The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1884-02-20
The Necessity and Utility of Saloons.

The Necessity and Utility Of Saloons.
Not few men, of more than average
intelligence and standing in society,
have believed that the existing of an
appetite in large number of individuals
for given thing, even though it be i'm
moral iE its tendencies, and among the
vices creates an excusable necessity for
the existence of places and the
means for the qualifications of
those tastes and appetites. On
this ground 1t has been attempted
in some cities to legalize the social evil
and more generally than we know its
illegal existence is winked at and toler-
ated as necessary, and therefore excus-
able in the presentconstitution ofsociety.
Men who are temperate in their own
habits and who desplse intemperance
in others, do not see their way clear to
the abolition of the liquor traffic as bev-
erage because of the very general love
for and habit of moderate drinking,
which prevails in all classes from the
lowest to the highest, many of whom are
without consciousness of its dangers
and its evils, and upon whom, it must
be confessed, its evils are scarcely ap-
parent to those Of more radical views
upon this question. 1t is plausibly
urged that If my intelligent and re-
spectacle neighbor,every way my equal
in social and moral qualities, thinks it
will be for his advantage or pleasure to
drink an occasional glass of ale or beer,
or stronger liquor, | have no right to
say he shall not. The fact that every
tenth or twentieth man abuses his lib
erty furnishes no reason for abolishing
the privilege Of the nine or nineteen
and having got so far as to admit the
moral right of the moderate drinker to
his occasional dram," the step to the
propriety and necessity of providing
places where he may be furnished with
the means of gratifying his appetite is
comparatively easy one. Admit the
premises and the conclusion is not very
far from the truth. If again the dealer
was equally high toned and moderate
T., Ito 1,;ouc and hod tho pni1raO Op IN
restrict his sales so that only the class
in question could purchase, it must be
confessed that the evils Of the traffic
would be much less than they now are.
But unfortunately the social relations
of the dealer with his customers and his
selfish interests combine to neutralize or
overthrow any scruples or moral con-
victions he may have in the beginning
on this question and no matter whether
he be the keeper of the low-down dog
gerry, or of the more fashionable and re-
spectacle, gilded saloon, or the very
necessary druggist, it comes to this that
if sales are left, to his interests and
judgment, there is no way of contining
his trade to those persons to whom
liquors might be sold with comparative
impurnity. The claim of the moderate
and respectable drinker allowed, and the
utility and necessity for saloons, in ev-
cry we'll organized society, as a
legitimate and honorable branch of
trade follows. And in this as in other
departments, we see no method by which
the moral or intellectual standard of the
dealer can be graded. If a man can fur
nish the capital, he has, if the saloon
has legitimate claim to existence, as
good right to engage in the sale of
liquors as dry goods or groceries, or
clothing, or any other commodity. But
unfortunately for the argument all ex-
perence shows that saloon for the &C
commodation of moderate drinkers, is
also invariably saloon for immoderate
drinkers. The dividing line between
the two classes never has and never eau
be determined so that besides doing a
legitimate business, (if it ever can be
said to do thaD the saloon must ever as
in the past be the fruitful source Of vice
and crime. If the moderate drinkers
will insist on their privilege to an en-
tirely useless, even if harmless indul-
gence, then they must be content to
take the responsibility for the perpetua-
tion of the greatest moral pest that ever
afflicted any nation. The higher moral
ground for the moderate drinker to take
would be, eff meat maketh my brother
to offend, will eat no meat while the
world standeth" and much more would
it become the total abstainers to come
down from their high pedestal of per-
sonal and civil liberty and join the army
advocating the total prohibition Of the
sale of all intoxicating liquors except
for medicinal uses.