Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1903-08-28

Under this heading the Rutland Daily
Herald Aug. 18th printed the following
significant editorial, practically admit
ting that license is a failure in that
city: that drunkenness and crime have in
creased and that the law is openly vio-
lated; and cannot be enforced:
Not long ago the Herald expressed the
hope and expectation that the license
commissioners of this city would do
their sworn duty. This was a perfectly
natural hope and expectation, but we
made the remark because down to that
time the commission had accomplished
nothing worthy of mention. Kitchen
bars were in full blast, and quite a num-
Der of persons holding licenses were not
conducting business strictly according
to law. Aside from one nights unsuc-
cessful raiding and one raid and convic-
ton, the commission had nothing to
show by way of proper administration
of the license-local option law in this
city. That drunkenness had increased
there was no doubt. That the local
public had become nervous over the
license situation was equally true. The
commission seemed to be hitched to
post. Disclosures in open court were
promptly passed over to the commission
by the grand juror and complaints were
lodged by others. The commission
claimed that these complaints were not
put in legal form, and so nothing was
done.
Finally the local option league took
the matter up. 1t appealed to the
sheriff department to go to the very
places where the commissions officers
| bo1 rai1 Il fttl nuhn
and his deputies had no trouble at all in
finding as much liquor as they could lug
away. This was Sunday evening last
1t was thought that the evidence OBJ
tanned during these River street raids
would be sufficient to unhitch the com
mission from its post so that it could lay
the matter before the states attorney in
the manner prescribed ly the local
option law. Monday and tuesday fore
noon went by and commission did not
inform the states attorney of the evil
dence of illegal selling gathered by the
sheriff department. No warrant had
been issued for the arrest of the
River street offenders, who We're
still at large. The Local Option league
had no choice in the matter; it was com
PEELED to go ahead and hand its evidence
over to the states attorney. On his in
formation TOUR persons were arrested
yesterday and arraigned in the city
court, and the trial of their cases was
set for Thursday morning.
But, it should be remembered, the
league was organized to advocate law
and not to administer it. This latter
function rests, in the first instance, with
the license commissions. The commits
t sions all over the state understood this
and in nearly every place but Rutland
they are doing their duty admirably.
We do not despair of our commits.
5 sioners From photographers stand
point they appear like Eastwood images
but possibly they have unconsciously
assumed that appearance from their deer
contemplation of the intricacies of the
new law. That they have been silent
and solemn and impotent goes without
saying. We still think that they have
the spark of life in them. They car
gather evidence of violations of the
liquor traffic in this city like picking
berries from a bush. We even think
, that before the year is through they will
ask the states attorney to file an inform
alton. Such show of energy may
= shock them at first, but we predict tina
| they will do it.