The Press., 1888-08-30

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 Prohibition does not sufficiently discrim. mate between different situations. In one situation prohibition may be a nearly per feet remedy, while in another situation it may wholly fail. Prohibition succeeds, if at all, in thinly peopled communities, and almost invariably fails in the great cities. The success, for instance, of prohibition in Kansas is no warrant for applying it with the same expectation in New York or Chi. cago. The conditions are unlike.
 The argument in favor of prohibition may be called the argument from emer. gency, while the argument against it is the argument of impracticably. By emergency is meant the belief on the part of a com munity that crisis is at hand, and a cor responding alertness and effort by the pub lie to meet and overcome the crisis. This sense of a crisis, however, is abnormal, and can be maintained only by a continual seething of the subject. The prohibitory law demands a constant contribution of moral capital from the community, and it succeeds only when the public mind is in the unusual state of alarm which accom- panies a sense of peril, and such a state of the public mind cannot be maintained
 Again prohibition offers nothing to take the place of the saloon it leaves a vacuum as 1t were. Temperance workers in great cities, where drunkenness is most preva- lent, have found that it is not SO difficult to convince men of the benefits of sobriety, and to prevail upon them to give up their cups, as 1t is to provide substitutes for the attractions of the saloons. Those who be- long to the fortunate classes of society do not sufficiently consider how dreary is the existence of the very poor, because of the total absence from their daily life df inno- cent, legitimate diversion. A prominent charity worker in London has said that ''the poorer classes get drunk for recrea- tion. " This is true, too, of large class of poor people in our great American cities. Wholesome entertainments are beyond the reach of these people, but the saloon is al. ways near by and alluring, and the mite which will not afford better entertainment will pay for glass or more of adulterated, poisonous liquor. The most determined movement for temperance against the sa- looms can be successful only to limited extent, unless other and better substitutes for theattractions of the saloon are provided.
 Let portion of the energy which is now expended, almost to no purpose. in cru sades against the saloon be turned toward providing places of recreation, where those may go who now resort to the saloons, per. haps, in the first instance in search of di- version. Enough has already been accom- plished by the establishment of coffee houses to show that these may successfully take the place of the saloon. Instances might be cited in which we'll established coffee houses are accomplishing more to- day for temperance than volumes of pro- hibitory enactments have yet accomplished.
 There is one other consideration which prohibition ignores and thnt is the protec. tion of vested rights. Public sentiment is often against the dealer in liquor, and the feeling is sometimes uppermost that he ought to suffer in his possessions, but this, nevertheless, is not justice. Those who have accumulated property under past laws, by manufacturing or selling liquor, ought not be compelled to forfeit or sacri. flee it at the behest of a prohibitory law. Justice to dealers, as John Bright has main tsined, ought not to be overlooked. No attempt at reform can be truly such unless 1t cherishes a jealous care for the rights of all persons. The answer of the prohibi- tionist that liquor vending Is n ctimc, and the vendor a criminal, is an ca IOdrte view, which must be looked upon as more alb. surd than logical.
 One method of dealing with the drink evil, and a method which is directly op- posed to prohibition, is the license system. Legislative prohibition may De compared to an assault, which must succeed, if at all, by the energy and fury of the onset, while license leaves room for strategy and may be hkened to siege. A system of license is practical method, because it makes pos. sible the application to the traffic of such deterrent influences as experience, from time to time, shows to be wise. A single instance will illustrate this point. In Penn. no individual now can be bondsman for n liquor dealer in more than one instance, a bondsman cannot be himself liquor deal CT, he must possess at least S2000 worth of property, and must dwell in the precinct in which the license is sought. The li- cense system, moreover, is a self working system, and it may be so arranged and nd ministered as to diminish the traffic by it's own operation. A high license cannot be paid by the poorest class of liquor dealers, and so the tendency of the system is to place the traffic in the hands of the well. to-do dealers, who are almost without ex- ception the most reliable classp
 The license system, too, is moro flexible than prohibition, since the amount of the license may be SO fixed as to best meet the conditions of the traffic in each commun- ity. ..u
 We find in considering this whole prob lem of iDtemperance that the danger is not to ourselves as individuals alone, but prin- cipally to society. We see in the course of events how the problem has become the social danger of the state, but our hope toe day is in the growing tendency toward better information upon the subject This tendency is shown by the elementary in- struction upon intemperance now given In many of our public schools, and by a rap. idly Increasing and better literature upon the drink question. The great promise of this education is in its deterrent influence and the alarm which it brings to the guilty. Legislation alone at the present hour can not overcome the drink evil Legislation is the bare mechanism, but our present danger is to resort to Legislation as the final solution of the whole problem. The peo- pie must stand behind the law to make it effective, and to this end the moral sense of the community must be developed to the point where Legislation will be it's nat. ural expression. To attack the liquor evil by Legislation merely is to give attention to the stream and to neglect the source.
 The inclination, in our country, toward a continual increase in the influence of leg islation and of the state is becoming too common. The determined attempts to en- force the Blair educational bill is a recent example of this inclination. In a free re- nuI,lic tho naonIa ara haat DralaciRd whom