Windham County reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1901-1906, 1903-01-30
Polit,cs and LIQUOR Law.

Our friends the pronlDltlonlStS, auu
that means those who intend to vote to
retain the prohibitory law February 3,
are very earnest in their charges that
the proposed local option license law
would mean the corruption of politics,
that the matter of distribution of Ii
censes would become a local political
issue with an attendant train of evils.
The local option law in politics, In
the name of common sense, where has
the prohibitory law been all these fifty
wears? What institution in all our gov
ernmental machinery has been more
wantonly, mischievously employed as
the tool of the politicians than this
same prohibitory law? How many pol
iticians have played to the prohibition
galleries with heroic sayings and unc'
tious moral platitudes that did no more
agree with their own personal views or
habits than black with white? How
many trades and 'dickers' to secure
the prohibition vote" have been made
in this old state since 1852? How many
politicians have promised this and that,
how many offices have been parcelled
out, how many plums shaken from the
state patronage tree in return for at
least outward appearance of support OF
the prohibitory law? How many sher-
ifs and deputy sheritfs, states attor-
neys, and other public officials have
traded on this prohibitory law as a
part of their political plumber? In how
many campaigns has the enforcement
(?) of the prohibitory law been the
main stake at issue, and who can esti
mate the money that has been made
out of It by the officers sworn to ad-
minister it and the swarm of cheap
lawyer politicians that follows at their
heels? How many men have fought for
the office of county commissioner and
why? What is there in the office Great
ed by the prohibitory law that some
men appear to covet, an opportunity to
make a dollar or to build up political
machinery and influence in every town
in the jurisdiction-or both? Is there
ever any trouble about the selection OF
city or town agent, and is the election
of selectmen or city council ever in
f1uenced in any degree by this issue!
Do town liquor agents or selectmen get
any "rake-off ?" Do the liquor drum
mers who for half century have gone
up and down the state of Vermont sell
ing the vilest kind of jug house con-
coctions in every city, town, and ham
let-do those men ever act as political
missionaries for anybody? How about
the legislature? Is there ever any in
ducement offered to the man at Mont
pelier growing out of the profits lurk-
ing in the enforcement or non enforce
ment of the prohibitory law? Why is
it that Montpelier never sees such a
saturnalia of liquor drinking as she
does every two years when the general
assembly meets and votes to retain the
prohibitory law?
Liquor law in politics! Great Scott,
gentlemen! There never was a statute
devised to serve the purpose of good
morals that inspired more hypocrisy,
perjury, fraud, political corruption,
and down right stealing than the pro-
hibitory law of Vermont. And every
reasonable man who reads these lines
and reflects upon them will admit,
whatever his personal view of the Ii
quor law issue, that the prohibitory
law gives US more trouble and makes
US more politics than any other law on
the statute books.
Liquor law in politics! Prohibition
has been the football of Vermont poll
tics for fifty years. st. Adams Messen-
ger.