The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1902-09-10
HIGH LICENSE VERSUS LOCAL
OPTION.
Views and Observations of Canad-
ian

Editor Montpelier Journal Il have
off and on been travelling through the
principal towns of your State for the
last ten years. | am, at present, at
home, enjoying my vacation. / am
no stranger to your political issues,
particularly your present one, and
having no political goggles to obscure
my vision. what | say regarding your
present issues should be considered
not only disinterested but without
the shadow of prejudice. | do not
know either of your political candi-
dates, personally, so l cannot be con-
sidered partial to one more than an
other. 1t seems to me your present
political contest may be boiled down
to high license or local option against
prohibition. This fact l inferred, not
only from the speakers on both sides,
but from your daily press This new in
vasion or issue of high license instead
of what you have had for the last
fifty years, and by means of which
you have been known as a prohibition
State, | understand is to enable your
citizens to regulate the liquor traffic.
Surely a grand aim, and if such a
change could accomplish so desirable
an object, by all means every intelli-
gent citizen should vote for it. But
does high license regulate the liquor
traffic? have lived in this country,
Canada, the best part of fifty years.
There is not city, village or
hamlet in this Dominion but | have
been through and have utterly failed
to see the liquor traffic regulated any
where by means of high licenses the
reason why, l say, is plain and simple
the hotel keeper has to pay a big
sum to run bar in connection with
his hotel. Where is the revenue to
come from to reimburse this outlay:
The hotel keeper can't afford to lose
from 81, 800 to 80, 800 a year to keep
bar and live He is going to get his
money back and more too. From
whom? How: Who is going to help
him to pay: Answer-our beloved
husbands, our cherished sons, our
exemplary brothers-aud what have
they got for raising this revenue to
enable the hotel keeper to reimburse
his outlay: What: Echo answers,
What? To my own personal knowledge
| have seen the law so often violated,
Sunday and Monday-compelli a man
to pay high sum to run liquor bar,
which compels him by hook or crook
to get his money back, and he will
get it too, and what does he care
who pays for it? His code of honor
is the transfer of every penny in his
customers pocket into his own
Come with me this fall and let us
visit some of our most important
towns in Ontario. Let us visit the
principal stores in each town and come
back to the hotel. What do we find:
That the hotels take in move money
than all the rest of the business places
together This is a fact and everybody
acknowledges it. 1t is utter rubbish,
then, to say that high license regulates
the liquor traffic. The only remedy
is prevention and | feel sure that the
main body of your citizens of Yer
mont, the bone and sinew of your
State, will not allow themselves to
be disinherited of the noble and ideal
boon transmitted to them by their illus
trious sires of half century ago. |
have been been east and west, north
and south-but why should your pub
lie men seem to me to be in physique,
on an average, superior to the
same per cent of the public men in
other States? have had good oppor-
tunities to make comparisons, and in
every case the comparison was in ia
vor of your public men. l hope some
! high license advocate Will atteml t
/ to explain.
1t is always a. safe way in political
/ contests, as well as in other contests,
to stand on the platform that produces
the greatest good to the greatest num-
/ Der, and from present appearance the
prohibitionists of your State are not
only coming back to power with an
overwhelming majority, but they are
coming back to prohibit, and they
ought to make up their minds that
prohibition is going to be made plain
in way that the majority will I'M
derstand; that every voter should see
that prohibition means what he un-
derstood it to mean and that all in
authority will have the courage of
their convictions and see that prohi-
bition is enforced.
Canadian.
Montreal, p Q.