River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1890-05-08
Personal Liberty not Assaulted by the
Prohibition of the Liquor
Traffic.
Ex-cHIEF JUSTICE AeSEw of Penn.


The right of society to prohibit the
manufacture and sale of liquors is of.
ten assailed IS an attack upon person.
| al liberty. This is mistake. No
one claims the right to compel tenn.
perance by law. What a man may
drink is for his conscience. The
question is between him and his God.
But drunkenness Is different matter
and affects society.
But drunkenness before your eyes.
See the victim Keeling from the bar,
perhaps pushed into the street, fallen
into the gutter, staggering away TO
| accident, falling into pits, lying on
the railway track. and in a moment a
mass of torn flesh and crushed bones
| death.
Look at him in his family-wife and
J children fleeing before his brutal rage,
the knife or pistol in his hand, then
the wife of his bosom bleeding, dying
at his feet. Again see him on bed
of sickness fighting the devils of the
brain, mania. delirium, death.
Look at its public aspect, not con-
fined by town or county lines, but
spreading over an entire State. What
a scene of devastation and ruin, which
despOils labor, gluts prisons and hos
pitfalls, engulfs taxes, impoverishes
families, breaks up homes, sends the
occupants to alms-houses, and carries
thousands to untimely graves.
1t violates the very constitution of
the state, destroying the God. given
rights of men.
Does it not destroy liberty! Answer,
courts of justice, prisons and asylums!
Does it not destroy property! The
destruction has no measure, but the
wages of labor, the earnings of indus
try, the savings of economy, and the
Inheritance of wealth, all, all engulfed
in the drunkard's ruin.
Does it not destroy happiness! Who
can tell the woe, the sorrow, the pain,
the broken hearts despoiled by drink!
Reputation! Who can return it to
the victim of folly, vice and crime!
Lost in the whirlpool of drink.
Drunkenness is therefore great
public wrong, involving life, health,
prosperity peace, property, morals and
the general welfare. What is its cor
rective! The police power, recognized
by the supreme court of the United
States. Said Justice Mclean: "The
acknowledged police power of state
extends often to the destruction of
property. A nuisance may be abated,
everything prejudicial to the health
and morals of city may be re-
moved"
Said Chief Justice fancy: IF
state deems the retail traffic in ardent
spirits injurious to its citizens, and
calculated to produce idleness, vice or
debauchery, see nothing in the con-
stitution of the United States to pre-
vent it from regulating or restraining
the traffic, or prohibiting it alto
gether."
Nor does the l4th amendment of
the constitution of the United States
impair the police power of the state. "
So says Justice Field.
And this power is incapable of
Limitation" says Justice Miller. up
on it., he says, depends the security
of social order, the life and health of
the citizen, the comfort of existence
in thickly populated community, the
enjoyment of private social life and
the beneficial use Of property
Yet the saloon, the slave of drink.
the landlord of the liquor den, the
demagogue and the ignorant cry out,
Liberty I'm robbed of my libertyP'
Liberty! What law of liberty gives
him a right to sell that which
imbrutes man, dethrones reason, en-
genders passion, destroys life and fills
the state with disease, accident, in
sanity, crime, want, taxation and
death-a bill which jostles reason
from her throne, turns aside justice
and outrages sense! What! Liberty
to place a cylinder of dynamite under
the temple of Liberty and blow it to
atoms!
The claim of liberty to fill the state
with drunkenness and all its woes is as
much against law and common right
as it is unfounded in reason and JUS
tice.
Who make your constitutions and
establish your bills of rights! The
people. They who are the state and
are most interested in the question.
Why shall they not tear down the idol,
overturn this car of juggernaut in its
progress of destruction, crushing the
innocent in its path, and pouring liba-
lions of blood upon the scene OF its
triumphant ruin!
The people will weigh this claim OF
liberty to despoil the state. and will
add to their constitution. erelong, an
other article which will bring pros
perity and happiness TO al,