Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1904-01-22
TO THE DEFENCE OF THE LAW
option Measure, After a Fair Trial,
viii indicate Itself.

70 the Editor of The Phunix:-
Str:-Ihe case Of the two physicians at
Newport who have given over 1000 pre-
scrptions each is well worth your note.
But to appreciate the hugeness of the
farce il needs to be studied in contrast,
wherein the rhetoricians tell us Is the
essence Of humor
The drug stores where these prescrip-
tions were filled are the substitute for
the town agency, to supply what the med
ical world generally regards as a nee
essity. one Newport doctor who operated
to make it the old town agency kind of
supply has been fined $500; the next Of
fense Will be $500. Did you ever happen
to hear of any such thing happening un-
der the old law, even where such pre-
scrptions flowed in streams, and almost
always to aid people to whom agents
would not sell otherwise? 1t once got so
bad in Brattleboro that the commissioner
ordered one physicians prescriptions to
be -dishOnorcd; but that was all that
could be done as regards physicians.
Which method do you really believe to be
the most effective for temperance?
Well, even including the operations of
these two Newport doctors who will nat
urally feel a decided "cramp" hereafter,
there have been Just 3006 prescriptions
in eight months in that town, or at the
rate of 1909 a year. Figuring these at
80 cents apiece Ca fair basis for com
port liquor agency profits, as reported to
the state treasury, were less than 8 per
cent? this would amount to $2,254.50 Of
sales yearly, where the agency sales in
1902 were $2i71.5S So the substitute at
the worst that has been reported, and
before any remedial pressure was APP
Piled worked 10 per cent. better in it's
first eight months than the agency did
at the end of 80 years.
And even this contrast is with an
agency that apparently worked better
than tn, average. Newport $ census pop
ulation (3l18 is AZ per cent. of that of
Brattleboro, whose agency sales in 1902
were $S695.ll, which was $400 less than
the year before, but which would have
meant pro rata Si.0S5.17 for Newport. SO
if the agency supply for medicinal. me-
chanical and chemical" purposes had
been equally as profuse in Newport as
in Bratteboro it would have outdone the
rate of the last eight months by a little
over 81 per cent.
Not only has the Newport case demon
strdtcd il to be very risky for a physician
to make a farce Of the law. but it is even
more 80 for the druggist holding this
class of license; for f caught (and the
law is SO guarded that both he and the
physician are sure to be sooner or later
it means not merely a heavy fine but the
forfeiture of a $1,000 bond to the town
treasury and permanent exclusion from
/
experience answer how much danger
to anybody there was in making a
farce OF the town agency
'fuis druggist feature was the one most
| attacked in the new law But its very
/ worst working anywhere can well stand
/ the test by the side of the best anywhere
/ Of the thing for which ii is substitute.
The one argument against the local OPP
Uon system has always been that its
restrictions are as much disregarded as
/ those Of state prohibition and so that to
/ the extent that license prevails it means
so much to the loss of temperance. While
/ not true, and demonstrated not to be true
! I'm every state where the two systems have
been fully compared, it has been too near
/ ly true and the one purpose of the Yer
mont law. and especially by means of
| this druggist feature and the requirements
] Of quarterly reports, under oath, from
police offcers-which was precisely what
/ brought the twist of the screws for sales
to minors in Brattleboro-to make it
less true than anywhere else or ever
. teforo. to make ii a law that will be
. measLlably obeyed, that wont be turned
into a farce.
Newport as no-license town and
Brattleboro as a license town, since the
/ law. in Jefferson's words. has shown its
teeth" have alike learned whether this
Is practicable. In the latter town, since
the new licenses We're issued drunkenness,
as measured by arrests and prosecutions,
has been less than half the average of the
/ later years of prohibition and less than
| eighth the average while the law was
being disregarded and defied somewhere
under the first licenses.
The new law needs strengthening at
some points. as was pointed out when it
, was passed to make it as entirely just
and efficacious as any law can be that is
administered by human hands; but with
oh iG -ttra I
| fident, on fair trial, to vindicate itself as
the best measure for real temperance,
the best solution of the difficult problem
of liquor legislation, yet enacted any
where.
Respectfully.
C. II. DAVENPORT.
Rrattleboro Vt, Jan. H. 1904.