The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-02-26
LETTERS FROM THE PEOPLE.
Prohibition, Local option, Etc.

Te the Editor of the indianapolis Journal:
There is so much good hard sense in late
Raper from Brother Tucker, of Union City, that
Ns point should not be lost for lack of a sup
elementary word or two. That is good idea
that State prohibition is only local option, with
the State as the unit. Unfortunately for US,
that is the smallest unit we can have in Indiana
under our present Constitution. We tried it in
1853 on the voting plan and the Supreme Court
killed it before it had fairly breathed We tried
it again in 1873 under another form, but, in
order to adapt it to the Constitution, it was.
emasculated by the Legislature before it was
born, and practically killed outright by the Su-
Preme Court before it was year old. So local
option with us, in any possible form, must take
the State as its unit, Besides the liquor league
will contest prohibition for one county as re-
lentlessly as they will for the whole State, so
that the strong must help the weak
or go unhelped themselves, which is not
so bad thing, after all, in this selfish world.
He is right in another thing, and the sooner all
overzealous Prohibitionists recognize the fact
and govern themselves accordingly, the better
for their cause and for mankind Any prohib-
itory law yet devised, or possible to be devised
under our form OF government, is only local
option law, after all Its enforcement must de
pend on local machinery, and wherever the liquor
power has possession of the courts no prohibtory
law can be enforced. But it does not follow
that, therefore, prohibitory law should be
passed. OF that the counties in which it cannot
be enforced should be exempt from its provisions,
even if they could be under the Constitution.
This condition of affairs is not peculiar to the
liquor traffic; it is found in all laws For full
half century the laws of the United States for
babe, under severe penalties, the tampering with
the mails. Yet all these years the mails
tempered with in all the slave States, because
it impossible to convict offenders, even
in the United States courts for the jures were
made up of those who upheld such things No
one proposed to make the law local option, be-
cause it was thus a failure in certain localities.
but the government preferred to put all violators
IN the attitude of criminals until such time as it
could lay its hand upon Them so that at present,
the mails are tolerably secure everywhere but
there are yet large districts in which the revenue
is not collected and cannot be for the same rea-
son that in some counties in Kansas the prohib-
itory law is not enforced. Yet, no one proposes
to repeal the revenue law make it local option.
Some time, in some way other the law will
be enforced if it takes another war to do it.
This country can more afford to succumb to a
few bands of 'moOnshiners" than it can afford
to make laws to suit the liquor-sellers, be-
cause in some localities they control the courts
For years and years murder and arson, and
highway robbery ran riot in Jackson county, in
this State. because the bandits controlled the
local courts No proposed, therefore, to
make criminal laws local option. and by law
allow Jackson county to be a law to itself
There was no constitutional way to help things
We, outside had to leave the administration of
law to the local machinery of the law Just as we
had had to do in the matter of mails until the
people found a way to hang half dozen or so of
the bandits without the intervention of juries
and jackson county is now fairly middling and
getting better every day.
High license is no remedy for this state of
affairs neither is low license; nothing is but
steady march forward in the right, and pronibi-
ton is right in the liquor traffic as in any other
crime against society, and license, high or low,
just as unwise. The significant, the alarming
truth is, there exists in our midst band of men
not only oath bound, but bound by the lowest
greed, who intend to defy all law, human and
divine, that crosses their path. In Illinois last
year the halfway temperance men passed
high-license law alleging that prohibition law
could not be enforced in Chicago. What is the
once to the Supreme Court. 1t was there sus-
tanned. whereupon, last week. the saloon-k keep
Crs of Chicago met and openly declared that they
will not obey the law, and they are not obeying
it, and never will while its enforcement depends
on Chicago court. But this is the traffic every
where and at all times. Give u.s. therefore,
local option law that shall be prohibitory
wherever it can be enforced, and it can be en-
forced in every nook and corner of Indiana as
well as the law against murder, or arson, or lar
eeny is enforced. If you want saloons say so
boldly, but don't whine about it, or lie about it
by saying that your only objection to prohibi-
ton is it can't be enforced. T. A. GOODWIN.