The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-11-21
MattSman & 9Ournal
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 400.
ARTHUR ROPES. General Editor
The Voice Of the Legal Voter.

supporters of the bill pending IN the
Legislature for the regulation OF the
liquor traffic on the circumstance which
they allege that there is conspicuous
absence of the names of legal voters Oh
the petitions sent to that body praying
for the maintenance of the prohibitory
law, and almost an equally conspicuous
presence of the signatures of Legal vo-
tiers on the petitions for the enactment
of the local option bill with the refer
endum attached.
However the facts may be in this ri
spect, it should be ever remembered
that the legal voter is trustee, not an
absolute sovereign. There are minors
coming along, all the way from the era
die to the last hour of the period OF
minority, who will become legal voters.
There are girls growing up who will
become the wives of legal voters
There are mothers and sisters, also,
and these all are the wards of the legal
voter, both in the exercise of the sui
frage and his capacity as a lawmaker
He is under the heaviest bonds, NOR
ally as well as legally, ever 10 sacredly
safeguard the rights and consult the
welfare of all these persons outside the
limits of the suffrage, and also of the
stranger and the alien within the gates.
1t is particularly incumbent on the le-
gal voter of today, as good citiz ell
and so far as lies within his power, to
see that the legal voter of tomorrow
comes into the exercise of the suffrage
free from the curse of intemperance.
1t is especially his duty to refrain from
putting temptation to any evil habit or
corrupting practice in his way, ard to
remove any temptation that may be-
come destructive of or injurious to
good citizenship. II is incumbent on
the legal voter to have constant re-
gard for the highest well being of every
member of the community. II is an
exceedingly selfish citizenship that IN
sists on laws for it's exclusive benefit,
having no regard for the rights and
welfare Of the State at large. The gov
eminent of the future is what the
minors OF the present shall make it.and
the quality of the future ci izenship in
some large measure is in the hands OF
the legal voters of the present.
One of The worst evils, in it's effects
on society and government, is intern
perance. This truth is trite, it is well
understood, the evidence is on every
hand, it is not matter of dispute, it
needs no calculation. The men Of
former generation, having experiment.
al knowledge of these things, of the
direful consequences of the practice of
licensing the sale of Intoxicating
liquors, of its inadequacy for the pre-
vention or control of the appalling evils
of intemperance, taking thought for
the future of society, enacted the pro-
hibitory law. The men of that genera
ton surviving contrast existing con-
ditions under prohibition with condi-
tions that existed under license. 1t is
the difference between temperance and
the riot and decentralization from the
unrestrained use of liquors. The men
OF the present generation, the younger
class Of the citizenship, do not under
stand these things as their elders do,
and the sophistries of the license advo-
Gates have their influence with them.
Deliberation, discussion, campaign of
education, would dispel the illusion un-
der which some good and sincere tenn
perance people seem disposed TO favor
license with it's plausible and insinuat-
ing accessions of local option and the
referendum.
Is Vermont ready to go back to a
system of regulating the liquor traffic
which the legal voters of 80 years ago
discarded by reason of its inadequacy
and by reason of the deplorable evils
to society which prevailed under il?
Is Vermont ready, by the enactment
of the bill pending in the Legislature,
to treat with any degree of federation a
proposition looking to the restoration
of the lamentable condition of society
prior to 1850? Is Vermont, "the mod
ell republic, to set her sister States an
example of backsliding and of retro
erosion in great reformp
No matter what safeguards, not ex.
istent in the license measures of half q
century ago, it is proposed to throw
around the new license; can the law
makers hoop dynamite9 The re-
straints, pains and penalties, with which
1t is proposed to hedge about the traf-
fc will be as Intellectual to control it as
laws to con6ne exploding dynamite
These are all a delusion and a snare
No honest or conscientious person
should be deceived by this dread array
50 IL