Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-12-27
THE LIQUOR PROBLEM.

Communicated.
\ so-caIled club room is about to be
opened in st. Clairsville, in which it is
understood liquors will be dispensed.
The concern will be chartered, and it is
said will be conducted after the manner
of like affairs which are carried on in
other local option towns.
Thinking men, who will study the
liquor traffic in all its phases, and who
will diveSt themselves of all mere senti-
ment, and look at the question as prac-
tical men should, must arrive at the
conclusion that the only rational treat
ment of the traffic is the heaviest tax
alton obtainable, unless the community
will Overwhelmingly sustain its attempt
ed total suppression, and demand and
assist in the enforcement of the laws.
The latter they do not do. A notorious
w-breaker may be arraigned before a
court-a man who sets at defiance and
tramples upon the laws of God and man
in the pursuit of that traffic-and such
penalties affixed as render the court a
terror to law breakers, or as will practi-
cally nullify the law. In neither case,
apparently, do people who desire the
traffic suppressed, or its evils lessened,
take any apparent interest. Pulpits do
not uphold the one nor denounce the 9TH
er, nor is anything heard from the peo-
pie in other ways. But the dram seller,
who is Indifferent so long as the law
keeps its iron hand off of him, receives
frequent attention. Is this as it should
be? The one is in pursuit of what he
pretends to think is a legitimate bust
ness, which affords living for himself
and family-the other is chosen by the
people to administer the law, and is paid
for doing so. If not watched with
Jealous eye, and if he falters in the
least in inflicting its penalties pursued
by public opinion with unrelenting pur-
pose, why make laws, or why clamor for
more?
Whether or not the O-called prohibitory
ordinance has Iessened the consumption
of liquors in this town is an open ques-
ton. As Senator ingalls, said of prohi-
bitiOn in Kansas, both sides are appa-
rently satisfied-the advocates of prohi-
bition have the ordinance, and drinkers
have all the liquors they want. That
the ordinance is nulliied in various
ways is nOtOriOuS-thatm men who are re-
sponsible for its passage make no at
tempt to secure its enforcement will not
be disputed and, more discoufaging
than all else, they look with apparent
Indifference upon the notification of
liquor laws by courts charged with their
enforcement. \
This is the state of affairs existing in
this town to-day, and, we doubt not, in
all other like towns in Ohio. The law
as administered is cheat and fraud,
and the people are being taught to be
liars and sneakS. In return for all this
we have-a sentiment!
The lame provision of our Constitu-
tion relating to the liquor traffic is a
great hindrance. The time to amend
that is at hand, and if the people are
wise they will so frame an article of that
instrument as will give them, through
their representatives in the General As
Sembly, absolute and unquestioned con-
troll over it. Why higgle about the NOR
ality of licensing an evil, when the eff
feet of the opposite course is to give it
unbridled license? Suppose the Leg
islature was this winter empowered to
authorize municipal corporations to fix
the amount that should be paid for re-
failing liquors within their limits, and
that beyond corporation lines the amount
should be fixed by Township Trustees -
holding fast to the laws we already have
prohibiting sales to drunken men, men.
in the habit of getting drunk, to minors,
and the like-and that it was required in
all cases that the authority giving the
permit should inquire into and be salts
fed that the individual applying was a
reasonably well disposed man, and if
not refuse him permits it not like
ly there would be less cause for COM
plaint than under our present lame and
impotent laws? and if liquors were sold
the public would, in measure, be re-
imbursed for the evils resulting. This
would relegate the entire question to
communities be treated by each in
such manner as the public sentiment of
each will demand and sustain-and COM
munities which suffer from the traffic
would get whatever benefits the permits
produced Men could well afford to pay
$1,000 or more inCincinnati or Columbus,
and ought to be required to; but if such
a tax was attempted under our present
Constitution it could not avoid the no
license inhibition of that instrument
So $500 or more could be paid in st.