The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1885-01-23

man through and through and have
been always. | did tell them ! was
not a prohibitionist and never was
one. am not ashamed Of my posi-.
ton on the temperance question. A
high license law well enforced will be
the winning card / believe. Prohibl-
ton has been q failure for the past
six thousand years, yes even since
thou shalt not first resounded in
Eden. The question has to be treat
ed as a practical one and in a prac.i-
cal manner"
Mr.. Skerry's views exactly coincide
with our own. Prohibition in Maine
Kansas and Iowa is failure in spite
of all its most ardent supporters can
point to its favor. Under a prohibit
ton law, liquor is drank secretly,
under a high license regime openly,
that is all the difference, and under
the former the county or state looses
the revenue which they receive under
the latter. We commend the follow
ing extract from an editorial in a
recent issue of the st. Paul Ponce,
Press.
The Pioneer Press cnn add nothing to the
weighty arguments in favor of high license adj
vanced by the prominent speakers Mt the recent
mass meeting Mt Market hall. Ono of them said;
''I'm n prohibitionest; but if we can't have pro-
hihition' let us have high license" But prohi-
bition has been tried. and it has failed. 1t has
failed, and must fail, because it is at war with
the fundamental principles of free government.
SO long as the taste or appetite for Intoxicating
liquors exists among rnen-and probably it al
ways will exist, ms it always has existed-no leg
~islatiye enactment can prevent the qualification
of that taste or appetite unless reinforced by an
all-ernbracing despotism incompatible with the
existence of free government, because incom-
patable with the primary rights Of human ma
ture, and far worse in its moral and political
consequences than.tll the evils of intemperance
incalcpiable as these are. There is only one why
in the world by which n general abstinence from
the use of intoxicating liquors can be brought
about, and that is by the slow process of mora
education from generation to generation
through which alone the habits and manners OF
e reuple can be changed, There is no arbitrar,
sh ort cut to this reformation of manners ant
character. 1t is a slow and tedious process, bu
it is the only way in which the cause of temper
ance can achieve any permanent results. Unit
this enormous moral, or rather social, revolution
shall have been accomplished, it will be neces
sary to reao.sn,ge the liquor .arffic as a social fac
incident to thu social customs of the day, an;
existing hy the same right AS tfe drinking custom
Itself. But, if it cannot be suppressed, its evil
can he immensely diminished by such Legal re
strictioIs as may be lcgitimately thrown aroun'
it. Experience has shown tllat the most lntpor
tant of these, because essential to the efficacy o
all other restriction, is the e~xaction of such
high license, as q condition Of carrying on III
business, as viii weed OFT the lawless AID ire
spoasible persons. generally in league viii, III
the vice and crime about them, VINO iabitaali
disregard and defy surl, legal restrictions II
have been enacted for the protection OF th
young. confirmed inehr!ates and others, AID TO
the prevention Of crime and disorder.