Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1881-08-18
Political Temperance.

The people of the State of Ohio have
lived a long time in thirty years -4long
enough to enable them, especially those
who took part in public affairs thirty
years ago, to look facts squarely in the
face, and to deal with things as they
are. Of the 100000 voters in Ohio not
exceeding 100000 took part in elections
thirty years ago. Hence but compara-
lively few know from personal expert
ence and observation that the idea of
liquor prohibition" was much mere
prevalent thirty years ago than it is to-
day.
At the time, of the adoption of the
present Constitution in 1851 all of the
power and influence of all of the temper
ance organizations in the State were ex-
erted to carry the separate anti-license
clause. Prior to that time nc liquors
were retailed any where in the State
unless the dealer had been duly licensed
by the Court of Common Pleas. The idea
of the temperance people was ''no license
no sale of intoxicating liquors. In 9TH
er words, the anti-license clause, adopt
ed by the Constitutional Convention,
upon the earnest demand of the temper
ance people, was understood to be equiv
alent to prohibition of the traffic. Such
was the view of the ultra temperance
people of the time. At first the liquor
dealers and those who sympathized with
them were violently opposed to the anti
license clause. But some weeks before
the special election called for the pur-
pose of ratifying or rejecting the new
Constitution the dealers discovered that
the anti-license clause meant free trade
in liquors, and from violent oppOsers of
that clause they suddenly became its en-
thusiastic supporters; and, on the third
Tuesday in June, 1851, the singular spec
tacle was seen on the streets of every
city and village in the State of liquor
dealers, temperance lecturers, and Chris
tian ministers distributing the same bal
lots, button-holing voters, and standing
shoulder to shoulder in the sacred cause
of "anti-monopoly" and Temperance. y
That Alliance" carriedsthe anti-license
clause, and laid the foundation for un-
taxed whisky for generation at least.
The two classes of persons supported
the anti-license clause for diametrically
opposite reasons. But the effect was the
same as though both parties had under
stood themselves. The temperance peo-
pie took hold on the hot end of that po-
ker.
The Observation-Disclosures Alliance en-
tered into between the liquor dealers
and the ultra temperance men in 1851
has been maintained ever since. We
admit that the mass of the temperance
men do not recognize the fact that they
are members of such a coalition. yet
such is the notorious fact. Whenever
any thing really practical is proposed tc
be done to control and regulate the traf-
fic these two classes of men are always
found in solid array against it, and
they have uniformly possessed sufficient
influence to negative all such legislation
though they came within five votes OF
being defeated in the case of the Pond
liquor tax bill.
Our Prohibition friends maintain that
we must treat the manufacture and sale
of liquors as "crime" to be punished
They demand more stringent laws and
heavier penalties, forgetting that in this
age of Christian civilization severe
penalty results in the practical nullilica
ton of the law imposing it. Not many
generations ago the English law attach
ed the penalty of death to many petty
crimes. What was the result as civili
zation and humanity advanced, and a,
justice came to be administered in a reg
ular and humane manner? All reader
of history know. Such crimes were sci
dom punished at all, for the reason tina
no jury could be found who would sen,
man to the gallows for stealing six
pence or clipping a penny's worth of sill
liver from q shilling. The laws, in faet