Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-09-03
HIGH LICENSE A FAILURE.

HIGH LICENSE A FAILURE.
 It begins to appear that high license IS | failure in Boston. The statement is made that within the last few weeks the unlicensed sale of intoxicating beverages has greatly increased there. It is said | that wholesale dealers have upon their books the names of purchasers who were never there before, and who until recent 1 ly were unknown to them. It is said that these illegal establishments are chiefly to be found in tenement houses and small shops where the police are not likely to exercise constant supervision. We suspect that the experience of Boston is not unique ill this respect. When the privilege of engaging in the liquor business is made a purchasable one, to be secured by money and political or personal influence, as seems l to be the case in Boston since the in crease in the license fee, one can hardly look for any other result than an in- crease in the amount of illegal liquor selling. The principle underlying the system of high license is inherently wrong. It is contrary to the spirit of our free institutions in that it makes the possession of wealth and influence | tie chief factor in the determination of who shall or shall not be allowed to engage in the business. Nor
 has high license, where tried, had any | lo.cani,o.
 amount of liquor consumed. The books of the wholesale dealers, showing that
 there is no diminution in their busi-
 ness, are. e.proof of this. And we may
 presume that, if there is no
 diminution in the amount
 of intoxicating beverages sold and con-
 stunned, there is no diminution in the
 amount of drunkenness in high license
 communities. So long as liquor is sold at all it will be purchased and con lsumed by those who have the appetite
 for it, and no license fee, be it as high
 as the Eiffel tower, will ever operate tc
 the destruction of the appetite for liquor
 or the regulation of that appetite. And SO lOuS Ul10SC "HO lltNC 1th dPpStICS
 for liquor have within their reach tine lmeans of gratifying it, just so long will there be drunkenness, anG
 no diminution of it because the priv
 ilege of engaging in its sale has bee,
 placed at figure that puts it in the
 reach only of the wealthy. The pro
 hibitiOniSts are consistent when they
 argue against the system of high license
 simply inverting the argument whicl
 the advocates of high license use ; against themselves. If prohibition lead to free rum, as its opponents justly claim, high license is likely to have ;
 similar effect. And the fact that sucl seems to be the case is shown by the eX
 perience of Boston, where tho numbe
 of legalized saloons has been lessene( proportionally with the great increas' in the license fee. The same story is O. , will be told from the other commuDitie , where high license prevails. It canno we'll be otherwise.
 , It might be well for the county com missioners and future legislatures o1 Connecticut to carefully investigate the
 workings of high license before the,
 proceed to increase the present licens' , fee. This seems to be high enough, ill al reason, to drive out the lower class O : dealers which it is the professed object o the high license system to exterminate. l is high enough, in all truth, to place al , the necessary safeguards about the busi ness, without creating those temptation , to illegal selling which would be incl dental to a higher fee and whose work ings are seen now in Boston. Higl
 license is as certain as prohibition t, lead to free rum and all the evils that ar
 popularly associated herewith, and i
 is certain therefore to be a failure, ever as it has proved itself to be in Boston : A moderately high license fee, such a we now have in Connecticut, which l certain to insure proper safeguards fo f the liquor business without placing it il 5 the hands ..of 8 favored class, is a goo , enough system for this or any othe s American state. It is preferable to hig e license and better than prohibition, an : is the best solution of the liquor problem a that experience, good sense and tn
 conditions of the times suggest.