Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1882-06-21
The Liquor Traffic and its Fruits.

The late James A. Garfield truly said
" 1t is cheaper to reduce crime than to build
iails." And is it not better every way too
The liquor traffic is like tree, bearing fruits
of many kinds, all destructive to the best
interests of all within its influence. Its
fruits are idleness, wastefulness, poverty,
vice, suicide, murder and all other crimes,
heavy taxes to support the poor, TO try Grim
inals and build jails and prisons. Our leg
islatures spend a great deal of time and
ingenuity in hedging in the tree and trim
ming it, in the vain endeavor to improve the
quality of its fruits. 1t is like the tabled
Hydra, many-headed monster, Of which
if one was cut off, it would Immediately
grow out again. The monster lives, the
tree thrives and produces the same manner
of fruits abundantly. Would it not be bet
ter to dig up the tree by the roots and de-
stroy it utterly In what does the prosper
ity of body or community consist I In
the healthful action of all its members. If
one member suffers, the whole body suffers.
Take town-if each of the families in it
| is industrious, economical and thriving,
| they all support themselves and add some
| thing to the taxable property of the town ;
but if there are fifteen or twenty men in it
who spend their earnings for strong drink,
and idle away their time in drunken ca
rousals, or lounging about saloons and bar
rooms, leaving their families to suffer for
want of the necessaries of life, wasting what
property they previously possessed, creating
an appetite as Unsuitable as the grave and
preparing their families to come upon the
town for support, it makes vast difference.
| Apply this to Massachusetts. In 1879 there
were over 5000 persons licensed to sell liquor
who made their living chiefly from this traffic.
| Their business makes the rich richer, and
the poor poorer still but this is not all.
| The same year 1880 were convicted for
drunkenness and if we may judge by what
we have seen, not one-fourth of those who
| got drunk were convicted. Many Of these
had families and friends who were mortified
and disgraced as well as impoverished
thereby. The bureau of the statistics of
labor investigated the cases coming before
courts in Suffolk comfy from September l.,
1879, to September l, 1880, and say; 1.-THE
total number Of sentences for the year of
our investigation, the distinctly rum Of
| fences included, were 1887. Of these l2,-
$50 were directly due to rum causes, being
sentenced for drunkenness and liquor selling
without license. 1t appears that 2,097 of
the remaining 4,06S sentences imposed were
for crimes committed while under the influ-
|
cent of all the crime committed in Suffolk
county for that year due to the influence of
liquor. These figures paint picture, at
once the most painful and hideous, of the
guilt and power Of rum. Men and women,
the young, the middle-aged and the old,
father and son, husband and wife, native
and foreign born, the night-walker and
man-slayer, the thief and adulterer, all tes-
titled to its ramified and revolving tyranny.
Therefore the result of this investigation,
in view of the disproportionate magnitude
of the exclusively rum offenses, and consid-
cred in connection with the notorious ten
dency of liquor to influence and enlarge the
passions and appetites, to import chaos into
moral and physical life, to level the barriers
of decency and self-respect, and to trans
port its victims into an abnormal and ire
| sponsble state, destructive and degrading,
calls for earnest and immediate attention at
the bar of public opinion and public con-
| science of Massachusetts" Men and women,
lovers of good order, we ask, we entreat
you, help dig up this tree, destroy it root and
branch, make the traffic illegal, unconStitl-
| ti0ndl.-Seiected.