St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1890-01-30
THE WOLF WANTS TO BE SHEP-
HERD

known as temperance refOrmerS.
Is Vermont ready for the question?
One thing is certain, she will not re-
peal her law to please the whisky
men, She has kept it on her statute
book for thirty eight years because
it didn't please them. The first ques-
ton she will want settled is this:
Does the prohibitory law, enforced
exactly as it is enforced, damage the
rum business more than high license
would? If so she wants to keep it.
What Vermont wants is to smash
the business. For nearly forty years
she has stood with free rum Canada
pouring down upon her from the
north, with license New York and
license Massachusetts, surging across
with prohibition New Hampshire
poisoning all her eastern border from
its infamous sinks of corruption in
Littleton, Woodsville and other
neighboring towns where the law is
not enforced-and against all these
odds, bearing the taunts of foes and
the reproacheS of friends with equal
grace, she has stood her ground and
said, Though all the world give the
foul traffic leave to be, within my
borders it shall wear the brand of
'outlaw' and never rear its head ex
cept in treason against my law"
She may have been mistaken, but
she has never come to believe
that less liquor will be sold where
the law says it may be sold than
where the law says it shan't be sold.
She still thinks that to license a traf-
fic which for nearly forty years she
has declared to be crime would de-
bauch the public morals more than a
righteous law, even if her people are
too cowardly to enforceit as it ought
to be- She is inclined to think now
that if these Rutland reforfners felt
they show in trying to repeal it, her
word would be pretty well obeyed
even in Rutland.
If these gentlemen really want to
make Vermont a license state we can
tell them how to begin: Let them
convince Vermonters that the men
who are in the liquor business do
not want a license law. The Yer
mont farmer does not pretend to
know what hurts the rum business
as we'll as the man who is in that
business. But he makes the shrewd
guess that if license is favorable to
temperance it will not be over favor
able to the saloon, and if license is
unfavorable to the saloon the saloon
will be unfavorable to license. If
"prohibition don't prohibit" he
would expect the rummies to say,
keep right along with prohibition;
nothing suits us better" But he has
been to the village often enough to
know that every man in the whisky
crowd is blowing for high license.
He has read the newspapers enough
to know that out in Nebraska now
the people are fighting over two pro-
posed amendments to their constitu-
ton. One is a prohibitory amend
ment, the other is in these words:
"The manufacture, sale and keeping
for sale of Intoxicating liquor as a
beverage shall be licensed and regu-
lated by law" He knows that Ne
braska has had $1,000 license sys-
tenn for many years. Has it proved
so damaging to the liquor business
that liquor men would like to change
it for "a prohibitory law that don't
prohibit ?" Not much. He sees that
every saloon keeper in Nebraska is
sweating to get that license amend
ment into the constitution-to make
$1,000 license system permanent
and to make it impossible for the
legislature to pass a prohibitory
law
And vet Rutland reformers say
that high license will break up the
rum business; and the N. Y. Tribune
says, High license has way of
indicating ITSELF" and the Christian
Union, whileit advocates prohibition
for far-off heather India, opposes it
in Pennsylvania because the people
are not educated up to it"
The prohibitory law in Vermont is
a dead letter, is it Hear what Bon
forts Wine and Spirit Circular says:
Let Vermont and New Hampshire
repeal their ridiculous liquor laws
and make themselves pleasant places
to live in and people will soon come
and stay there. And until this is
done it will be useless to invite Nor
wegians or Swedes or Germans or
anybody else-they wont come. Or
if they do ignorantly come they will
go away again as soon as they find
out that they are to be punished for
trying to be happy" And yet the
Herald asks John Farmer to believe
that it is easier for these Germans,
Swedes and Norwegians to get their
toddy under the present law than it
would be under license lawl 1t
seems that a "probibitory law that
don't prohibit" is good enough to