The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1903-08-13
PRESS COMMENT.
AS TO "TREATING" IN YER
MONT.

Commenting on a statement made |
by the Boston Transcript, to the effect |
that in Massachusetts, forty.th per |
cent of the persons annually committed |
to penal institutions for drunkenness are |
first offenders that is. have never be- |
fore been sentenced for that offence, |
and that it would seem to be poor |
way to reform them BY shutting them |
up with hardened criminals, the New |
York Evening Post says:
perhaps better way of lesseuing
| drunkenness by law may be developed
| in Vermont. Only recently has it be-
come generally known that the license
| law adopted in that State, when the
people tired of prohibition as a deter
rent Of incompetence, contains an
anti-treating provision. That clause
of the law reads: No Intoxicating
liquor shall be sold or furnished to a
person or other person, or any number
of persons to drink in the licensed
| premises in the way commonly known
as treating. If this can be enforced
it will certainly lessen drinking, and
the authorities and the temperance
workers are trying to enforce it. They
are likely to meet with much opposi-
ton from the drink sellers, to whom
the treating habit is a source of much
income. The latter, however, cannot
maintain the custom without the aid
Of their patrons, and why should not
the latter take refuge under the law
from the unneeded flood of drink? 1t
is safe to say that the average drinker
enters saloon to get one glass,
or at most, two. That he drinks more
is because he and others are slaves to
the notion that if they don't ask their
friends to drink with them they will
be considered unsocial or mean. 1t is
just as vulgar as that other feature of
the American saloon-the standing in
a row at a bar and swilling beer like
pigs at trough The one is the out
growth of the other, and may Ver-
mont show the way to remedy both,
in the interest of decency as well as
temperance. Another worthy feature
of the Vermont law is that thetman
who doesn't wish to drink at all, but
hasn't the moral courage to say so,
can cite the statute in protection.
When asked to come in and have
something he can reply that it is con-
trary to law
This reads we'll; but betrays Singh
lar innocence, as we'll as ignorance of
, the conditions in this State. The anti
treating clause was put into our pres
ent law by the license men, as a sort
of tub to the temperance whale. They
knew it would not and could not be
enforced and the license organs said
| so at the time. If any serious attempt
| to enforce it is in progress anywhere
in Vermont we do not know where it
is being made,
, A single case of prosecution under
the clause is, we believe, on record in
a Vermont city, intended perhaps, to
!, show how easily the law could be
| evaded. AS we recall the facts man
testified that he ordered a drink at a
bar; laid down three or four times the
price of drink on the counter, and
} did not take his change. Two or three
| of his acquaintance then stepped up
and had drinks for nothing. The JUS
r Sin the way commonly known as
treating" But even this thin disguise
! is in most cases not needed. Neither
bartender nor treaters nor drinkers
will supply evidence on which to base
prosecutions for treating. A police
man cannot be kept at the elbow of
: every bartender to prevent treating,
} and the average policeman would not
see anything when treating was going
on, even if he did not take his treat
with the rest. Of course the clause
, does not serve to stiffen the moral
courage of any man, for the treater
would laugh in his face if he offered
/ the anti-treating clause in excuse for
, declining to drink. 1t probably would
J take less courage for man to say he
! did not wish to drink, than to plead
the law in excuse for declining
The anti-tIeating feature of the Ver-
mont law amounts to nothing. 1t has
; not stopped single treat" Beyond
doubt the American treating practice
is great promoter Of drunkenness,
but it cannot be stopped or seriously
checked where drinks are freely sold
over bar, by any clause in liquor
law.-Burlingon Free Press