The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-12-25

| SOME OBJECTIONS.
When we admit that a rum seller COM
mits crime and may be suppressed for
selling to person who is insane or non
compos mentis the Prohibitonist exclaims:
Such law, thoroughly enforced, would
cure ninety-nine hundredths of the curse,
| because every man who drinks too much
rum is non compos mentis" Such man
is morally defective. This confusion be-
tween the moral and the legal leads to all
our disagreements. The man who drinks
too much rum, uses too much tobacco, or
INDUCES in bad dress, bad food bad theaters
idleness, or any of the twenty other vices
! may be morally non cOmpoS mentiS, but
nine hundred and ninety-nine thousandths
of such men are legally sane However,
any one may challenge a drinkers sanity,
| and demand a trial. If the jury decides
that he is sane, he is free. Millions of peo-
pie are unreasonable, and most sinful in
their lives; but there very few of them
! who are legally insane. And until they conf
NIT crime, or make legal nuisance of them
| selves, they are as free, and may claim as
complete protection as the very salt of the
earth, though our Puritan Fathers
did not think so. Prohibitionists
will be quick to declare that we miss the
question, that they have never treated drink
ing as a crime; that prohibtory legislation is
directed against the sale; that is the crime.
The cook who contributes to gluttony by
his appetizing compounds, is accessory to a
vice, but is not guilty of a crime. The grog
| seller is accessory to another vice. To say
| that he is guilty OF a crime, because he is ac-
cessory to a vice, is to ignore the dictionary
! and talk nonsense To admit that a man
has a legal right to drink, and then send a
| constable to stand between him and oppor-
! tunity, is adding insult to tyranny. To say
! that you have a legal right to use patent
medicines, one of which you wish to swallow,
and then send Off GERS to stand between you
and the drug store would be parallel alb
surdity. The Prohibitionist would say to
man who wishes to drink: "My dear fellow,
you have a perfect legal right to drink,
| but 1 should smile to see you buy any"
| The right to drink includes the right to buy,
not the right to buy through the lying pre-
scription of tricky Doctor but the right tG
buy of any one who conducts the sale with
out crime and without making his business
| legal nuisance.
A Prohibitionist with whom had news
paper discussion some years ago, rested his
case upon the affirmation that THE public
good is the only object, and limit of the law
making power" With the popular meaning
aVtacneu to that familiar sentence | take is
STE. The only object and duty of the legs-
lature is to protect the rights of the indi-
| vlduals who constitute the public In this
matter of human rights there is, strictly
| speaking, no such creature as the public.
| Persons who talk so fippantly of the rights
| of society should be asked to find society.
Let them go down street. turn to the right, to
/ the left everywhere; they will find man. a
! woman, a child another man, another wom-
an, another child. and so on for a million.
Each of these men, each of the women, each
of the children has rights. This talk
of the rights of society as against
| the individual alWaUS rnnnln1q m nj
corporations. A corporation is said to have
no soul; it is guilty OF all sorts of tyranny
and injustice toward the poor, but nobody is
! to blame-it is the corporation The corpo-
ration is composed of individuals whose
meanness and cowardice in shifting the re-
| sponsibility to the creature they call the cor
! poration, is precisely parallel to the rights of
society as against the individual. The men,
bers of church have rights; they have no
church rights, but they have rights as ind-
viduals in a church. No human being has
any rights whatever except as an individual.
| And when a million of men act together in
what is called a government, not one of
them obtains any rights thereby, except as
an individual. The phrase so much used
| the rights of society,"" is a mere trick of
words which, like the "rights of a corpora
ton" is often used to cover injustice.
| Another Prohibitionst speaks of an old
maxim "The public good is the supreme
! law" have never heard of such a maxim;
! but 1 have heard that THE public
/ safety is tine supreme law" The whole
! difference between the views am advocating
| and the views of the extreme Prohibitionist
| isifound in the difference between the words
! good" and Safety" 1.-The public safety"
is endangered by an armed INVASION by a
| cohfagration or contagion; and in their pres
ence the rights of individuals must give way
| Necessity knows no law" 'Hhe public
good" is endangered by false religious and po-
| lifnal thaOriaS bya in drnSe S1anrN food
drinks, etc, To these vices nothing but
reason and persuasion can be addressed. If
/ the Centra Park reservoir should give way
the man who saw it would be justified in
Selling his neighbours horse and rushing
down town, shouting, 1.-The waters are COM
ing run for your lives" But if man were
I to seize his neighbours horse and rush
through the streets shrieking, TON Brown
is selling glass of liquor" it won Id be a
different case, If some temperance man
were to seize horse in Broadway and
tear through the streets shouting
sake turn out; Jim Biles is
selling Pete Smith a glass of whisky" the
chances are that, instead of the court holding
that the ''public safety" justified the seizure
of the horse, the jealous friend of temperance
would have to ask some friend to bail him
out
Instead of its being maxim that "the
public good is the supreme law" it is one of
the wisest sayings that a wrong done by the
government TO the humblest individual, that
is the violation of any one of his rights of
person or property, is a wrong done to the
whole people. And this is not only true, but
most important; because, if one mans per-
sona rights can be violated with impunity,
then the rights of all the people can be vio-
lated with impunity. The greatest public
good that any government is capable of is
to secure each and every individual the full
nt1A fran or,tn f oil aisrl,tC
of person and property.
WHAT LAW AND MORALS CAN DO.
The sale to q child, to a man who is drunk,
to a sot, or to person who is dangerous
when under the influence of drink, is a