The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1904-08-25
LIQUOR SYSTEMS.
An Elucidation of the subject by q.
H. Davenport. The Battell Bill.

on my letter about the workings of
local option license do not require
further argumen tation from me, even
II you had space to spare for it, In
deed, | do not see as we are far apart
in any conclusion for which there
is any definite basis of evidence. So,
beyond reminding you that the off
cial" evidence on which my state
ments were based is from county and
clerk records, the State treasurer's
and auditors offices, and local license
boards. as well as the internal reve-
nue., | only write to correct a misap-
prehension, which is very widely held
and which needs to be cleared away
for an intelligent consideration of the
subject. You say, as has been thous-
ands of times said by others:-
| The State store system as proposed
in the Battell bill is more nearly
comparable to the Norwegian syst am
than to any other system in existence,
while the Norwegian system is very
unlike the present license law.
| If you will refer to DR.. Gould's &C.
count in the Atlantic of October 1885,
| his report to the Massachusetts, Leg
islature; DR., Peabody's in the Forum
Tin 1890, / think 1t was) DR.. LAWNS
in the Fortnightly Review, and the
many articles that have appeared in
the last dozen years in the Popular
Science Monthly, you will see the er-
ror The great distinguishing feat
ure of the Norwegian system is that
| it gives three alternatives under local
option, prohibition, or license to pri-
vate parties, like ours, or license to o
benefioent association to handle all
, the liquor traffic in town or city, on
| condition that all profits above a fixed
return of 4 or per cent on capital
| invested, shall be distributed to be-
nevolent objects by designated boards.
| This latter provision eliminates the
| motive of private profit to extend the
traffic, and the still more demoraliz-
ing one, as our town agency system so
often proved, and as has been shown
in parts of Sweden under the Gothen-
! burg system, of profit to the public
, treasury-worse and more demoraliz-
| ing, because of lack of the saving,
| however, among taxpayers, of that
| individual sense OF responsibility and
direct personal knowledge, which
often operates with the individual Ii
censee, especially if the.guards of the
law are such as to make it most peri
lous for him to engage in that part of
the traffic that ought to be prohibited
The Norwegian system also lacks the
| fundamental defect of the Battell bill
in requiring every purchaser TO buy
q bottle instead of drink--of the
meaning of which we can get some
idea from the operation of our second
class license. The Norwegian system,
still further, has the vigor and virtue
of ours III local control, instead of the
most vicious feature of the Battell bill
in the opportunity and invitation to
build up great State political ma
chine through the liquor traffic, as
| Senator Tillman has done, impregna.
| bly,, IN Sonth Carolina.
Mr.. Battell's bill, l believe, pro-
posed the best guarded system of the
kind that has ever been devised any
where. The trouble is that it is a
kind that must, under the laws of
human nature, work evil, second only
to that of this rotten prohibition we
/ have had Its model is the Swedish,
rather than the Norwegian system,
and the necessary evil working of the
former has been so clearly shown that
Sweden in recent years is adopting
the Norwegian methods.
The system in Finland is better than
either, though information about it is
much more meager and difficult to OBJ
tain in our language, and | will not
trespass Oh your space to go into
particulars. Suffice it now to say
that the democratic party in the last
Legislature, in the bill from its
caucus, proposed measure conceded
| to have been far the best offered; and
if it could have been passed, in Its
integrity, would have been free from
the many grave defects and unfair
nesses that experience has shown in
the present law, injected into it by
the prohibition Republicans with de-
! liberate purpose to make it as I'M
satisfactory as possible, so that it is a
miracle that the law ever came out in
as good shape as it did. And l
now make the prediction that you
will see the Democratic party, in the
coming Legislature, unitedly present.
ing and supporting a bill even better
than its first one; the fairest to the
seller who does the business properly,
and the swiftest and severest in its
punishment to him who dares to do
otherwise; the best guarded and most
practicable in its workings, and so
embodying the experience of other