The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1900-11-28
COUNTRY LIFE AND TEMPERANCE

COUNTRY LIFE AND TEMPERANCE.
Editor Of VI. Wdtchmap: After re-
covering from my merriment over the
amusing spectacle OF the advocacy Of
high license and local OPP ion % q tenn.
perance measure, | thought Of some
facts OF history and several statements
Of competent judges concerning the
great problems of city and country life.
l believe they apply to the struggle be.
tweep the advocates NJ high license
and local option aud those who favor
prohibition - local option being only
the cancels head poking into the pro-
hibition. camp. Almost to a man they
who, with high-sounding and frantic
appeals to the voice Of the people, spe-
ciously dare the people to try refer.
endum, are first, middle, and last for
high license.
If local option can be secured the
larger towns and cities will, without
doubt, have license law, open saloons
legal death-traps-which will not only
supply the poison TO the local inhabit-
ants, but will in large measure supply
the surrounding prohibition towns.
This is the confessed program of the
great liquor dealers, who, if the ques-
ton were referred 10 the people, would
bring to bear the combined liquor
power of the United States to corrupt
the suffrages of our own comparatively
pure State. The demand for license
comes from these great syndicates, in
trenched in and supported by our large
cities. They want an open market for
their "wet goods" The demand for
license in our own State comes chiefly
from the larger towns.
What does this argue2 II teaches
what all history proves; the streams of
humanity become more and more pol
luted as they flow to the centers of pop
ulation. Just as the pure waters from
the mountain sides and the sparkling
brooklets in the meadow grasses be-
come less vital and more fetid as they
near some dead sea. Emerson says,
1.-THE city is recruited from the coun-
try. The city would have died out, rot
ted and exploded, long ago, but that it
was reinforced from the fields. II is
only country which came to town day
before yesterday that is city and court
tomorrow" 1t is scientific fact, &C.
knowledged by all sociologists, "that
only the agricultural class possesses
permanent vitality; from its overflow
the city population is formed, dis
placed, renewed" "Any city popula-
ton, if left to itself, would die out in
four generations" "The city is an in
land lake, fed by constant streams, but
without an outlet" The "hayseeds"
are the salvation of the nation.
The liquor problem is a political prob
lem. Politics in our cities lie the most
corrupt. In many instances, municipal
government is a failure. Governor
Roosevelt, vice president elect, said in
an address on "The Menaces of Civiliz-
atom: "In an attempt to reform the
cities by law, nine-tenths of the city
members would be hostile to it. The
only hope of reform lies in the action
of the country members. The average
grade of our city politicians is serious
menace to good government. Four
fifths of the representatives at Albany
from Greater New York can be de-
pended upon to vote on the wrong side
of every question" Who that knows
the facts doubt the statement? What
saves New York from the curse of
Tammany rule but the country popula-
ton with its purer civilization and its
higher craftsmanship? Has the day
come Of which Wendell Phillips pro-
phecied when he said that sour greater
municipalities would yet strain our in
situations as slavery never did?" We
have no great cities, but have them
large enough to indicate where the cry
of the open saloon comes from. They
have in no uncertain way, if with less
certain voice, said in substances: "Give
US legalized hell, such as other large
places enjoy"
And to secure this, there are not
only arguments utterly devoid of
craftsmanship, but methinks there is
specious argument in this: Representa-.
ton ought to be changed and put upon
basis of population. That seems
plausible. If the hill towns, sparsely
settled, will surrender their privileges
and give the cities and larger towns
more representatives, surely high IL
cense will be secured. But it would
be better to yield up our mountain res
ervoirs for the brackish cisterns of the
city than to let city population rule the
rural communities. A vote from a
little town--God's organization for
keeping the city from rotting in less
than four generations-that may repre-
sent no more than fifty votes, is a
mighty safeguard against the natural
corruptions of municipal government
Heaven forbid that the sewerage of the
cities should flow backwards and over
flow the country districts, where as
yet a man may live with his sons and
daughters unendangered by the muir
der and incest that follows in the wake
of ths saloon, and where Vermont
still grows men who would be ashamed
to engage in business, though legal
lied, which plumbers and destroys the
individual and the State more than the
combined disasters OF war, pestilence
and famine. QUEERCUss.