The Indianapolis sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis, Ind.) 1880-1904, 1885-02-02
High License
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communicated
The News of Thursday editorially CON-
ments on my article in the Sentinel of Wed.
nesday, and bases its argument upon the
same false premise as has mislead legislators
in all ages, and that is, that you can make
men more moral by legal ensctments. But
the experience of statesmen and the observa-
ton of philosophers have taught them their
laws in advance of the general moral senti.
ment Of a people are a dead letter in the
statute books, and the history of such laws,
from Noses code TO the late prohibition
laws in Kansas and Iowa, are that they are
failure. The first great duty OF all reformers,
who have IN view a particular reform,
is TO educate the moral sentiment of
the people up TO the point where
they viii demand the enactment Of the de
sired law. Law never has been, and never
will De refOrmer or fOTeruDner OF c)mlnC
reforms To be successfully enforced. and
accom- lish the object for which it is in
tended, IL must be ont a reflection of the
will of the people, These are aXioms which
have been demonstrated MANY times in
every civilized la O, aud in all ages, and
within the last third OF century in the fugi.
tive slave law, and IN the pTohibitory laws
that have been passed by various States.
What bss been the experience in States
where prohIbitory laws have been passed?
Why, that intoxicants are sold in as many
or more places than under g liberal license
law. The United States licensed more retail
saloons in Kansas under prohibitory law
than under the former license law. Now a
high license is TO prohibition what high
tariff is to the Chinese wall-it is but mod
fled form of the same idea. The result is
that while, as ! said before, you reduce
-
rot lessen the number OF drinking places;
fer the drug stores multiply. aud open out
little wider; disrepntable and illegal drink
ing holes spring mp in every alley and by
way, ard instead Of having 500 licensed
saloons, under legal restraint you have 200,
or ct most $50 high. toned and gilded drink
ing palaces, and 200 or 800 drug stores and
disTeputsbe and Illegal drinking holes
All but We will indict them, and make il
too expensive for them TO run long. But you
never have Gone it, and you never will do
Ii. until such a law is demanded By
and is the embodied will Of large majority
of the people. Until il is as respectable and
ss commendab'e TO inform On saloon
keeper for violating the Law as it now is 10
inform on or arrest a thief. such Law will
be dead letter. The writer was in Dss
Noines, Ia, several years ago when there
was fine OF $500 for selling a glass OF
liquor yet there were fifty saloons in that
CITY running as openly az they dld when
they paid a license Of $500. Yet no one
thought of ining them. He also lived for
sixteen years in a county in this
State where, during ell that time there
not licensed saloon. Yet during all
that time, IN a village of 200 inhabitants
there were two drug stores that sold barrel :,
of whisky each per week, and usually there
was also one or two saloons without license,
and it was very seldom that any one was in
dIcted
It seems to the writer that the proper pol
icy IN this reform, ss in all others is to pass
the most advanced law that tie general
moral sentiment of the people will enforce,
ana there are three forward steps
that the people are now ready
TO take: FiTst that nothing but
pure liquor shall be sold, and
that every house where intoxicsnts are
sold shall pay license, and shall be kept
in an as orderly e manner IS q grocery or
any other store. Bot any law that looks to
the suppression or the limiting Of the
traffic must wait for d higher development
of future generation. And the place for
the present generation to work is in the
school room, and educate the children so
that fifty years hence a prohibitory Law will
be the natural result OF the moral sentiment
of the age If the prohibitionists of Toe
present would but bend their energies 70
this they woEld accomplish their object
much sooner tnan by drilling unwilling
Legislatures into the enactment OF laws
which are dead letter when placed on the
hooks, and but serve to instill contempt
for eli laws J. I.
February l. 1885.