The Somerset herald. [volume] (Somerset, Pa.) 1870-1936, 1889-03-27
Personal Liberty Not Assailed
by the Prohibition of the
Liquor Traffic.

Ex-chief Justice Agaew. Or Pennsylvania.
The right Of society to prohibi, the
manufacture and sale Of liquors Is often
.assailed as an attack upon personal liber-
ty. This is mistake. No one claims
the right to compel temperance by law
What man may drink is for his con
science. The question Is bet xeen him
and his God. Bat drlukenness is a differ
ent matter and affects society.
Put drunkenness before your eyes. See
the victim reeling from the bar. perhapi
pushed into the street, fallen into the
gutter. staggering away to accident, fall
ing into pits. lying on the railway track,
and in a moment a mass Of torn flesh
and crushed bones-death.
Iook at him in his family-wife and
children fleeing before his brutal rage,
the knife or pistol in his hand, then the
wife OF his bosom bleeding, dying at his
feet. Again see him on bel Of sickness
fighting the devils Of the brain, mania,
deiirium, death.
Look at its public aspect. not confined
by town or county lines. bot spreading
over an entire State. What a scene Of
devastation and ruin, which despoils Ia
Dor. giuts prisons aud hospitals, engulfs
taxes imPoyerishes families, breaks up
homes, sends the occupants to almshous-
T., and carries thousands . untimely
graves
1t violates the very Constitution Of the
state, destroying the God-giyen rights o.
men.
Does it not destroy liberty? Answer,
courts Of justice, prisons and asylums
Does it not eestroy property The de-
s,ruction has no measure, but the wages
Of labor, the earnings Of industry. the
savings Of economy, and the Inheritance
Of wealth, all, all engulfed in the drunk
ards ruin.
Does it not destroy happiness Who
can tell the woe, the SORROW. the pain, the
broken hearts desroiled by drink
Reputation , Who can return It to the
victim Of folly, vice and crime? Lost in
the whirlpool Of drink
Drunkenness is therefore a great pub
lie wrong. involving life, health. prosper
ity, peace, property, morals aad the gen
eral welfare. What is its corrective? The
police power, recognized by the supreme
Court Of the United States. Said Justice
Mclean: ~The Acknowledged police pow
er Of state extends often To the des;ruc-
ton Of property. A nuisence may be
abstei, everything preiudieiaI to the
health and morals Of city may be re-
moved"
said Chief Justice Taney IF state
deems the retail traffic in ardent spirits
injurious to lis citizens, and calculated to
produce idieness. vice or debauchery. l
see nothing in the Constitution Of the
United States to prevent it from rpgulat-
ing or restraining the traffic, or prohibit
ing it altogether
Nor does the Fourteenth Amendment
to the Constitution of the United states
impair the police power Of the State 50
says Justice Field.
And this POKER IS incapable Of limi-
tation, says Justice Miller. Upon it,
he says, depends the security Of social
order, the life and health Of the citizen,
the comfort Of existence in a thickly
populated community, the enjoyment Of
private social life and the beneficial use
OF property
Yet the ssIcon, the slave Of drink
the Ian llord of the liquor den, the dema-
gogue and the ignorant cry out. Liber-
ty am robbed Of ms liberty"
Liberty. What Lax Of liberty gives
him a right to sell that which inIbrutes
man, dethrones reason. engsnJers pas
sion, destroys life and fills the State with
disease, accident, insanity. crime, want,
taxation and deaih-a bill which JOS les
reason from herthrone, turns aside Justice
and ouirages sense What, Liberty to
pace cylinder Of dynamite under tbe
temple Of Liberty and blow it % atoms .
The claim Of liberty b I'll the State
with drunkenness and all its woes Is As
much against laE and common right as
it is unfounded in reason and justire.
Who make your constitutions and
establish your bills Of rights The peo-
PIE They who are the State AMI are
most interested in the question. Why
shall they not tear down their idol. over
turn this ear Of juggernaut in It's progress
Of destruction. crushing the innocent in
It's path. and pouring iibations of blood
upon the scene Of lis triumphant ruin
The people viii weigh well this claim
Of liberty 70 despoil the State, and will
add to their Constitution, erelong. snoih-
er article which viii bring prosperity