Mrs. Grundy. (Tracy City, Tenn.) 1903-1930, 1904-06-02
To Destroy the
Rum Power.
By Henry George.
Concluded from last week.

would be ii there were no TAX or
restriction on it's manufacture
and sale, the treating habit
would certainly be largely weak
ened. If whisky were as cheap
as water, it would entirely die
out. Who thinks of treating
another to water, or feels the re-
fusal of another to empty a glass
of water into his stomach a
slight; or imagines that because
one man offers glass of water
to each of a party that each one
Of the party must in his turn
offer a glass of water to all the
others?
As for the saloon, the license
system makes it more gorgeous
and enticing; while prohibition
drives it into. lower and viler
forms. What really would be
the effect of absolute free trade
in liquor? At first blush it may
seem as if it would be to enor-
mously multiply saloons. On
second consideration it will seem
more likely to utterly destroy
them. This is certain, that if
anywhere that saloons exist a
proposition were made to do
away with all tax, license, or re-
striction, the saloon keepers
would be its most bitter oppo-
nents. And they would quickly
assign the reason, IF every
body were free to sell liquor we
would have to go out of business"
The liquor saloon as we know
it is a specialization which can
only exist by the concentration
of business which restriction
causes. Were liquor as cheap as
it would be were all taxes on it
removed, and were everyone
free to sell it, it might be sold
in every hotel, in every board
ing or lodging house, in every
restaurant, druggists, bakery,
confectionery, grocery, dry goods
store, or peanut stand, but places
specially devoted to it's sale
could not be paved with silver
dollars, or or ornamented with
costly paintings, or set fine free
lunches, or provide free concerts,
even if indeed they could con-
tinue to exist. And where
liquor was sold in connection
with food, entertainment, or
other things, and at prices which
free competition would compel,
it would not pay to let men
drink themselves into intoxica-
ton or semi-intoxieation or in
any way to provoke or encour-
age the drinking habit.
In short, | believe that exam
nation will show that the sweep
ing away of all taxes and restric-
tons, would not only destroy
the ''rum power" in our politics.
but would much decrease intern
perance.
And this view has the support
of one of the keenest observers.
Adam Smith, who treats this
matter at some length in Chap
ter 3, Book ", of "The Wealth
of Nations" says:
eff we consult experience, the
cheapness of wine seems to be a
cause, not Of drunkenness, but of
sobriety. The inhabitants of the
wine countries are in general the
soebrest people in Europe.
"People are seldom guilty of
excess in what is their daily fare.
Nobody affects the character of
liberality and good fellowship
by being profused of a liquor
which is cheap as small beer.
"When a French regiment
comes from some of the northern
provinces of France, where wine
is somewhat dear, to be quarter
ed in the southern where it is
very cheap, the soldiers, | have
frequently heard it observed,
are at first debauched by the
cheapness and novelty of good
} wine; but after a few months
residence, the greater part of
} them become as sober as the rest
of the inhabitants. Were the
duties upon foreign wines, and
the excise upon malt, beer, and
ale to be taken away all at once,
it might, in some manner, occa-
sion in Great Britain pretty
general and temnorarv drunken-