Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-01-26
TEMPERANCE.
THE WORKING OF LOCAL OPTION
IN MASSACHUSETTS.
The Various Methods for Reducing
the Drink Evil-High License
to the Fore.


the liquor traffic is ordinarily described as
a license system. II would be more exact
to say that it is prohibiIory system,
which relaxes locally into license law
when the qualified voters of any city or
town so determine. Annually, in the
towns at the spring ''town meetings." and
in the cities at the municipal elections in
December, the voters are required to an
swer eyes" or "No" to the question,
"Shall licenses be granted for the sale of
intoxicating liquors in this town." If a
majority of them vote in the negative,
that settles the question for year from
the first Of May following. The prohibi-
ton is abolute, except as regards the IL
censing Of druggists, which rests in the
discretion of the local authorities. If a
majority of the votes cast answer Yes"
then licenses may be granted in that city
or town; but, even in this case, the local
authorities have a wide discretion, and
may refuse to grant licenses in spite of a
popular verdict in favor of license. 1t is
rare that this course is taken, but in the
city of Haverhill this year the Board of
Aldermen refused to license any appli-
cants, although the vote of the city, by a
small majority, had been cast in favor of
that system. In general, it may be said
that in Massachusetts, the saloon doors
open, in any city or town, only as the
voters vote them open.
The annual recurrence of this question,
put point-blank to the voters, unincum-
bered with any issues of parties or candi-
dates, gives an interesting opportunity to
study the fluctuations of public sentiment
with reference to the regulation of the
liquor traffic. Some communities vibrate
back and forth between license and no.
license, with something of a pendulum
movement. Some appear to be governed
by caprice, while others maintain given
policy steadily from year to year. The
fluctuations in the vote are caused some
times entirely by local conditions, such as
the effective or ineffective enforcement of
the law; and, again, they are of general
character, and point to some marked
change in the feeling of the people This
year the votes of the cities under the local
option law at the elections on the 4th and
1lth of December are of peculiar interest,
as illustrating the effect upon the system
of (1) high license law, enacted, but not
yet in force, and ~ an approaching vote
on the question of constitutional prohibi-
ton.
The twenty-five cities exhibit a change
in the aggregate vote from license ma
jority of II ,230 in 1887 to majority on
the same side of 1920 in 1888. Does this
point to change of public sentiment in
favor of the licensed saloon? Is the "anti-
saloon" feeling in Massachusetts, declining?
A superficial examination of the returns
would suggest an affirmative answer to
these questions; and that answer is, in fact.
given with a good deal of positiveness and
unconcealed satisfaction In certain GUAR
tiers. But more careful scrutiny of the
results makes against this solution of the
problem. There are local conditions first
to be considered. The cities carried
against license last year, and lost this year,
are Lawrence, Fitchburg, Chelsea and
Woburn. Lawrence is a manufacturing
city, which voted against license in 1887
In one of those gusts of popular resent
ment against the arrogance of the saloon
Interests which occasionally interrupt the
established policy even in our large cities.
License is the normal condition of Law
renee; no license was an exceptional
SDlcOuCs LII ShCioCd llCnUuIg,
inadequate enforcement of the law,
with no organized public sentiment behind
it, caused small no-license majority in
1887 to be changed into an adverse major
ity this year. In both cities it is the
same familiar story of communities which
lie; things drift and accomplish reforms, if
at all, only by spasms. Woburn is a
small city which, as town, acquired the
pendulum habit of voting upon this ques-
ton. In 1886 it was carried for license !;
in 1887, against it; at the town meeting
last spring, for it-and its first vote as a
city only reaffirms its action of last spring.
Gloucester is the one city carried by the
saloons last year, and wrested from them
this year. The majority was not large
either time, but the no-license sentiment
was strengthened this year by the moral
effect produced by the course Of the Mayor
chosen year ago, who resigned his office
rather than affix his signature to IL
cense.
So much for local causes. Now as to
the general conditions which affected the
result. The effect of the largely increased
registration of Presidential year, which
is always more or less prejudicial to the
local-option vote and the confusion incl
dent to a new method of taking the vote,
need not be dwelt upon. The chief gen.
eral causes were, first, the fact that a
prohibitory amendment has passed one
Legislature, is reasonably certain to pass
that Just chosen, and in that case will be
submitted to the vote of the people next
year and, secondly, the fact that new high
license and limitation laws take effect next
May. The working Of these new infiu-
ences was curious. Under the new system
license will be limited, in Boston, to the
ratio of one to each five hundred of the
population, and, outside of Boston, to the
population, and the fee for every frst-class
saloon license is fixed at $1,000. The APP
plieation of this system will throw out
at once one-half or two-thirds of the
saloons now licensed in Boston
and other large cities. A considerable
part of the no-license vote in Boston and
other cities is cast ordinarily by men who
do not believe that prohibition can be
effectively enforced in large communities,
but who have voted "No" because that
was the only way in which they could ex-
press their hostility to the saloons. This
class of men saw, or believed that they
saw, in the new high license and limita-
ton legislation more effective weapon
against the Saloons which should, they
agreed, at least be given fair trial. They
were helped to this conclusion by reports,
which gained extensive credence, that
many saloon-keepers in Boston, and per-
haps in other cities, were organizing to
vote no-license-frst because they did
not expect to be able to get license under
the new conditions, and would be better
off if all other dealers were similarly sit
uated, and, secondly, because they thought
that by creating decentralization in
Boston, and demonstrating the impos.
sibility of enforcing no-license there
they would make votes against the
prohibitory amendment. This reasoning
was plausible, and the proposed strategy
was Ineligible. Whether the programme
was ever sincerely entertained or not nC
one knows. At all events, it was not car
\