Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1895-11-18
THE RUTLAND HERALD SCORES
THE MONITOR

LII ldCU IU Is udIuly pOSSlUlO w al SuO
| with a Vermont newspaper which
urges that prohibition prohibits with
even 200 regularly licensed violators
of the law in the State. And the-same
may be said in respect to what is said
about the unlawful sellers who dis
pense rum only for medicinal and me-
| chanical purposes. The MONITOR ap-
parently supposes that there are 234
men and concerns in the state paying
$25 apiece for federal permits to sell
rum and yet make sure that not par
ticle is used as a beverage; there
must be an ache or no sale, and then
| the crime does not count. In this
way it figures out it's 200 s'straight Ii
quor Sellers"
The MONITCE goes through facts as
a cat walks through wet grass, only
''more So" 1t is not true that very
few persons sell liquor in this state
without paying the federal license fee
The licenses cover the bulk Of the reg
ular dealers who have public places
of business that is all. The number
of persons who do ''bootleg'' and off
and on business is very large, as any
body knows who knows anything
about the subject. And the federal
government by no means looks the
thing up sharply. That is matter of
common knowledge. And the 434 Ii
censes covered not one town agent.
The Herald stated that again and
again. The MONITOR says that Orleans
county has only II licenses, and pi-
ously suggests that they are probably
all town agents, although if any Of
them are really illegal sellers they
should be promptly hunted out. The
list we printed showed that the whole
II were in Newport and Barton itself,
former f.
ter. H. S. Webster, FL. E. Blanchard,
F. A. Belknap. D. w. Hildreth and FL.
@. Pierce are licensed in Barton. This
makes one license for each 443 people
in the town and wicked Rutland
has only one to each 405.
And the MONITOR certainly will not
hunt. 1t dare not move. 1t does not
want the law enforced. 1t does not
want reputable men who sell liquor
and there are some in the list given
above-pu nished in any way for vio-
lating the law.
If the MONITOR is ''gratified'' to find
that its own little town has no more
than six men who pay $25 each for
| federal permits to violate the prohib-
itory law, we'll and good. Let the
sum of happiness be kept as large as
possible. But the talk that high Ii
cense would not reduce the number
of liquor dealers in Vermont is pure
wind. OF course the reduction would
not be in the small towns-they would
keep prohibition, and they are not in
trouble as the larger ones are. Very
likely Barton might stick to pro-
hibition, although it sadly needs a
newspaper to be honest and uphold
practical temperance instead of theo-
ry, but the large towns on the west
side Of the state would certainly gain
by the change. And they have NOR
al right to try it.
The MONITOR replies:
The above appeared in the Rutland
Herald in it's issue OF Nov II and was
melted by an article which appeared
in this paper a few days previously.
The Herald, which is an excellent
newspaper and has sound views on
most questions, is rabid and wrathy
against the prohibition law. Just what
it does want, if anything in the line
of temperance, we have never been
able to discover. We do not remem-
Der that it publishes anything, edito-
| rial or otherwise, of temperance in
struction. On the contrary, it devotes
column after column in denunciation
of the prohibitory laws of the state;
it ridicules and abuses, if indeed 1T
can abuse, those officers of the law
who try to put it in force; it main
tains in Rutland a position on this
question which is deplored by the
best citizens of that city and of Rut-
land county; it defends, indirectly, a
horde of rumsellers in that section,
who are lawbreakers and a curse to
community; it has traduced honora-
BILE men who Eave believed in prohl-
bition laws; it has accused Governor
| Woodbury. of being a rumseller and
has attempted to scathe his fair and
honorable reputation; it has tried to
cast stigma upon the whole legisla-
| ture of Vermont on account Of the do
! ings of few men; it has undertaken
! to reproach respectable cities and
/ towns because certain men carried
United States licenses, and because
men of the basest sort have sneaked
into dirty holes and cellars and sold
rum on the sly to low rum drinkers;
it has traduced, SO far as it is able,
! that part of the press of the state
which upholds the law and labors for
| its enforcement; it has by falsehood,
innuendo, vituperation, and unfair
statements been a hindrance to the
cause of temperance, and, in this
sense, a curse TO Vermont.
In reply to some of the statements
in the above article, we declare that
prohibition does prohibit. 1t prohib-
its the establishment of liquor saloons
in nine tenths of the towns in this