The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-07-02
STATE REGULATION.

Respecting the traffic in intoxicat-
ing liquors and its regulation All
parties, however they may differ i'll
details by their action confess that
the traffic is fundamentally different
from commerce in bread, clothing
orTmerchandise of related character,
which is unrestricted.
Tacitly, if not openly and in eX-
press terms, the great majority of the
people of Vermont regard the unregu-
lated traffic in liquor and its habitual
use to crafty an appetite as moral,
a social and political evil, just as
half century ago they similarly re-
garded slavery. The liquor traffic
cannot be treated as on par with
trade in onions or potatoes, no more
than could the buying and selling of
human beings. The controversy over
this traffic, and the right of men to
use liquors with no greater restraint
than is imposed on selling or buying
and eating bread, after half a cen
fury has come again to this people
without the direct agency OF the ref
erendum From now on, till its final
settlement, the browning issue before
the people of Vermont will be whether
the State shall continue its restrictive
control of this traffic, or whether the
traffic shall pass into the hands of
men whose sole object is to make
money-and to make all the money
they can.
On the part of one class-and we
believe it is in the large majority-the
sentiment is that the unrestricted
traffic in spirituous liquors is a
wrong, vast moral evil another
class does not look upon the traffic
from the same moral point of view.
Some in the latter class openly de-
fend the traffic, as some defended the
institution Of slavery; some in this
class, recognizing the existence of
the appetite for liquor, believe, or
profess to believe, that the better way
to control is to permit, to license, its
sale. The issue is between these two
views of the traffic. One would rigid
ly restrict the traffic to certain speci-
fed uses the other would open it up
to general use, that is to say, per-
nit the sale of liquors to feed the APP
petite for drink. The former is the
moral view of the matter, the latter
its demoralizing opposite Those are
for restrictive legislation these con-
tend that whatever community wants
liquor has right to have it. That may
be true, if the general sale and use of
liquors. like bread, is not a wrong. But
if it is wrong, the defenders of Ii
ense and local option have no right to
say the State shall permit, by their
paying for the privilege, any class of
its citizens to do wrong. This is the
issue, and it will continue in this
State till it is settled and settled
right. 1t is the eternal struggle be
tween the two principles of right and
wrong
The Waterman and Journal is unal-
terably opposed to license, high or low,
anu llldl u6IuSlNc dlllCA, lOSdl OptlOlI'
The dividing line between these
schemes and the free sale of liquors
is so faint it is almost invisible. Nor
does the existing system find favor
with many of the best and the more
practical supporters Of temperance.
The existing system is as powerless
for effective reform as was the old dis
trict school system for efficient educa-
tional purposes. There is State control
and supervision of certain institutions
and departments of atfairs--of the
public schools, the highways, the saw
ings banks and trust corporations, the
railways, the fish and game interests,
the public health etc, etc. In inn
portance, moral and material the
supervision and management of the
liquor traffic transcends any of these,
if not all combined. Why should not
this traffic be brought directly, in all
its details, under State control? Why
not do away with the office OF county
commissioner, the State act directly,
buy the liquors, establish the agencies
and appoint the agents, inspect the
business in all it's ramifications? The
system has broken down in the de-
tails of its administration. The law
in this particular-if not in others
is practically and generally nullified.
Here in Montpelier there is no pre-
tense of observing the law in the ad-
ministration of the city agency The
city council legislates on this subject
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