The Lafayette advertiser. [volume] (Vermilionville [i.e. Lafayette], La.) 1865-19??, 1895-10-26
W. G.. e. u. Column.

no Sranuef Or more eHectlVe lever tor
future prosperity, has ever been in
augurated than that which contem-
plates the entire prohibition of this gi-
gantic evil. The people are beginning
to wake up to their responsibility for
its liberation. They are just begin
ming to see that they have been given
the best possible justification and en-
conragement to the liquor traffic by
licensing it.
We have only to remember that
liquor selling produces fully seventy
five per cent. of all the misery, pau
perism, and crime Of our country,
therefore it must be criminal bust
ness, and should be prohibited, and
not legalized or sanctioned by law as
right.
The fallacious arguments and de-
lusions which have long prosessed the
minds Of some of the people in res
pect to their rights is marvellous.
They have the impression that pop
ular vice should have protection.
To this end they claim it should be
licensed to the highest bidder to pre-
serve its respectabIlity. Thus by
license we furnish the rum seller
justification, giving him the sanction
of law-even the highest forms of
law-assuming it to be among the
constitutional rights Of the people,
just as if law and government were
not instituted to protect the innocent
and punish the guilty. In giving
the rum seller license we reverse the
whole machinery of law; we protec-
the guilty by giving immunity to the
lawless disturber of the peace; we
hribe him by a concession or justifica
ton of his unholy work. Armed
with a license, he outrages the people
pauperizing his victims ami filing the
whole land with deeds Of violence,
and then coolly turns on his heel and
charges the people with the crimes
that have been produced by the vile
stuff with which he has poisoned his
victims. Like Plate, he washes his
hands. exclaiming, Il am innocent
Why? We tell him that by paying
a certain amount he has our authority
and sanction for the business Of max
] ing drunkards; giving him his authori-
ty We become responsible for all his
misery and crime that we charge up
on the liquor seller.
All bad men seek for justification
of their wrong-dong, and they are
strengthened when the good and rep
resentative men of our country join
hands in legalizing it.
/ But why declaim against liquor
trafc, and denounce the liquor seller,
and hypocritically profess to be op-
posed to it, while holding out an
itching palm to receive bride? How
can we sanction and justify the curse
of liquor selling without being moral
ly responsible; and who is responsible
if not the bride-taker? Is there no
remedy for all this? Cannot the
people in their sovereign capacity pro-
tect themselves from outrages on their
peace and happiness? Are they so
tied up by their constitutional law
as to be without remedy? Do they
not know that all law grows out Of
the necessity for mutual protection?
"We, the people" says the pream-
BILE to the Constitution, Gin order to
secure to ourselves and our prosperity
life, liberty, and the pursuit Of happi-
ness, and more, "to provide for the
common defense" From what do we
defend ourselves when we prohibit
the liquor traffic but the great stream
of crime and pauperism that now
flows almost unchecked through the
land, debauching every department Of
our political machinery, poisoning
every good influence, and destroying
our households? And yet we are to
|sit tamely by and see this devastation
going on, hearing men tell US that we
have no constitutional remedy-that
no law can be legally created or en-
acted to stop the blithting scourge.
We have the remedy the swiftest,
sures:, and most patriotic. # is a