The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1892-04-06
Judge Ross and the Liquor Law.

Judge Ross imposed fines aggregat-
ing 5000 90 on Rutland rum-sellers,
last week, according to the Herald's re-
port. According to the same authority,
the Judge said he understood how the
people of the state feel about the liquor
traffic and how the legislature had for
forty years been making the liquor law
more stringent and adding heavier pen
alties. The judges realized that the
only reason why people violate the law
is for money. So it had been decided
to adopt, as general practice, an in
crease of the ordinary penalty for sell
ing. If increasing the money penalty
does not stop the traffic, imprisonment
for first offenses can be added. The
judge imposed fine of thirty dollars
for each first offense. The above is, in
substance, the Herald's report.
Assuming that the report is correct,
it is interesting to inquire how long
Chief-Judge Ross thinks he should wait
to find out whether or not tufts of grass
such as he has been hurting at offend
ers against the liquor law will "stop
the traffic?" This way of judicial en-
forcement of the liquor law has been
practiced for nearly forty years, as
Judge Ross is reported to have said.
His court has rarely if ever advanced a
liquor-seller beyond the first offense in
the schedule of crime. The fine has
for forty years been imposed and paid,
and the seller has returned to the traffic
to make up by larger sales, or by
greater diluting or adulterating of his
liquor, the money the state has taken
out of him in fines. Will doubling or
trebling the size of the tuft of grass
"stop the traffic?" Does the experience
Of forty years afford any rational ground
for the belief that money penalties
alone will "stop the traffic?" Judge
Ross says people violate the liquor law
for money. Why does man rob bank,
or forge a note, or steal horse and
many times commit murder? Money is
the root of all this evil, and it is just as
reasonable to suppose that tapping tills,
stealing horses, etc., could be stopped by
money penalties alone as to expect to
stamp out unlawful liquor-selling, with
its appalling train of other resulting
crimes, by dilly-dallying with fines.
Judge Ross held court in Washington
county not many terms ago. A num-
Der of liquor cases came before him, and
following his judgments there was
greater boldness among rum-sellers,
greater freedom in the sale of liquor,
than had prevailed for many years
eliminating in the disgraceful outbreak
of July last. The Herald reports Judge
Ross as saying that "the judges had
adopted general practice in regard to
the enforcement of the liquor law"
and that they had decided to increase
the ordinary penalty from what it has
been" For more than generation
just such mistaken leniency as Judge
Ross exercised at Montpelier, and re-
Gently at Rutland, aud which he says
the judges have adopted as a general
practice, has prevailed. In consequence
old time-seasoned, case-hardened Of
Tenders against the prohibitory law
have multiplied and flourished and
grown rich. Immunity from effective
legal prosecution and from wholesome
judicial severity have rendered rum
sellers defiant of law and regardless Of
its officers. Immunity from the sterner
penalties has led scores of men to for
sake honest industry and engage in the
unlawful traffic with expectation OF
great riches, fine houses and all the &C.
compartments of wealth peacefully pos.
sessed by those who have successfully
engaged in the traffic and evaded the
law. 1t is time for the chief-judge and
his associates to change "the general
practice mot by increasing the fines
not by throwing larger wads of grass
but by pitching at offenders the stones
the legislature has provided and in.
tended they should use. Send few
rum-sellers to the work-house, Judge
and see if it will require forty years Of
that sort of treatment to "stop the
traffic."
DhnHa UeIanA