The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-08-01
LICENSE OR PROHIBITION.
A Plea for Laws that Are Practical in Their
Operation.

Rev. D. M. Hatfield, d. D., in Chicago Advance.
There is substantial agreement among the
friends of temperance on the question OF the
legal prohibition of the liquor traffic. They re-
gard every grog shop as a nuisance that should
be abated by law. If the people have not the
right to protect themselves and their property
from the poverty vice and crime caused by the
liquor business, then civil government is fail
ure Persons who regard high license or local
option as finality deceive themselves and do
not understand the conscientious purposes of the
workers in the cause Of temperance. Let me- in
this connection. bring to the attention of your
readers two or three incontrovertibe facts that
some of US may have overlooked
l. License to sell intoxicating drinks did not
originate in a desire to encourage the business, or
to make it respectable.
There was a time when the right to sell these
drinks was conceded to all. Whoever chose to
do so sold rum or brandy as freely as he dealt in
-four or molasses, and no questioned his
legal right to do so. In time the evils of the
business became so apparent that good men
cast about for means to remove or mitigate these
evils
It was in this way that the license system
originated AS early as 1851 the people of East
Hampton, N Y, passed law to license and
regulate this business. lit is to be regretted that
the word license" was ever used in this connec-
ton The colony of New Haven passed a SINH
lar law few years later, and ever since the
people of this country have been legislating to
counterfeit the evils that resulted from the sale
and use of Intoxicating drinks. l am not saying
that this legislation has always been right in
principle, or that its results have been
what we could desire But it is flying in
the face of the facts of history, and is Islander
of the living and the dead to affirm that it was
designed to encourage the drink traffic. These
laws. one and ALL treat that business AS an evil
that is to be put under law and hampered by
restrictions. The friends of temperance make a
mistake, and extend aid and comfort to the enc
N.Y. when they assert that licensing g-shop
makes it respectable. The business is infamous;
no legislation can change its character. 1t is
not by license or taxation that any business is pro-
noted The production of beet sugar has been
stimulated in some Of the countries of Europe
by bounties not by taxation. When the Legs-
lature imposes a tax on dogs, or requires their
owners to pay license for keeping them. it is
done for the protection of sheep, and not to en-
courage the rearing OF dogs
2 License laws are prohibitory, and prohib-
itory laws license the sale of intoxicants under
certain circumstances.
A law that licenses man in thousand to
keep saloon prohibits nine hundred and
ninety nine others from engaging in the same
business. Objections to prOhibitory laws the
ground that they interfere with personal rights
lie with equal force against license. An enact
ment that is unjust to q thousand persons is not
changed in character when one man in thous
sand is exempt from its operation On the
other hand, the most stringent prohibitory laws
OF which have knowledge license or authorize
the sale or alcOnOl Tor meOlcal ana mechanical
purposes.
g. preference under certain circumstances
of high license, rather than low, is not neces
sarily an Endorsement of license system.
This seems to me so nearly a self evident
truth that feel like apOlogiZlng to your readers
for calling your attention to it for moment.
We not to forget, in this connection that
the settlement OF this question is not left en-
trely in the hands of temperance men. We are
citizens of a country in which there is the
largest liberty in speaking and voting. The
naturalized citizen of foreign birth who believes
in the use of stimulants has the same rights on
the platform and at the ballot box ourselves
Let us suppose stanch friend of temperance to
be living in a community in which the question
of prohibition is hardly up for consideration
Nine tenths of the citizens are in favor of, and
will vote for, license; but they are divided as to
the terms in which licenses shall be granted.
One party favors granting 900 licenses at $40
each; the other would limit the licenses to ten,
and charge 81, 600 for each of them The intelli-
gent friend of prohibition stands by and advo-
Gates his principles; but believes that ten grog
shops are less an evil than 1000, and acts
according to his convictions. 1t may be said that
| his course is a choice of evils, and for this be
| may he criticised. l should say that he accepts
| of the smaller evil, and in doing so acts like q
man of sense Submitting to the amputation of
/, an arm to save my life does not prove me in love
with capital surgical operations. One may
greatly prefer ripe peaches 70 raw potatoes, yet