The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1885-09-09

ed, while Fitzpatrick, in turn get
ting scared, left the house. Old
Mrs. Fitzpatrick heard the shot,
and contriving to get up and crawl
out of the house, aroused her
neighbors. The effort will probably
cost her her life, for she Immediately
suffered a relapse, and is now in
dying condition. Young Fitzpatrick
has disappeared, and the police are
looking for him.
The next is from the news columns
of the ". Y. Witness
Memphis, July &c. Henry Nance,
who was one of the most desperate
characters in Mississippi, had been
on prolonged spree, and while still
under the influence of liquor on last
Thursday night he murdered his wife
in the presence of his three children,
by shooting her down, at their home
in Oakland. When the officers, with
a posse of citizens, went to his house
and surrounded it, he shot himself
in the head, inflicting wounds which
proved fatal.
l am not going to argue from these
texts that the prohibition Of the
liquor traffic is or is not desirable,
or that it is or is not practicable.
But insist that that society has
right to prohibit traffic which leads
to such occurrences, that such action
does not interfere with personal
liberty more than many other laws
now unchallcnged. l will go farther
and say that society has right to
prohibit mans drinking in his own
house that which will make him
dangerous to others. Grant that it
has no right to protect q man against
his own folly. Has it not right to
protect Others against his folly?
Self-protcction and the defense of
the weak are two of the most obvious
duties of organized society. Every
duty implies the right to use the
means necessary to its accomplish
ment. If prohibition is the best
means of protecting innocent women
and children or other members of
society in such cases as those des-
cribed above, then it is the right and
the duty of society to prohibit. 1t
is only a question of eXpediency.
In recent issue of the ". y.
Witness I find the following item:
"Governor Begole, of Michigan, in
late address asserted that he had
found, from an accurate study of
statistics, that 81 percent. of the
crime and pauperism of the State
came direct from the use of intoXi-
eating drinks"
And in recent issue the Iowa
State Register says: 'The relation
between whiskey and crime was
never more apparent than since the
Supreme Court affirmed the consti-
tutionality of the proceeding by in
junction. The active enforcement
of prohibition since that decision
was announced has been followed in
inverse ratio by the decrease of
crime. In many places where the
saloons have all been closed the
criminal calendar has scarcely had
an entry. In Brooklyn the City
Council have concluded that with
the closing of the saloons there is no
occasion to maintain police force,
and so they have abolished the
Office of city marshal, giving the
Mayor police power should it ever
be needed. If the criminal expenses
directly and indirectly traceable to
liquor that means three-fourths
of all the costs of crime-are not
almost completely wiped out in the
greater part of Iowa, Prohibitionists
can charge the result upon their own
remissness in enforcing the stringent
and sweeping Prohibitory law they
now have"
1 am not in position to prove or
disprove these statements of the per-
centage of crime traceable to the
use of, and hence the traffic in, in
toxicants. But if either of them
approaches the truth, has not every
taxpayer right to protest against
the continuance of business which
makes necessary so disproportionate
an amount of tax?
Here, then, are two arguments
which seem to ME to effectually dis
pose of the personal liberty" argu-
ment against prohibition of the
liquor traffic.
HENRY S. TOWNSEND.