Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1900-03-12
SUPPRESS, NOT "REGULATE'' THE
ALCOHOLIC DRINK TRAFFIC.


there is some wrong to be corrected,
or some danger from which the public
needs to be guarded. The alcoholic
drink traffic is a danger from which
the public needs protection. No one
questions the right of the state to
restrict or to wholly forbid such
traffic. That power has been affirmed
again and again by the supreme
court of the nation. It is not only
the right but the duty of the state to
so legislate as ''to make it easy to do
right and difficult to do wrong"
Every attempt to regulate evils by
license laws has resulted in injury to
society and failed to promote the
ends proposed by the advocates of
license policy. To license the al
coholic drink traffic is to give the
sanction of the state to what is uni
versally conceded to be an evil. Men
say: "You cannot wholly prevent
the sale of alcoholic beverages,
therefore license and control the
traffic" The therefore" does not
follow; for if it were true that gov
eminent cannot prevent the evil,
that is no reason why it should pro-
tect and encourage it.
Governments cannot regulate vice,
nor the causes Of vice; nor can they
regulate crimes and their causes.
Those who disregard moral law, will
not respect civil law. They will only
obey because they have to. The true
purpose oflaw is to suppress evils and
their causes, not to protect them.
The demand for license law comes
mainly from those who want to sell
liquor. They have no care for the
morals of society. Those who say,
eve want a license law in the inter-
ests of temperance and morality"
are either ignorant or dishonest, for
never, in four centuries of liquor
legislation, has license law worked
that way, Rev. Albert Barnes was
right when he said: can evil al
ways becomes worse by being sus-
tanned by the law of the land" Have
we not seen that truth verified in our
experience with slavery? When a
state licenses an evil it says by its &C
ton, "There are degrees of vice that
are lawful"
On that point Sheldon Amos says:
eff the law is knowingly allowed to
incline, on the whole, in favor of i'm
&c Of
henious moral offences of which a
state or it's rulers can be guilty"
When an evil thing is made legal by
civil law, those most likely to be in
jured regard it as right because it is
lawful. After Massachusetts enacted |
her license law, man was trying to
shop and drink with him. "Come |
on,' he said, E'This is now as respect |
able a place as any; the state of |
says So" A saloon
keeper in Connecticut said: 81 have
paid for my license and am in partner
ship with the state of Connecticut"
Both of those men told the truth.
The state was their accomplish in
crime. 1t is an awful thing to teach
our youth that the liquor traffic is
light by legalizing it.
Any advantages to society from
license law, are due to its prohibitory
,rovisions-not to license provisions.
The license is not for society, but for
he liquor seller.
There is not case on record where
license law has diminished the sale
# LIQUOR, or lessened the evil results
# the traffic. High license does not
mean less liquor sold, but less num-
er of places and larger fee to the
tate. 1t also means more seductive
ar. rooms, and the addition of other
to patronize them.
We are told that 1--WE cannot make 7
1en virtuous by law; that virtue I
ONES from Within" But indictments I
D virtue come from without, and the {
tate should prevent men from Turing Y
heir fellows into it. We have closed I
ur mails to lotteries and impure
terature for the public good, and
hould suppress "this very much =
reater evil' for the same purpose.
he state should protect the young,
he weak, and the ignorant from
that is inimical to the ::
eneral welfare. 1t forbids some
1ings under some circumstances, that :
re good, because the general welfare 8
society requires it. Soap factories, =
laughter houses, and powder mills
re good things, but we do not allow y
len to plant them everywhere. If .
ociety moves out where they are they :.