Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1903-06-05
Government Control of the Sale
of Liquor.

Mrs. Ida II. Reed president OF the
state w. G. T. T., and a most sincere,
earnest temperance advocate, is reported
to have criticised those clergymen who
have favored a system of state control,
embracing some of the underlying prin-
ciples of the South Carolina dispensary
system, at the recent meeting at Barre,
and said that this system is much worse
than license; that under it drinking has
increased in that State and that the state
agents get commission on every sale,
etc.
What may be the facts in relation to
the present workings of the law in South
Carolina, we do not know; or how re-
liable or extensive is the evidence, upon
which Mrs. Reed bases her charges. But
we do know from careful personal exam
nations in the city of Columbia in the
earlier years of the law in South Caro-
lima, that exactly the reverse Of this was
true Then liquors could only be. got at
the state dispensaries, and the law was
generally considered to be good. We eX-
amined into this very carefully at that
time, and know this to have been the
fact in that the second largest city of the
State, and we understood it to be true
throughout the State, with the possible
exception of the city of Charleston,
where existed a very strong political
combination against the law.
These, too, are the facts reported
by the Committee of Fifty, com
posed of some of the ablest philan
thropsts college presidents and business
men, including such men as Mayor Lowe
of New York, and President Elliott of
Harvard College who carefully invest-
gated the operation of this law in South
Carolina. The Liquor Problem pub
lished by this committee, page 17S, says:
" In other cities of the State, Spartan
burg Aiken. Orangeburg, Florence,
Darlington, Geore etown, and the rest,
the information collected shows con
cusively that the arrests for drunken
ness have fallen off from one-third to
one-half under the dispensary law
- 1t is then, beyond all cavil, true
that in the cities and towns formerly
under license the dispensary law has
promoted sobriety and in truly wonder
full degree. The many evils inseparable
from the saloons, and which have been
abolished with them. need not be dwelt
upon. 1t is equally self-evident that less
drinking means better cOnductand greater
peace in the community"
These reports show that the law did
work well. In Sweden and Norway it
was enacted because Of the great intem-
perance which prevailed in those coun-
tries and, as "A matter of history, accom-
plished much good.
Russia, perceiving the beneficial re
suits of this system in Sweden and Nor
way, established it in apart of her EN-
pire in 1896, and since, as we under
stand, has extended it over the whole;
and more recently the government
in France has recommended the passage
of similar law, stating that they had
carefully examined its workings in
Sweden Norway, Switzerland and
Russia, finding results very satisfactory.
1t was stated in the news items a few
weeks since that the French legislature
was about to pass such law, but more
recently we have seen an item that the
liquor interest of France was making a
most determined fight against it and
that their power was so great that it
was doubtful if itSpassed at this time.
Does Mrs. Reed suppose, does any in
telligent person suppose that the liquor
interest would fight any system, if
much more liquor was sold under it than
under license:
The defect of the South Carolina law is
that it provides for the payment of those
who keep the dispensaries in accordance
with the amount of liquor which they
sell. Having thus abandoned the funda.
mental principle of government control,
it was certainly to be feared that
sooner or later the natural results of the
introduction of private gain in the sale
of liquor must follow and the law cease
to be temperance measure.
This was referred to in the pamphlet
on the Present Crisis widely distributed
over the State last winter, where, in a
note, attention was called TO this very
great oversight in the South Carolina
law as being in its nature fatal And
therefore we can see that there may be
justifiable grounds for the charges made
by Mrs. Reed against the present work