The Daily bulletin. [volume] (Honolulu [Hawaii]) 1882-1895, 1888-05-21
STILL ANOTHER VIEW OF THE
LIQUOR PROBLEM.
CONTINUED.

There are one or two statements
made by "Anti-prohibition" which
certainly put in its strongest light
the antipathy many moderate drink
ers have to the very idea of pro-
hibition. He says, "what business
of yours is 1t what eat or drink?
What right have you to prescribe
my food?" and again, "Has it
come to this that bigoted fanatical
minority is going to rule the coun-
try, etc., etc.?
Certainly it does seem revolving
to ones sense of justice that one
set of persons should dictate to an
other what they should eat or drink,
or what is best for them generally,
but does prohibition really do this?
Do not such views arise from con-
fused ideas-of its fundamental prin-
sciples! For instance, the author of
the article in question seems to
think that the central idea of pro-
hibition is to save drinking men by
compulsion, whereas it is in fact the
reverse. Prohibition is intended to
protect the abstainer, not the drink
er. The prohibitionist is thinking
of himself. Moral suasion says
"stop, for your own sake" but legal
suasion always says, "stop for my
sake" Prohibitionists say, if men
can drink so as to entail on them
selves and not on us any resulting
evils, it is nobody's business how
much they drink, but as long as we
are compelled to bear Il heavy pro-
portion of the evil results, we claim
the right to speak our minds, with
out laying ourselves open thereby
to the charge of bigotry or intoler-
ance. The question of prohibition
has arisen, not out of the desire to
dictate to others what they shall eat
or drink, but because the nom
drinking portion of the community
decline any longer to bear the bur-
dens of traffic which is not of their
creating, and from which they de-
rive no profit.
But many say then punish the
man that abuses liquor not the one
who makes q proper use of it. The
evils arise from the abuse of liquor
not its use-therefore confine your
laws to those who abuse it. Just
what ought to be done undoubtedly
if it could be. In legislating for the
protection of the non drinking por-
ton of the community, a well de-
fined line should certainly be drawn,
if possible, between the user and
abuser of liquor and the past fifty
years Of legislation upon this ques-
tion have been spent in continued
but hopeless attempt TO devise ways
and means to accomplish this result,
i. e. to relieve the non drinking
portion of the community from evils
not of their creating and at the same
time not to intefere with the moder-
ate drunkards-whole columns of
laws have been enacted to attain
this end as varied as the magma
tions and devices of men and yet
to-day as fifty years ago, men and
women who do not drink who dis
like the business and want only to
be let alone are compelled in a
hundred and one ways to bear the
evils and contribute to the losses
entailed by the abuse of liquor in
others, and no wonder they are get
ting tired of it and at times rather
indignant especially when some one
PUSHES TO the front and rates those
who thus have to assist in footing
the bills, with charges of bigotry,
narrow mindedness and meddle-
some otIiciousness because they
commence to baulk under the bur-
den they have been bearing so long.
One trouble in drawing the line
between the user and abuser of
liquor is that the line itself is often
rather obscure. The abusers are
recruited from the users and between
the strictly temperate man and the
pronounced drunkard there is a
middle ground occupied by thou
sands whose habits are so uncertain
that it would floor a Solomon to say
to which class they really did be-
long.
In short men are rapidly coming
to the belief that there is but one
course to take and that is to prohi-
bit altogether the manufacture OF
sale of alcohol except for mechan-
ical and medicinal purposes. Such
men say we are honestly sorry that
no milder remedy has proved effec'