The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1904-03-10
THE LOCAL-OPTION IDEA.

Many OF the license newspapers OF
the State, while discussing the mean
ing of last Tuesdays vote on the
saloon question, have taken the OPP
portunity to praise the principle of
local-option. They say that the
results argue in favor OF local-option,
for by that provision of the law, each
municipality is permitted to say for
itself each year whether liquor shall
be sold in its limits or not. Local
option and home rule seem to them to
90 hand in hand in bestowing benefits
upon the community.
Some of the license advocates care
nothing for principle. The men who
tell their fellows, Vote as you
drink" believe in license purely and
simply because it enables them to get
their liquor more conveniently. They
care nothing for local-option as a
principle, and are not to be consld-
cred except as their votes count at the
polls. But there are men to whom
local option means more than mere
opportunity to get open saloons.
Many local option men voted No"
last Tuesday. It is to those men who
honestly believe in local-option that
these few words are directed.
In the first place where would local
option take us if we should apply it
to other matters? Why would it not
be consist ent to pass laws that would
allow each municipality TO say
whether fishing should be allowed
within it's borders each year? Why
not have yes or no vote each year
on the maintenance of schools and
compulsory attendance Of pupils, in
stead of having general law for the
State, compelling the maintenance of
schools under penalty of indictment
and general truancy law for the
scholars? The liquor question is one
that concerns the whole State as we'll
as that of the schools or the fisheries.
No town can 60 wrong on the liquor
question without affecting its neighbor
Just as a town without schools would
injure its neighbors. If open saloons
are good for one town, they are good
for another. If they are bad for one,
they are bad tor another.
One great trouble with the principle
of local-option in dealing with the
liquor traffic is this-locsl option is
almost an impossibility. For instance,
sixteen towns in Washington county
have just voted "No," but because
four towns voted yes" the residents
of the sixteen towns will have all of
the evils of the open saloon except the
saloon itself and none Of its benefits
if there are any benefits. Berlin,
East Montpelier, Worcester, and the
others have declared against the traffic
in Intoxicating liquor, bat the will
OF the voters is OF no avail because
Montpelier, Barre, Barre town, and
Woodbury. voted for license. That is
the way local-option works-or
rather, fails to work.
1t is nonsense to assert that the
majority of the voters in given
town-Berlin, for instance, govern
that town with respect to license. 1t
is not so. A majority in Montpelier
has overridden the wishes of the ma
jority in Berlin, and for all practical
purposes Berlin has license. IT Mont
pelier had not done it, some other
town would. 1t is always so, In
Massachusetts, when the liquor inter
ests see they are to be defeated in a
given city, they turn their attention
to some neighboring town, distribute
money and liquor to the voters, carry
the town for license, and get the trade
of the city just the same. Look at
Rutland this year. The city has
voted against license after tremend-
Gus change in public sentiment, but
a saloon in the town of Rutland is
located almost at the city line and tine
city will have license under its very
nose in spite ct itself. Local option
will not work, and if it would, the
principle would be wrong. There
may be communities in Vermont that
would favor licensing gambling houses
and houses of ill-fame as is done in
some places in other States and other
countries. Under the local.option
principle they should be allowed to
issue those licenses if they so desire,
even though the rest of the State
should consider the houses great evils
and should be injured by them. The
local option idea is all wrong. The
interests of the State as a whole. not
the selfish desires of the single COM
munities, should control.