The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1904-08-11


OF your town agency alone, in the
ficsal year ending the March follow
ing were 500, 54426, or S4.71 per
capita. How much more was sold bv
the IL other dealers shown by the In.
ternal Revenue, and how much was
imported by people who preferred not
to ask any neighbor to violate the
law, there is no telling. But il is
safe to say that it was more than
enough to Offset the agency sales TO
out-of town people and the wholesale
profit, above the SO, 500 54 profit re-
ported by the agency, leaving the
Montpelier consumption, at the end of
90 years of prohibition" fully equal
to the average consumption of the rest
of the country, or the rest of the
world, for that matter. To say there
is now 'vast increase upon this
is curious commentary on the re.
suits of prohibition" and the habits
of the people developed under it. I
decline to believe it. even when put
forth as a prohibitory statement.
decline to believe either that your
people is an exceptionally heavy drink
ing one, beyond the generality of YER
monters. The facts only happen to
be where we can see them q little
more easily than usual.
Your other "glittering generality"
about expenditures by laboring
classes, suffering of families and nom
payment of living bills. &C.. like
that of Mr.. Morrow about Withdraw
ais of Savings bank deposits, is true
in the sense that such things are al.
ways occurring under all laws.
Whether occurring now more than
under the old law, the report of the
inspector of finance may afford some
evidence, showing how the growth of
Savings bank deposits compares with
previous years. At least we know
that in the past the three local option
States of New England have made
very much better showing in this re-
spect than it's three prohibition
States. But when the report appears
l expect you prohibitory brethren to
again vociferate that it is entirely
untrustworthy" as evidence and to
harp off on something else that is en-
tirely incapable of definite analysis.
OF course no candid man will claim
that the reduction in the number of
sellers shown by the internal revenue
proves corresponding reduction in
the quantity of liquor sold how far
it may be so depends on a great vari-
ETY. of circumstances. All that can
fairly be said is and this all expert
ence and expert study of the subject
confirms-that any increase in the
number of sellers does as a rule some-
what increase sale and vice versa.
The conclusion of the widest, most
careful and most unbiased investiga-
tion ever made, that of the committee
of fifty, was that the difference in the
consumption of liquor effected by any
system of legislation as compared
with any other is small and narrow
in range. This being so, the most
that can be hoped from law is to reg
ulate the traffic ON lines of strict and
manifestly and admittedly just re-
striction and guard against excess,
while trusting to educational and
moral forces, working along the lines
of individualism, wherein is the
Christian ideal and wherein the
largest and most permanent human
lead men and women away from liquor
drinking. 1t is the merit Of our new
law that it does this restrictive duty
-imperfectly. to be sure, and more
imperfectly than it would do if the
Democratic bill could have reached
enactment unmutilated - but more
effectively than law ever did before.
And it is the one great merit of the
local option idea itself that. by the
thought and discussion it brings every
year to every community, it IS vast
educational power towards temper
ance How vast, is we'll demonstrat-
gu NY bll6 bWO lduuS WHoI6 III HAS lldu
longest trial, Finland and Norway,
whose people have been transformed.
in less than three-q quarters of CEN
tury, from among the most drunken
to the most nearly total -abstaining
among all the white races; while on
the one side of them the Russians
under government monopoly of the
traffic, somewhat like the scheme you
prohibitionists proposed TWO years
ago in the Battell bill--have steadily
sunk to lower depths of hopeless and
british intemperance; and on the
other side, in the British ELSEWHERE
until lately has prevailed free license,
and your idea that the number of sell
ers is unimportant or at least Gun
Trustworthy" as evidence relating to
intemperanoe-is found next to the
most drunken people in the world.
The simple question here in Yer
mont is whether we want the progress