The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1901-06-26
ARTHUR ROPES. General Editor.
Action, Not Talk.


Next Sunday two or three clergymen
connected with the anti-saloon move
ment will instruct the people from the
various pulpits of the village churches.
Very likely the sole question discussed
will be prohibition VS.. license. If this
fear is justified the time will be worse
than thrown away. There is
no question or issue or argument
regarding license or local option be-
fore the people Of Lamoille county to-
day. The only question is, Shall the
prohibitory law be upheld and en-
forced to any extent in this county?
To-day the prohibitory law is the
only law or question Of law that
requires the slightest discussion here.
At present it is as dead as a toad
stool through lack OF public senti-
meut in favor of its enforcement.
ss* Rum is practically free. Drunk
enness is on the increase, The agen-
cies alone are making more work in a
day than the States attorney can attend
to in week. The sole question next
Sunday and from now on is whether
prohibition is going to be upheld and
sustained and honestly enforced in La
noble county or not. The
Messenger wants prohibition enforced
and the prohibitory law upheld in this
county. 1t wants the agencies to stop
filing the highways and byways with
drunkards every day. 1t wants some
thing donel--Morrisyille Messenger.
Whatever may be the ideas or no.
tions of the editor of the Messenger on
the general subject of regulating the
liquor traffic, he should have credit for
entire sincerity in ME declarations in fa'
vor of the enforcement of the prohibit
tory law. That it is true that action, not
talk, is needed in Lamoille county, is
taught in the lesson presented by the
experiences OF this city decade ago.
Sunday evening temperance meetings
had been held as q stated observance
of the day. Good temperance people,
firmly grounded in the faith, were pres
ent in varying numbers; the people
who were the proper subjects for re-
form, in their habits or their business,
were elsewhere. The meetings may
have been useful in keeping alive the
fires of temperance reform in the
hearts of the faithful, but as a measure
of practical usefulness IN quenching
other fires that were raging outside
they were as effective as the applica-
ton of the generally understood princi-
pies of Christian Science to the flames
of burning town. Rum was free, but
its sale was IN a score or so of saloons,
rather than at the agency.
An admonition was administered to
one of the leaders in these Sunday
meetings-who was himself deeply sen-
sible of the incongruity as we'll as the
ineffectiveness of the remedy gener-
ally recognized temperance agency was
providing-that notice would be served
on the Sunday evening meeting speak
ers and exhorters to stop talking and
proceed to action, or disband and shut
up. A change Of procedure followed.
The Sunday evening talk to the faith
full and true gave place to resolute and
persistent action against the common
enemy.
The rest is local history. The battle
was not an easy one. 1t was fought
out, with resolute persistence, year by
year, against illegal sellers, in the sa-
looms and in the courts, by seizure,
prosecution, trial, conviction, sentence
and the serving out Of sentences. A
dozen places which had been the abode
of the traffic in the end were tenant
less, or occupied by the sellers of pro-
visions, or clothing, or articles of law
full trade. The sale of liquor and its
consequences is not entirely suppressed.
1t never will be till the millennium
comes, but the Montpelier Of today, in
respect of the liquor traffic and its
consequences, is not the Montpelier Of
1891 and the half century preceding,
when 1t had the reputation--and had
probably earned its name-of being the
worst rum hole in Vermont.
So much for action in place Of talk.
Honest, resolute and impartial enforce
ment OF the law begot public support;
and in locality formerly and for
generation and more Indifferent or
winking at the violation of the liquor
law, won for the law such support that
prosecution was effective, courts ad-
ministered the ,statutes In their letter
and spirit and juries convicted on the
evidence. Morrisville, Hyde Park and
all the towns Of Lamoille county
should go and do likewise. Citizens
who need Sunday meetings and preach
ing to inform them of their duties and
obligations in respect of the temper
ance situation there ought to be set
back into kindergarten of citizenship
and grow up in better and more en-
Eohtanad Notwithstanding Of ita nom-