The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1889-03-29
Friday, March 20, 1850.
watchman, Tell us of the Night
.aTo this complexion must we come at last

ITO this complexion must We cVmo a. iAFs'
Never befo.S in the history of the temper
ance moyement--we should say reforns-has
there been such agitation over taking legal
steps to check and cure the evil. "Moral
Suasion" alone has been given up as an in
sufficient remedy, by all but few rather
weak minded people whose intellectual
growth stopped at certain point long since
reached, and who at that point turn back
and travel toward the days of their child
hood. Legal remedies are now admitted
by all whose opinions are at all worth us
tening to, to be the only hope of rescuing
the public from the grasp ofthe alcoholic
fend. The agitation is at its hight at the
present time in Pennsylvania, and the daily
papers are at last compelled to take more or
less notice oft. They are all on the whis-
key side TO greater or less degree, but are
being slowly driven to the wall by the in
exorable logic of facts. The battle is now
narrowed down TO absolute prohibition or
sshigh" license, as the remedy, with the
ssgreat dailies" and the politicians taking
the side of high license, and the rich dis
tillers, brewers and wholesale liquor men
backing Them The Philadelphia Times in
a recent issue editorially comes up to this
last ditch with the following declaration:
"There are only two practical remedies
for the abuse Of the liquor traffic, and they
are we'll regulated and enforceable license
system and prohibition, and either must be
uniform in an entire State to secure any
beneficial results. The same principle that
has made local option impracticable has
greatly impaired the success of prohibition,
as the suppression Of the liquor Traffic in
any State is a practicable impossib1lity
while adjoining States sanction the manu-
factnre and sale. Some measure of good
may be attained by prohibition in one State,
but local option applied to towns and cohn-
ties has not, in the light of we'll tested ex-
perience, a single attribute to commend 1T to
considerable favor"
THE abuse of the liquor traffic." does
not put the question properly. The liquor
traffic abuse is much more comprehensive.
"A we'll regulated and enforceable license
SYSTEM exists in theory only. Such a
system" has never existed in fact, in any
part of the world, and in the very nature
of things never can exist. great many
careless thinkers and observers who accept
promises for performance and assertions for
facts, believe in the possibility OF such
system" And a great many thousands
more favorable to, or engaged in the liquor
trade pretend to believe that high license is
the very open sesame TO such desirable
result. The unanswerable statistics piled
up by the prohibitionists from every quar-
ter where high license has existed long
enough to demonstrate its work as REFORM
er, refnte this assumption utterly. High
license has never in single instance had
any more influence on the result than low
license. The Times does not accord to local
option and local prohibition the merit they
they deserve. They have both been great
educators in the work of state and national
prohibition. Il would have been utterly
impossible to have brought the public mind
to believe that the liquor evil can be stamp
ed out by law had not this demonstration Of
the possibility been attempted on small
scale, by experimenting on town or dis
trict,sby leaving the licensing of parties to
sell liqnors in those narrow limits TO the
voters in such town or district. The law
made license optional with the voters for the
time between two general. or specified cleo.
tions. These experiments proved the BEN
ef1cial results of prohibiting the traffic by
law and the feasibility of it. This was en-
couraging. and the next step was local pro-
hibitior, which extended the law over an
entire county, without change when estab
lished except by special repeating act of
the legislature. This plan Of prohibition
was found to be great improvement on the
first step or local option effort. The terms.
local option and local prohibition, are not
interchangeable, although large numbers
CT intelligent people do not comprehend
the broadly defined difference. There are
very few local option laws now in existence.
those. prohibatory acts being applied to
counties and in few instances State. Slch
laws the editor of the Times truly says can
not prove sufficient and enduring remedies.
The food tide of The liquor business is al
lowed TO beat upon those thin walls from
neighboring counties and states and ii is
only question Of time till that tide sweeps
them away unless strengthened by natiou-
al barrier. THE suppression of the liquor
traffic in any State is practicable impos-
sibilitv while adjoining States sanction the
manufacture and SALE" is the declaration
of this high license paper. This is in a
measure only, true. No law absolutely sup
presses AND vice or crime, but state prohibit
tion and county prohibition also, prohibit to
q very large extent; in many localities
virtually entirely. Even in Cecil county
in this part of il certainly drunk man
on the street is curiosity. People will go
to their doors and windows to see the noy-
elty. as they do TO gaze at a dancing bear or
passing show procession.
But state and county prohibition will not
prove an enduring remedy and cannot be a
perfect prey entative, as the Times truthfally
argues. while neighboring states permit the
manufacture and sale. The case is made
much stronger if we take into consideration
thai the general government lends its moral
and legal aid to the liquor power to defy
state and county prohibition, BY projecting
the transportation and sale in uubroker
packages in any state regardless Of its pro-
hibition laws.
When we have traced up tha threads o
this tangled skein we are brought face /,
face with the fact, that the oniy hope o
abolishing the liquor trade as beverage i
in its exsirpation by the general govern
ment behind which tits 80 strongly en-
trsnched. High license is the liquor trade