Mexico weekly ledger., 1888-03-15

UitS PNshisftShs Sue8 III thas 49, w
ton. Philanthropists have leaned
upon IL and found Ii
A RRoKuN REED.
Indeed, ii is doubtful If the law
should attempt To do more with the
liquor traffic than to regulate it so
as to prevent those abuses that
would otherwise grow out of it,
such as the adnlteration of liquor,
allowing dramshops TO be the loaf
ing-plaee of boys, for purposes oi
card and pooi-playing, sales To
minors and drunken persons. The
Missouri law requires that the
keeper of a dramshop shall be a
person of good moral character
No such legal requirement pertains
to any other vocation. The object
being that his character shall be a
guarantee that he will keep an
orderly and respectable house. As
little as our Prohibitionists believe
in the possibility of such a thing,
most Of our dramshops keepers fill
this requirement, and carry out its
purposes in the conduct of theii
business. But few of them fail
IN both respects. And it is they
who are giving every occasion te
the Jealous enemies of their calling
to lay at the doors of the many the
sins of the few. The laws affecting
the matters just referred to are o1
recognized validity and possess
binding force upon all, and | take
the liberty of warning their violat-
ors that they are sowing the wind
which may come in cyclone o.
popular indignation, blindly over.
whelming the good with the evil
and involving all in the common
catastrophe.
Licensed, respectable dramshor
keepers, see to it that the black
sheep obey the laws, SO that the
sanction of the great conservative
intelligent, and right thinking mas:
of the people will not be with
drawn from your business, leaving
it unprotected from the fiery yea
of the unreasoning eranks who now
seek its destruction.
All good citizens should join ii
compelling obedience to our just
| reasonable and wholesome regula
tons concerning dramshops, as The
only possible means of properly
controlling the liquor traffic. Th'
slogan OF the Prohibitionists il
"the saloon must CO." becaus,
some saloon-keepers fail to obey
the laws, and for the further alleg
ed reason that the saloon tempt
man from the paths of virtuou
abstinence into the downward roat
of the drunkard. The one reason
is as illogical as the other is false
AS well close all banks becaus
some of them cheat and ruin thei
depositors, or silence all preachers
because some of them lead immora
lives, as to close all saloons becaus,
some of the saloon-keepers violat,
the law.
The saloon has no temptation
even for that man who is so veal
that he has drank until he is read,
to graduate as a prohibition orator
the temptation is not in the saloon
but IN the liquor, and the absenc
of saloons would prevent no ont
from getting liquor.
Suppose our friends could so ia
realize their Utopia as to actuall,
free the State of Missouri from alco
hol, Danish it totally and keep i
out, would that be a real benefit t
the people of our State ? Admit
ting all that is charged against it t.
be true, which is absurd, woul,
the impossible feat of its complet
banishment be, on the whole,
benefit to the people? / den,
that it would, for abstinence woul,
then be matter of compulsion
and not of virtue, and would b
practised by our people only S
long as they remained within tn
enchanted confines of our owl
State. Leaving which they woul
instantly be subjected to
THE ALLUREMENTs OF THE CUP,
without that power of resistanc
which only the practice of tn
virtue oftemperance can give. Yo
cannot bring on the millennium b
law. But the banishment of liquo
is impossible, and all that the mos
stringent repressive measures
vigorously enforced, have ever bee
able to do, was to drive the traffi
into places beyond the control {
, the authorities. Leaving undi:
, turbed the clubs, the private cellar
, and the numerous methods {
practising that most perniciou
habit of secret drinking, whic
destroys more persons in one yea
than saloons do in ten. When
, man gets so that he will go secre
/ ly and alone to his bottle he is yer
J far gone on the downward cours
to drunkard's grave. He the
: takes liquor, not for sociability
: but because he has a taste for i
which, the chances are, will gro
upon him until it consumes tn
/ last vestige of his manhood.
: LOCAL OPTION
2 by counties or cities is a regulatio
: by the State, but prohibition in IL
/ county or city adopting it, Unds
/ local option any city or count
t may say for itself whether or not
will permit the sale of intoxican
within it's limits, and If it vot'
e against such sale then it is prohil
tied there under the law, and the
only But the theory of State pr
t hibition is that the people of eae
!, county may say whether or not Il
] sale of intoxicant, shall be prohibi
Y ed in all other parts Of the State
Y well as within its own limits. Loc
e option is therefore, as police re
ell ulation, a sort of local self-goverl
r ment, while State prohibition is
species OF foreign government. b
i I believe that a county is too lar.
: a territory and a city too great {
h aggregation of people for the appl
n cation of this principle of loc'
d self-government, because the N
e jority can put the minority to tt
: much inconvenience by the regul
= 49,. &c ~ f1raoI -, a ,,,hol. oo,,x.;