so that there was ab- solute prohibition in two-thirds of the cities and towns of the State. The comparison, therefore, as between prohibition and license, was not fair and valuable one, for neither policy was fully in force. If the statistics were fairly compared, how would it appear, asked Dr. Miner, that the greater drunken ness of the former period was not due to the sale of the intoxicants permitted? Or that she decrease of drunkenness in the latter pe- rlod was not due largely to the prohibition of the traffic under the local option clause ? But, he continued, the statistics themselves were not fairly employed 'The statistics of the labor bureau for 1874 and 1877, as MT. Bugbee says. show marked decrease in criminal drunkenness in the years between ;hese dates. This he attributes to the repeal of the prohibitory law, but how came the amount of drunkenness existing in 1874? The prohibitory law was in force but TWO years from 1867 to 1874. It was repeal 'd in 1868 and restored for single year in 1869, marred by the exemption of cider, and ,nIy year intervened between its restora- ion in 1873 and it's repeal in 1874. The year s69 and the period from May, 1873, to Tune, 1874, were the only two years of real prohibition Massachusetts has had for thir- l cen years. Yet MT. Bugbee charges the ] leplorable and disastrous results of these l ears of license to prohibition. The number If places where liquor was sold with license l n 1877 was 99 more than MT. Bugbee states, l nd as to the number suspected of selling l without license, to which he refers, that | lumber depends very much upon the ques- ion who entertains the suspicion. He says | here were 80 or 90 towns each year in which 10 arrests were made for drunkenness, | nd forgets to state that almost without exception these were towns in which no license was granted, and the result ollowed practical prohibition, not i- ense, in these cases. He forgets, too, that here began about the time when the license aw went into effect, the most remarkable york of reformation which has taken place a this country for forty years. Reform lubs by the scores were formed, and drunk rds by hundreds, and moderate drinkers by thousands, signed the pledge. The great re- gious work of 1876 and 1877 also drew aany men from their cups"
 As we have before pointed out, the advo- ates of license and of prohibition both con- truct by means of statistics good cases for he two systems. Taking into consideration he fact that prohibition has not had so fair nd complete trial as license has it is very to the prohibitionists that they an make the good showing they do- One the best services that could be rendered ae temperance cause would be an entirely air collection and statement of the available acts concerning the working of the two sys-