Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1902-09-29

debauch not only the body social, but the
body polite also. = The saloon forms |
the natural club and meeting-place for
the ward leaders and heelers'-So much
so that the bar-room politician has become
a recognized factor in local political gov
eminent. The saloonkeepers are always
hand-in-glove with the professional politi-
clans. Their power has been a terror to
all parties.
For any political aspirant to talk of
fighting a political machine, real or ima-
ginary, by introducing into the State IL
censed saloons is certainly the most ex-
quisite irony.
And then it ought always to be remem-
bered by the man who is thinking whether
1t is wise to give the saction of the law to
private bar rooms, that the more respec-
table we make the saloon the more dam
geroas we make it. The so-called best
saloons do the worst harm to the best
men. Your habitual drunkard will go any
Where-do anything-to get his drink But
the boys from. the homes that you love
will not ordinarily do that. The critics of
the Vermont law are never tired of SAYING
prohibition merely drives the traffic undec-
ground, and, wild as the statement is. it
points truth: For it is precisely the I'M
foreground dive that your self-respecting
young men will not resort to. 1t is when
you begin to make the saloons respectable
with the countenance of the law; with
plate glass and handsome furnishings and
lights and music and all pleasant sur
roundings, with social brightness and
treating and good fellowship-.it is then
that the real temptation through drink be-
gins for the boys and men it is within
your power and mine to help to save. 1t is
then that the vote to establish the saloon
Is seen to be exactly equivalent TO a vote
TO gradually tear down our churches: for
the manly character the churches of
Christ are seeking to build up, the saloon
is given the power to destroy; and it can
and will pull down faster than cur
churches can build up. Then, though one
demonstrate, as decent man, when a sa-
loon is not to be licensed nearly always re-
monstrates-against the opening of sa-
loon AUDITING his own property or next to
ms own home, he finds out too late that
his vote has helped to open saloons next
TO somebody's property, near somebody's
nome; and the morals, the safety the com
Tort OF the nome are already jeopardized;
ana often the sacred name home" itself
turned into mockery and life long re-
greet
l tell you men and friends, we do not al
ways realize, when we talk of irving a
liquor license law and legalizing saloons
III Vermont, how we should be intrenching
in our communities the chief monied pro-
motor of intemperance, with all its mis-
cries; backed by almost unlimited finan-
clal resources in brewery and distillerv.
source of public revenue which would
enslave us only less than the appetite en-
slaves the drunkard; public nuisance
from which our streets are now clean.
centres OF crime which would quickly be-
gin to crowd our jails contempt for law
20 degree at present quite foreign to our
State; force in politics which would cor
rupt Just when we are struggling to rid
ourselves OF corruption; a law-conferred
Responsibility in the bar room which would
<af
from which, thank God, they are now free
ano SO, an arch-enemy to our churches
and our homes. I have lived years where
the high license system prevailed: / have
nVed where prohibition with a legal ayen-
cy has prevailed: and think 1 may say
that L speak of what [ know Nothing
could blnd the people of Vermont so effec
tiVely to their present system as a few
years-or single year-of residence IN
the average New England town that is
under the license system.
NOW my friend. that is not ALL Those
OF you who have followed me with your
intelligent assent, thus far, must feel it
laid very heavily upon your hearts and
consclences, by these stern facts your
serves, not simply to do what in YOU lies
toward the retention of our present anti
saloon law upon the statute books. but
to see to it that men are put back of this
law and of all laws; and then to let them
taxes precedence of this: We demand
obedience to law
Let us be honest about it. We some of
us. believe in w-enforcement--till it
hurts us or our friends. Of this liouor
law, we are prone to say: We believe in
1T: have always believe in it; but tact
and discrimination should be used in its
enforcement And that sounds very ra-
tlonal. Yet what we mean by that. TOO
oI1en, Is that people of responsibility
should not be antagonized even if thew do
break the law; that the detective methods
Whlch sound morality always justiIies
When used against low criminals. should
not be used to bring to justice offenders
or hlgh social rank or political influence.
But, friends, that is a most dangerous sen
tlment to harbor. There is only one lust-
Unable exception to obedience to law and
Its impartial enforcement, and that is the
right of revolution and the end of gov
eminent.
There is only one motive, one principle.
that can help us rise above all this per
sonal antagonism, when law hurts us
ana that Is the supreme law of unselfisil-
lsh benovolence-Thou shalt love ,hy
neighbour as thyself.-When a man gets
Where ne can say, now, whatever myself
ShoulG prefer, the community interest-in-
volving this multitude of my neighbors
my IelloWmen-ls greater far than my indi-
vldual interest; and though they clash Tor
time, the two are wrapped up insepara-
bly, together,-then all this petty indivi
auallsm, which is cursing society so, Cor
MIN Will rejoice away. AS honest citizens.
we reJolce-We must rejoice that men who
are able to judge, are saying of this anti
saloon law: We have travelled over
Vermont for years, and we have never be-
lore seen the State as free from the sale
ana use OF Intoxicating liquors. and that
some Of our newspapers have been able to
say: With this impartial enforcement of
the law, ana all the laws, fairly and fully.
the people Of Vermont every week" Even
its most active enemies, whose complaint
has often been: This law is such that II
cannot be enforced have changed their
minds and are saying now: THE law is
peing enforced too well; it must be for
some selfish purposer'
All that is surely healthy. Bit we must
bestr ourselves. For the sake of our
State, for the sake of our God-given work
as Chrlstlan citizens we must range the
cities OF our State, no less than the coun
try folk, overwhelmingly on the side of the