West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1882-01-06
The Register Yielding.
License rs. Prohibition. The Search
for Violations and Efforts to Prone
q Negative IN Maine and
Kansas
PHIL1PPI, Dec. 20.

H1LlfPl, DcC. ~.
ED. FREEMAN An editorial ar
ticle in the Wheeling Register of
Dec. 18th current, expresses the be-
lief of the editor that while the IL
cense system may have proved a
failure, prohibition has proved a
more complete one" l would not
call in question the sincerity of the
Register in taking this view of the
question. Indeed, | am quite will
ing to believe that the editors opin-
ion springs from honest convic-
tons; but, above all, [ am far from
being willing to admit that prohi-
bition has failed, wherever fairly
tried, of accomplishing its object.
The comparatively petty violations
of the law in Maine have been so
persistently cited by those opposed
to the measure, to prove the lnef-
fectualness of Prohibition, that the
thing has grown excessively mon
otonous. But one side of the ques-
ton has ever been looked at by the
maddened zealots of the liquor in
terests. Who ever heard of one of
them enquiring concerning the sue
cess of Prohibition Has even. SO
fair-minded an opposer of the move
ment as the editor of your able CO.
temporary undertaken such inqui-
ry? Rather, have not his efforts
been directed toward discovering
violations Of the laws operating in
Prohibition States, and notably
Maine and Kansas, leaving the i'm
portant fact of the otherwise over
whelming amount of crime sup
pressed, utterly out of the question ?
1t is, of course, not expected of the
liquor men to make such inquiry.
They become possessed of the truth
without that pains. Their cease
less efforts to thwart the work of
Prohibition proves its success. But
it is expected of intelligent, pure
minded people of all shades of be-
lief in respect to the great and per-
picking problem involved in the
liquor question, that such respected
and influential journals as the Reg
lister, will not confne it's efforts to
seeking evidence which seems to
confirm the opinion, honest though
it may be, of its editor.
THE LAW IN MAINE.
Mr.. Dow, from whom I had the
honor, a few months since to re-
ceive some letters on the subject, all
of which were printed in the Reg
lister, very stoutly affirms that Pro
hibition in Maine is, and has been
from the time of its inception, Il
decided success. The law in that
State has accomplished the suppress
sion of the manufacture of spirits
there, and, as Mr.. Dow observes,
"whatever liquors are struggled
into Maine come from the whole
sale shops of Boston and New York ."
Men obtain liquors there in the
same manner that they carry out
their evil designs here and every
where, by willful disobedience of
needed and respected laws. And
yet because the law does not abso-
lutely prohibit the evil against
which 1t is intended to serve the
people as the medium of their pro-
lection in person and property and
as the safeguard Of their liberties,
is it justice to ourselves and our
boosted institut ions to brand it as a
dead-letter? The Register is too
well informed to make such state
ment. In our own State, where the
laws relating to crimes of all degrees
and natures are as strictly enforced
perhaps, as those of other common
wealths, and where the punish
ment is certainly as severe, we
have had during the past few years
some notable instances of the fact
that no law is absolute in accom-
plishing it's ends.
In the face of ignominious death
possessed of the warning knowl-
edge that the noblest, purest, tru-
est deeds of life would be washed
away in relentless flood ofshame /;
and more than all, with wretch
ed rayless eternity before them,
men have plunged, regardless of
law, into the depths of crime.
g.,