St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-09
A PpohibitioniSt and a High
License Man Have a Lit
tie Argument.
w. H. H. Bartram Stat eS Five
Chi eff Objections to
High License,
And Gen. Nettleton Makes
Answer to the Prohibi-
tionist's Structures,
Winding Up, However, With
the Announcement That
the Saloon Must Go.

Some weeks ago the state central COM
mittee of the Prohibition party issued
a challenge TO Rev. S. &. Smith, of ST.
Paul, and Gen. A. B. Nettlet on, of Min
neapolis, as champions of high license,
to discuss the matter. The prohibitions
lists offered to produce champion who
would take the affirmative of the ques-
ton that high license, as restrictive
temperance measure. was a deluslon
and a failure, and they relied upon
Gen. Ne ttleton and DR.. Smith to sup
port the negative. After an interest
ing, though windy, dispute through the
papers the negative declined the pub
lie discussion, but finally it was agreed
that each side prepare a paper for pub
LEGATION. The prohibitioniStS selected
W. II. H. Bartram, who wrote his ar
ticle ard turned it over to Gen. Nettle-
ton. MI. Batram merely states the OBJ
jections to high license as restrictive
measure and leaves to Gen. Nettleton to
go into the discussion and defense. Mr.
Bartram says, among other things:
The plea will be made that ''if the
license laws were repealed there would
be free rum" This is false aSsump-
ton, as facts will prove.
1.-THE liquor traffic is worse than war,
famine and pestilence combined. Glad
stone.
"The liquor traffic depends for its success
on degraded manhood WTonged woman
hood, defrauded childhood. II holds mort
gage over every cradle; a deed written in
hearts blood over every life. New York
Tribune Oct. Is, 1884.
1.-THE saloons are the generous centers of
temptation, vice and crime. Gen. a. b.
Nettleton.
THIS INDICTMENT,
whose counts might be continued in
definitely, proves the saloon a public
nuisance, which Blackstone defines as
follows:
Such an inconvenience or troublesome Of
Tense as annoys the whole community III
general. Anything that unlaWfully Worketh
hurt, inconvenience or damage.
Does "a business worse than war, fam
inc and pestilence," work hurt? Can
childhood defrauded," without damage
to the whole community in general?''
Can saloons be opened for the djstribu-
ton of the cancerous virus of vice and
crime, without public injury? If any of
these questions answered affirmatiVely
the saloon is a nuisance at common law,
and in the absence of statute author
ling its license, or a license granted
under such statute, it can be abated.
under common law proceedings. by
'permanent injunction: aremedy which
will always be granted where the injury
is of such nature that it can not be re-
paired or compensated" as none of
these injuries can be. Then in the alb
sence of statute, the sale of liquor, being
a hurtful trade, would not be free, but
would come under the absolute prohibit
ton of the common law which "com-
mandS that which is right and prohibits
that which is wrong"
FIVE PROPOSITIONS.
Briefly stated, the objections to high
license are:
First-License permits and protects, but
does not prohibit or restrict.
Second-IIigh license only increases the
price demanded by the state for protecting
public wrong.
Third But for license the saloon would be
q nuisance and could be abated.
Fourth--It makes all advocates of the
policy responsible for the injury resulting
from the saloons permitted and authorized
to remain.
Fifth-An increased fee. dem anded for
eonsenting to a wrong, is proof of a clearer
public conviction of the wrong, hence its
acceptance incres SIS the debauchery of pub.
lie conscience and more securely intrenches
the wrong in public cupidity.
GEN. NETTLETON SAYS:
Mr.. Bartram's argument seems to rest
on two propositions: First, in the alb
sence of prohibitory and ''licenSe''
statutes the saloon would be a nuisance
at common law, and could be abated as
such: hence free rum would not result
from the absence or repeal OF license or
restricted legislation. Second, license,
high or low, is not, and in the nature of
things, cannot become a restrictive
measure at all. In every license law
there is prohibitory part which, stand
ing alone, lays a general negative on
the licensing, or permiSsive part,
which, so far as it goes, simply nullifies
the prohibitory section and, on certain
unworthy conditions, permits and legal
ICES an evil traffic which would other
wise stand prohibited and outlawed.
Hence, in the nature of the case, license
is exclusively permisSive, and never
restrictive. pro-saloon and not anti
saloon, and all argument over 'high
license as q restrictive measure" is
ended before it begins, like the famous
essay OIL The Snakes of Ireland" The
first proposition is simply
DESTITUTE OF FOUNDATION.
as its author could easily have ascer-
tanned before putting il in type had he
consulted any jurist OF lawyer of aver
age intelligence. | cannot consent to
debate in serious terms matter which,
obviously, has but one side, and that is
this: In the absence of any constitu-
tiOnal provision or legislative enactment
affecting the drink traffic, that traffic,
although morally Infamous, is precisely
as lawful and as unasSailable legally as
the traffic in sugar or salt. In other
words, in the absence of specific written
enactments to the contrary, 'free RUM
necessarily and everywhere results.
Mr.. Bartram's second proposition,
doubtless put forth in good faith, has no
better basis of reason and fact than his
first, but it has wider currency and a
more plausible exterior, and hence will
require more attention. 1t embodies the
chief of group of kindred fallacies that
have Stalled up and down the land,
with solemn aspect and rebuking pres
ence, befooling many excellent people
who nave failed to look behind the
mask of words and detect the imposi-
ton. 1t consists exclusively of a juggle
With the meaning of the word license"
as technically used in restrictive legis-
iation. Danish that ambiguous term
from the statutes, and retain every es-
sential feature of present so-called Ii
:ense laws, and the argument of Mr..
Bartram and his school of debaters
would convince nobody and deceive no.
body, for it simply could not have an
existence.
A RESTRICTIVE LAW.
1t is not easy to deal soberly with Mr..
Bartram's device of cutting a restrictive
law in two i'll the middle, as one might
cleave a watermelon, and then lauding
its prohibiyive half and cursing its per-
miSsive half. He must know that the
two elements are portions of the same
unit-as inseparable logically as the
two blades of pair of shears. Per-