The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1903-02-08
Loads a @aro0ma Daily Fpep@ Both Novs amid Circulation

OF prohibition, adding that men could
not be legislated into doing right. Such
argument that these liquor men offer is
the veriest tommy rot
Again it is charged that prohibition ie
an invasion Of private rights. and is sinh
versive of liberty. Whose rights arc in
vaded?
The saloon and the liquor house exist
under the protection of civil right
right created by the State. No man can
fairly claim in organized society ma
tural right to sell liquor. "a license is
not required for the exercise of a natural
right. But if one sells intoxicants bv a
civil right does he thereby acquire the
privilege of compelling the State to grant
him this right forever? Rights are secur-
ed by law. If any mans rights are
abridged by prohibition let him appeal to
the courts. 1t is the boast of our civili-
cation that under our laws for every
wrong there is a remedy. Why do these
liquor coyotes decline to avail them
selves Of their privileges in the courts.
and be avenged of their adversaries?
Because by an absolutely unanimous
line of decisions of the highest courts,
both of this country and of Great Bri-
tain, they have been repeatedly told that
not solitary right of theirs is invaded
by prohibition
But prohibitory laws are denounced as
a form of sumptuary legislation. II the
charge were true, what of it? There Is
not well-ordered government
in the world which can af-
ford to dispense with all
sumptuary laws. The sale of decayed
vegetable and of tainted meats is pro-
hibted. Poisons and explosives are sub
ject to the most stringent prohibitions.
Shall these statutes be repealed? This
cry of 'sumptuary legislation is an ap-
peal to prejudice which reveals the
straits to which the men who make it are
driven to find arguments with which to
support their cause.
Then they say prohibition does not pro-
hibit. Now the truth is, a prohibitory
law is just like any other statute 1t is
successful where it is supported by pub
lie sentiment; it is failure where it is
not thus supported. 1t restraines drunk
enness as much or more than murder laws
restrain homicide.
Put prohibition in a town or county
and at once you see the jug trade with
up. If the alw fails to prohibit the SALE
why are the red-nos topers forced to
send away from home to get their jugs
filed? This very fact brands the argu
ment that prohibition does not prohibit
as a lie. In prohibition towns and coun-
ties drinkers have to send elsewhere 10
get their jugs filled. If prohibition does
not prohibit why do the whiskey men
oppose it and employ men to fight it's
passage and raise $500 to pay them like
they did in Wilkes county.
And Mont. Wellborn our Senator and
tool of the whiskey ring has the gall to
say that prohibition fails to prohibit in
Ashe county, and further that he could
scarcely get to the IGls for drinking
men, that during his race with Mr..
Bowie the speaking was broken up by
drunken crowds, &c. When asked about
this latter declaration Mr.. Bowie recalls
only one place where there was any
drunkenness at all The first time our
people have heard of people crying in the
night-"Liquor for sale, was when Mont.
last week told it, and remember the place
where they raised the cry-Hon. H. M.
Wellborn's home.
Then again, it is inconvenient to send
abroad to have a jug replenished, and so
the jug trade soon perishes. The stream
has to run SO far from the spring before
it gets to the drnker, and on the way is
SO exposed to the scorching rays of an
aroused public opinion, it soon dries up.
In conclusion, a great battle is on in
our State The greatest question in North
Carolina today is the liquor question.
Shall we be ruled and dominated and
debauched and damned longer by this
enemy of hell No, thousand times no.
Let us work and fight and pray for the
passage of the London bill.
l.. P. BOYLE.
Jefferson N. c., Feb. 4. 1903