Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1902-04-28
THE TRUE ISSUE.

1IlE INOL lOOOLs
Every advocate of license neces-
sarily admits two propositions: First: |
that intoxicants are dangerous. Sec
ond: That the public has a right to
control their sale.
What follows? If they are danger
Gus why permit anybody to traffic in
them, constantly exposed to the
temptation to gain riches? If the
public has a right to say they shall
not be sold after II O'Clock at night it
has right to say that they shall not
be sold before II O'Clock. In other
words, if it can prohibit part of the
time it can prohibit all of the time.
Thus the advocate of license admits
the whole logic of prohibition?
Now the question is not whether
because the prohibitory law is some
times badly executed it should there
fore be repealed; for this would apply
equally to license law; the question
is whether making drinking easier is
likely to diminish the evil.
The question is not whether there
would be more or less drinking places
under license than prohibition, for
under the latter there need be none,
and under the former there must be
some.
The question is not between a self
executing law and law depending
upon officials and public opinion, for
no law, not even the law against arson
will execute itself; therefore the
question is, which can the officials
and the public best enforce, a law
which closes the doors against it's
enemies or one which admits them TO
wet it's ammunition.
The question is not whether liquor
shall be obtainable, for both license
and prohibition provide for that; the
question is whether its sale shall be
limited to proper uses and regulated
by the public, free from the temptation
to make money, or whether it shall be
left to individuals, as rule the least
trustworthy of any in the community,
who are not public servants, who are
not bound to record their sales, who
are in the business for profit, and who
are permitted to sell not alone or
mainly for beneficial uses but for the
very worst and most dangerous use
to which liquor is put.
The question is not whether under
prohibition single town agency is
better than several agencies would be,
for example, druggists, under the
same restrictions; the question is
whether more drinking places shall
be authorized, privately owned and
managed, with human weakness and
cupidity as the only present regula-
tors, and if drinking places why not
l gambling places and brothels, for al
of them are confessedly evil?
The question is not whether prohi-
r bition is failure because human
8 nature demands and will have drink
for man can provide himself will
liquor as he does with any other med
icine and the law will not interfer,
8 with him unless he makes such bat
Q use of it as to injure himself or th'
8 public: the question is whether tn,
y public shall authorize men to contin
s ually tempt the improvident, the un
}. wary and the weak, to pick ava.
IL their earnings, to attract them from
o home, to expose them to treating, an
10 by legislation make drinking less dis
" reputable than now.
l. This last is consideration whic
l. people are too prone to overloo
ls when they estimate the effectiveness
: of prohibition. 1t is fact to-day, a
le through Vermont, even in the cite
, and towns where the law is not we
N enforced, that drinking is under
rt ban and most men desire to avoid tn
reputation of being addicted to i
< This imposes tremendous restrain
at and in any prohibition state there al
IN more total abstainers than there al
or in any license state of equal populs
Id ton. The question is not, therefor
Ill whether city or town shall have tt
ne right to decide its policy on this que
ny ton as it would upon question