Woodstown register. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 187?-1892, 1884-01-08
AUTHORIZATION COLUMN.
FAILURE OF PRoHIBIToRY LEGISLATION.

FAILURE OF PROHIBITORY LEGISLATION.
Dio Lewis, of Boston, was for years
one of the most urdent advocates of pro-
hlbition that could be found in the ranks
of temperance men. He believed In the
strictest legislative enactments that could
be framed to prevent the sale of intoxicat
ing liquors, and he wanted to see all such
laws enforced, even if 1t required the
entire power OF the State to do it. His
belief was simply the orthodox total absti-
hence belief What Dio Lewis believed
and desired in these respects are what hun
dreds of thousands of honest, intelligent,
well meaning people believe and desire
oday. But while Do Lewis was earnest
and incorporating in the position he
assumed, he was not so bigoted as TO re-
fuse to recognize the logic of events, and
the consequence is thai he is no longer a
prohibllionlst in the ordinary acceptation
of the term. Indeed, an audience of Bos-
ton clergymen, after listening TO his views,
resolved that they "deeply regretted that
Dio Lewis had abandoned the cause of
temperance and gone over to the rum par
ty." These clergymen went too far. Dio
Lewis has not joined the "rum party"
but he does believe that the attempt to
make men temperate by law is failure.
He says:
OF the success of prohibition in the
State of Massachusetts l was Constant
and attentive observer for twenty years
AT first public sentiment in its favor was
very strong. Earnest temperance men
wrote the law. The Legislature passed
it without changing word. Soon it was
discovered that it did not cover every
case, and 1t was amended. Several times
1t was amended, until the cunning Of the
Evil One could find no possible escape
from its provisions. his prohibltory law
was not allowed to take its chances with
other laws, but large number of selected
men. known as State Constables, with
headquarters in Boston, were for years on
the qm me for transgressions of prohibit
ton. They were sworn to enforce the
law. Our taxpayers knew that large
percentage Of their taxes sprang from the
rum traffic; we knew that nearly all crimes
originated in strong drink every father
knew that his sons success and his daugh-
ter's happiness were lmperiled by the traf.
fic, and we all knew that the success of our
republican institutions was endangered by
strong drink. Under all these overwhelm-
ing convictions, sustained by an immense
force of State Constables, there were, in
Boston at the end of twenty four years of
Notwithstanding those drug stores
where drinks could be purchased without
difficulty, many of which sold by the
drink and all of which sold by the bottle.
and the saloons-almost FIVE thousand
places where intoxicating drinks could be
purchased without let or hinderance. And
this is the most law-abiding large city in
our country. All the considerations, all
the conceivable motives that could inspire
an intelligent, brave community, were con-
centrated in Boston. Yet in that city the
law was violated more than three hundred
thousand times day, or more than two
million times week, and the average
punishment for the offense was not more
than one week,
Dio Lewis claims to be as strong a tenn
perance man as ever, but the folly of fix
ing by statute what a man shall drink Is
now as clear to him as would be the idiocy
Of defining by law what man shall eat
He regards the tendency to drink as
vice, and believes only the crimes of the
liquor traffic should be punished. He
says:
The sale to child, to a man who is
drunk, to sot, or to person who is dan
gerous when under the Influence of drink,
is crime. The sale to man who is in
sane or non eompos nsentts, is crime. A
determined prosecution OF these offenses
would overwhelm the whole horde of Ii
quor sellers. But prohibitionists miss
their great opportunity in not prose-
cutting authorizations. An adulteralon is
fraud, and fraud is always crime
Officers can go anywhere in search Of
fraud, and in this movement the drinkers
themselves would cheer on the attack. A
vigorous prosecution of adulteration would
give such blow to the liquor traffic in
year as it will never get from the present
methods of prostitution. -Phila. Record,
Dec. e6.