Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-07-23
NOT FREE WHISKY DOCTRINE

the New York Times that do not tire Of
charging that the demand Of the Rapub-
lican party for the removal of internal
revenue taxation amounts to plea for
drunkenness. One of these papers, os-
pecially, sends out nc issue in which it does
not repeat this charge, and lay it at the
door of the Republican party that it Is in
favor Of free whisky and unlimited de-
bauchery. Notwithstanding the fact that
it is old-time Jehersonian Democratic doc
trine that internal revenue taxation IS an
offense and ought not to be tolerated, the
Democracy has not been slow to take up
the cry, and now the whole pack of Re-
publican traitors and open enemies join in
a common howl.
There is no man sufficiently intelligent
TO comprehend the simplest OF political
propositions who cannot see, if he pauses
to think, that the charge is more than
false The truth is, that demand for the
abolition of the internal revenue tax is in
the interest Of reduction of the surplus
and against the maintenance of an army
of ofice-holders that have place solely to
collect this internal revenue tax. The 49,
sumption that this tax upon liquors
tends TO decrease their consumption
Is error. Experience teaches that
neither more nor less of liquor is drank
by the people because SO small tax is on
OF of. Where high license and special
local liquor taxation, for instance, have
been tried, the price Of spirits has not ad-
vanced, and where all license and special
taxation have been abandoned, the price
Of liquors has not decreased a farthing
But so far as the Republican party is con-
cerned, it has made affirmative declaration
against unrestricted sale Of liquors The
last act of the late Chicago convention was
TO pass by rising vote an emphatic reso
luton declaring the right and power OF
governments to regulate the liquor traffic
in the interests Of sobriety and the
conservation Of the purity of the homes
of America.
Only cheapjohn demagogues will con-
tinue to asSeverate that free whisky is re-
publican doctrine. Mr.. Mills, to bolster
his free trade bill with something of the
strength Of the temperance sentiment
echoed the charge in the House of Repre-
sentatives, and Mr.. Mills is essentially q
cheapjohn statesman. The fact is that
the Republican party, from the hour Of it,
birth to this moment, has never beer
estimated as the champion of whisky
1t has been the iteration of the Democracy
for years that the Republican party woulc
not pledge itself to or labor in the whisky
interest. This is history that no sane MAI
will attempt to deny, and we do not re-
call an instance in which the party In any
State, or any advocate Of the party any.
where, ever undertook to deny the truth
Of the Democratic charge.
What the party this year says is capable
of no misinterpretation. 1t declares that
it is wiser by far to repeal the internal
tax levy upon whisky to secure rev.
enue than to give up the protective sys--
TEN and open our ports to free trading.
It does not say, and never has said, that it
favors the non-taxation of the liquor
traffic. In the strongest Republican States
of the Union, as Illinois, Iowa, Pennsyl-
vania, Massachusetts, and Others whisky is
most heavily taxed If all the items Of
internal revenue were to-day withdrawn
it would not follow that whisky would be
free from taxation, or that more drunken.
ness and debauchery would result.
There is no temperance advocate who
ever lived that seriously claimed the in
ternal revenue tax upon liquors was TEN
perance policy. The Prohibition party
which must be assumed to speak by the card
has emphatically declared that imposi
ton of the whisky tax is not a scheme o.
temperance reform. Prollibitionists simp-
ly laugh at the Democracy when its jour.
mails and orators exclaim with well-feigned
alarm that to free whisky from Federal
revenue tax is TO oppose temperance re-
form; and their mirth is UNSUITABLE in
view of the notorious history of the De
mocracy upon temperance questions. II
what our Democratic friends assert is true,
they ought, in the interests of their own
domestic economy, to favor the repeal and
render the calls upon Democratic purses
less burdensome for traditional indulgence.
But seriously, this cry about free whisky
Is the most unjustifiable and the weakest
OF devices to which politicians have ever
resorted. They know perfectly we'll that
when Satan breaches righteousness some
thing is the matter with the gospel from
which he takes his text. They know that
the abandonment of the revenue tax does
not mean abandonment OF the authority of
the States to tax liquors. They know that
the removal Of the tax of ninety cents a
gallon to-day would not affect the price OF
drinks at single bar in the Union by so
much as one chill. They know that it
would not affect local liquor license,
nor one particle influence the argu-
ment against the non-restriction and
non-regulation of the liquor traffic They
know that the resolution adopted BY the
National Republican Convention is against
free whisky, and that the charge that it
favored free whisky is emphatic.lly met
by its assertion of the wisdom of govern
mental control of the liquor traffic. They
know that the catch-penny platitude of
the Democracy against so-called "sumpt-
uaryn laws is a declaration in favor of
free whisky.
The fp-penny-bit politicians know per.
fectly well the declaration Of the National
Republican Convention against the revenue
tax does not operate to check the activity
of the Republican party in many States of
the Union in its advocacy of the doctrine
that unlimited saloons are prejudicial to
the interests of communities.
The liquor men have never looked upon
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