St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-04-27
Talmadge ON High License.

Rev. DR., Talmadge, Of Brooklyn, who was
in this city recently, gave the following toan
Inter Ocean reporter. The other great Brook
lyn preacher is on the wrong side of several
questions about half the time. Mr.. Tai
madge, who is apt to be right, says:
1 don't approve of the sale of intoxicating
liquor, save for medicinal, mechanical and
scientific purposes. Now, to sell liquor is right
or wrong. Ii tits wrong, no amount Of money
ought to give man the privilege to do
wrong thing; but, on the other hand, if it is
right, every man, without license, should
have the right to sell it as he would bread or
clothes. l oppose giving a privilege to
man to sell rum for $500. By such a license
you admit he has the right to go on and do
it. But | contend that neither for $500 nor
5000 can a man buy a right to do such
thing, no. not by any law, civil or eccesias-
teal. Let everybody sell, or let nobody sell
that's the spirit of American institutions.
Give every man an equal chance. And
what do l think the out come of the question
will be. l think the evil of intemperance
viii go on, growing worse and worse, until
the nation rises up in indignation and
brushes the traffic ont.
Fathers will see their sons going to de-
struction; people will mark the awful work of
! the scourge and finally join in the most We
| hement opposition to it, l shouldn't wonder
| if in twenty years we should have presi-
dent elected upon prohibition platform. 1t
seems to he law that evils must develop
| themselves before a righteous opposition is
aroused. American slavery is an example.
1t was destroyed through its own extension.
1t put itself out into all parts of the land; it
enacted slave laws, so that every good citizen
was expected to become a slave-catcher. FL
nally came its extinction. And so will in
! temperance become worse and worse, till the
nation cries out for prohibition. The differ
ence between having whole city cursed with
| small drinking establishments, and city
cursed with a few great ones, is the differ
ence between fifty pimples and enc great
carabuncle. True. YOU can control all the
| poison and distemper Of the thing when in
one great center, but | believe they are more
| virulent and more destructive than when
scattered.
Now this is an important point, that high
license is going to make intemperance thor
| oughly respectable; going to garniture and
adOrn and confirm great establishments,
where respectable people may go and dissi-
pate. Such palatial places are but invita-
tons to high minded young men to 90 anC
dissipate as they never have before. Now in
this line of thought, l argue from the analogy
of the efforts to suppress the social evil. In
| places where there have been attempts to sup
press the social evil no good results have
come of it. The theory is to make the in
iquity of the social evil less harmful by bring
ing to bear in its behalf the resources of sci
entifiic and medical explorations. Such pro
ceeding has always made the social evi
worse, and not better, in any city on an!
continent. 1t has always been failure
the effort to extirpate it by legislation. Shu
up the small liquor establishments, and the
patronage viii 90 to twenty or thirty larg,
ones, which would eclipse all the fine hotel:
you've got here. 1t is the argument in thu
east that the large liquor dealers will be th'
coadjutors of the temperance cause. oh
you may characterize it all as a monopoly o
abomination.n