Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-04-28
The Prohibition Craze.

IhoSe VINO favor the movement comprise
the well-meaning fanatics (we use the word
in its proper sense) who really believe that
the cause of temperance can be promoted
by legislation designed to prohibit the sale
or even the manufacture of intoxicating
| drinks, and their selfish allies who know
that restrictions of this character cannot be
enforced, but who are willing for forms
sake to vote for the attempt in order TO gain
political power through the alliance. The
party opposed to the movement includes
not only those whose business and habits,
would be repressed if the rule was enacted
and enforced. but also large body of men
whose pecuniary interest and appetite are
neither of them at stake, but who Tor vari-
GUS reasons condemn the contemplated ac-
tion.
There are not few who would really ap-
prove of the prohibitory legislation if it
could be enforced, but who know from all
their experience and observation that the
attempt will not only result in failure, but
will drive the liquor traffic into position
far more injurious to the morals OF the COM
munity than that which 1t occupies under
prevalent restrictions and who oppose it for
this reason. They are not restrained by
any sense of the wrong and injustice of such
an arbitrary use of power, and they would
gladly compel their neighbors BY sumptuary
laws to conform to their own views of what
is proper for them to eat or drink, if the
tyranny was practicable. But they have
sense enough to know that it is utterly i'm
possible under any form Of government to
enforce restriction of this character
If only one-third or one-fourth of the peo-
pie of given community favored the use,
more or less habitual, of intoxicating
drinks, it would not be possible for the
other two-thirds or three-fourths, bv the
utmost efforts of the human will embodied
in penal enactments, to limit the indulg-
ence. No law can be enforced that is not
sustained by the great body of the people.
1t is difficult to secure compliance with a
statute the principle of which everyone,
not himself an offender, most heartily ap-
proves; but when sturdy minority in any
community believe a law to be unjust and
oppressive the attempt to enforce 1t must
utterly fail.
In regard to the effort to prohibit the
sale, and hence to limit the use, of all forms
of intoxicating beverages, including beer
and cider, now classed with wines and
liquors in the iGterdicted list, the advocates
of the measure have something more than a
protesting minority in the way of their sue
cess. If any one will compare the enormous
consumption of such liquids, as given in
official tables, with the total of the popula-
ton. he must come to the conclusion that
even more than a mere majority of the peo-
pie of every State in the Union are in the
habit of indulging in the use of such stimu-
lants. A canvass of any community, made
by one who can go behind the scenes and
learn the actual facts, will confirm this
statement. Ii any will ask why then ma
lority Of any town, city or State can
be found to vote in favor of the
ro
answer him in the words of
leading citizen OF Atlanta, Ca, who told us
plainly that he and his associates did not
propose, when they voted for prohibition, to
limit in any way their own use of such
beverage, but to render it more difficult, if
not impossible, for the negroes and idle
vagabonds of that prosperous city to fill
themselves with liquor at every corner, to
the great detriment of the peace ana welfare
of the community. There are many who
hope by some legal enactment to restrain the
young, the unwary, the idle and the vicious
from debauchery and consequent crime, who
would Indignantly resent any restraint of
their habits in this direction.
We desire in closing to refer to another
class who are opposed to all sumptuary leg
lslation OF this character, quite Independent
of the question whether Or not it can be sue
eesstully enforced, or whether. if it could it
would be desirable to secure the result at
which the measures are aimed. This class
is much larger than commonly supposed,
and includes the most valuable citizens to
be found in any Commonwealth. They are
men who would guard the rights of minori-
ties and who hold the sacred principles of
personal liberty far above the possible good
to be effected by any scheme of temperance
reformation. The tyrannies of the world
hav oil oY1f fho ri kbak
sary for the public welfare to violate the
liberty of the individual There are natural
rights which for the safeguard of social order
the individual, when he becomes a mem
Der Of society, may be called upon to sur
render to the common good; but there are
certain inaiienable prerogatives which may
not be claimed or impaired upon any pre-
tense whatever. No plausible argument or
specious reasoning can really place any pub
lie benefit above the maintenance of that
personal liberty which is essential to all
true manhood. 1t was on this theory that
among our sturdy ancestors every mans
house was his castle; and no plea of public
safety could overcome the prevalent instinct
that within certain recognized limits, per-
sonal liberty was a greater boon, and held to
be more sacred than reverence for a statute.
1t is on this ground that moral reforms
cannot be safely intrusted to remedial laws.
The loss of liberty, bold as the statement
may seem, is greater calamity than the
prevalence of vice. While freedom is
maintained, evil may be kept in check BY
at least an outward homage to virtue; but
when that is lost there is nothing to arrest
the descent to lawless anarchy. It is
very common outcry when vice or immoral
habits affect community that there ought
to be a law, not only to punish,
n nnh tt
one-half the energy spent in invok-
ing and endeavoring to obtain special
legislation for such reforms, were devoted
by its advocates to the use of moral forces
for the same great end, the work would often
be accomplished without any further strug-
gle. 1t is not true, as many claim, that the
cause of temperance can no longer be ad-
vanced by the use of means that have been so
successful in the past. The difficulty is not in
any want of efficacy in personal appeal
and moral suasion, but in the impatience of
the reformers, and the consequent subst1tu-
tion of force for reason and argument. And
even this is misdirected. The drunkard is
no longer treated as an offender to be re-
claimed or punished, but as a victim to be
pitied and coddled, until his offense is con-
doned, and the whole weight of reforming
enginery is turned upon the instrument of
his debauch. And here, instead of the Cos
pei of love, which is the only agency that
can touch the springs of the human heart.
the reformer must have an armed police and
q penal statute. These can be justified only
on the assumption that all use of intoxicat-
ing beverages is criminal, and NAV of right
be prohibited and punished. Such an as
sumption is mere impertinence as long as j
so large portion of the community deny 1t
by both precept and example.
M L = i 81