The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1881-07-21

frame laws to prohibit drunkenness
under severe penalties. Put it int
the catalogue Of criminal offenses.
This would be ia accordance with
the laws Of natuT& because it would
punish the guilty party. This plan
would have tendency to check ex.
cessive drinking in the present gener.
alton, to prohibit excessive drinking
in the next, and finally to stop the
manufacture and sale of intoxicants
as beverage. This plan would bring
strong force to bear on the strongest
lever known to man-self interest
1t would check excessive drinking be-
cause men would soon find it expedient
to abstain. It would be very incon-
venient and expensive for the lawyer
to leave his Office, the physician, his
patient, the mechanic, his job, and the
clerk his position, to go to prison fol
thirty days; and after paying such a
price, once or twice for spree, they
would conclude that ''going on a
drunk" was too costly luxury
Moreover, this plan would make
drunkenness a crime. The drunkard
will have become criminal in the eyes
of society, and respectable people will
have legal right to point the finger
Of scorn at him, and put as many So
cial screws on him as they may
choose"
This is striking in the right direc-
ton. We have law-good law, If it
was enforced, against the seller. We
have no respect for the man who sells
liquor. He is engaged in contempt
IDLY mean and wicked business. He
has no respect for himself, and no re-
spect for anything that is good and
right. He is utterly devoid of the
most ordinary humanitarian instincts.
He is low, groveling and british. He
is disturbing element in society and
what little influence he possesses is all
on the wrong side. But wherein is
the man who buys and guzzles his Ii
quor any better? Does the liquor sell
Ter force his commodities on the drink
er? Does he ''entice" him to drink !?
"Entice" is a favorite word with the
one sided temperance men. If he
''entices" him how does he do it?
Simply by exposing his truck for sale.
With equal sense and justice we might
say that the merchant, the grocer, the
banker and the farmer all entice men
to steal. There is silly and perni-
cious sort of morbid sentiment attach
ed to the drunkard. He, one of the
worst of criminals, Of all the class
who violate moral laws, is by this
milk and water temperance set sniffied
over as an innocent victim. A vic
tim to what? Why he is a victim to
his own cussedness. That's just all
there is of it. The drinker can go to
the saloon, sober, clothed in his right
mind and deliberately fill himself with
whisky until he is crazed and brutal
lied and put in fit condition for the
commission Of any crime, yet he goes
scott free. No State law ever impris-
ons him, and a morbid temperance
sentiment excuses his wickedness and
places all the blame for his condition
at the door of the saloon keeper.
Such sentiment is all wrong. 1t is
against reason and common sense.
When society starts right and classes
the drinker with the seller, it will ac-
complish something. Give plain
drunk 80 days on a stone pile, bois-
ferrous aggravated case twice that long
and put the man who sold the liquor
right with him in the same boat and
you will do something. Take the
drunkard and cry and sniffle over him,
and pour out anathemas on the head
of the man who sold liquor to him,
and you will never accomplish any
thing except the defeat of effective
temperance work.