The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-01-24
NO COUNTY OPTION.

ment and enforcement of the high IL
cense law are alarmed and incensed by
the rise of a studiously concealed cru
SADIE against it. The man who raises
his voice to disturb that arrangement,
whether his pretense be that he wishes
to restrict the liquor traffic more Sc
verely, or that he desires to relax the
stringency of present supervision, is an
enemy to good order and to the public
peace. A movement is now under way,
and an assault is to be made upon the
legislature to secure the enactment Of
a law providing for county option in
the state of Minnesota. The county OPP
ton system is sort Of hybrid, a cross
between absolute prohibition and the
general license system. Wherever it is
in force it proves to be second only to
prohibition in it's inefficacy and it's dis
turbing influence upon both business
and politics.
The county option idea, as en-
bodied in the laws of some Eastern
states, and as proposed to be incorpor-
ated in the laws of Minnesota, submits
the question of license or no license to
the people of minor political divisions
at stated intervals. These minor di-
visions may coincide with county lines,
or they may be narrowed to the limits
OF single cities, or of single wards with
in them. Thus, under county option, a
Yellow Medicine would submit to it's
voters every year or two the question
whether or not the sale of intoxicants
should be permitted within it's boun-
darles. If a majority voted license, the
traffic would continue. If it voted no
license, it would still continue, but sur
reptitiously. in the villages, and under
the ban of the law as it exists every
Where where prohibition is on the stat
Ute books In county like Hennepin
the question would be submitted sep
arately to the people Of MINNEAPOLIS,
and to the people Of the county outside
OF the Minneapolis limits. 1t is con-
templated, we understand, in the bill
to be urged, that in Minneapolis itself
the people of one ward might have Ii
cense and Of another no license How
large or populous the division might be
which should determine this question
for itself would be a matter for legisla-
tive regulation.
Now, the whole idea Of this county
option, no matter how it is practically
applied, is utterly wrong from begin
ming to end. There are two objections
to it, either one of which, should prove
instantly fatal. The first is that it in
PRODUCES into our system Of dealing in
the liquor traffic the prohibition idea,
and that idea is everywhere fallacious
and an enemy to public order and prf-
vate morality Prohibition can be eff
fected, not by majority for it, but by
practically unanimous public opinion.
In the years prior to the enactment of
our present liquor law we had full ex-
perlence of such system in the differ
ent towns of this state. A city like
Faribault, for example, might vote as
it pleased, and usually did vote back
and forward between license and no Ii
cense. Under one regime there was
plentiful crop of cheap and disorder1y
saloons. Under the other there was an
absolute disregard Of law, and the
traffic fiourished either without super
vision at all, or by tacit arrangement
with the authorities for the payment
Of stipulated amount in fines. This
is always the result where an attempt
is made to enforce prohibition, leading
to the practical destruction of police
supervision, to an interference with
public revenue and to a contempt for
law, as thing to be violated or OBJ
served at pleasure, than which nothing
could be more corrupting
The second and wider objection is
that this scheme proposes to reintro-
duce into the politics of this state the
liquor issue, which has been happily
banished from it ever since we had a.
general system Of high license. I'm
der the county option plan the whole
state would be torn up periodically bv
the necessity of voting in each county,
city or ward whether licenses should
be permitted or not The saloon vote,
would rise again to it's old Importance.
and the election of officials and other
questions at issue would be subordi-
mated entirely to the question whether
the new authorities were to be for the
saloon or against it. Perhaps the most
beneficent effect of our high license law
is it's relegation Of the liquor vote to
minor position. To put it again in
the saddle is something that no friend
of temperance or good government, any
more than any friend Of legitimate
traffic in intoXicants, ought to desire.
One has but to look at the condition
Of the border towns on the boundaries
between a state that has license and
one that has prohibition to see the con-
dition of things that would be promoted
in Minnesota by county option. One
county, or other minor division, having
voted prohibition by a narrow major
ity, and heavy minority of it's citi-
zens desiring to imbibe, a Gordon
OF low grog shops for their benefit
would spring up along the county line,
to the utter destruction of public moral
ity, as well as the defeat of the pre-
tended object of the law.
Of all the statutes in force at this