Los Angeles herald., 1905-03-15
BISHOP P0TTER'S OPINIONS
AND G0THENBURG SYSTEM
DR.. Stephen Bowers Is Forninst Both
and Still Adheres to Absolute
Prohibition

Los Angeles, March 14.-Editor Her.
ald). There is certainly something
very incongruous in Bishop Potter's
words and his actions. According to
the booklet he has issued in behalf
of his subway tavern he believes that
the objective point of attack against
the drink habit is not the saloon, but
the drinker.
In the face of this declaration he
has assisted in opening drunkard
making resorts in New York city where
men and women, young people, old
drunkards and new victims are served
with all manner of Intoxicating IL
quors. The city authorities find that
liquor consumed in this bishop blest
tavern produces the same kind of
drunkenness as that served in the
Bowery resorts. 1t is certainly a
strange sort of Temperance" move
ment that places the most alluring
and women and then "attack" them
for drinking. To an outsider it looks
very much like a farce and travesty.
But there is one phase of the ques-
ton in which Mr. Potter always agrees
with himself and that is opposition
to prohibitory laws, which in reality
are the only effective remedy for the
liquor curse, which I think I am pre-
pared to show. The fact that prohibit
tion laws have been violated in prohibi-
ton territory is not a legitimate rea-
son for their annulment, if so it would
apply to laws against murder, bribery
and other crimes.
Bishop Potter has personal reasons,
doubtless, for opposing prohibition. The
country has not forgotten his row with
the customs house officials in New
York on the occasion of his last return
from abroad, in demanding that bar
rel of Scotch whisky should be ad-
mitted free of duty on the plea that 1t
was for his own personal use. 1t
strikes the average mortal that his
first "attack" of moral suasion should
be upon himself, and If that proves
effective he might with some degree
of propriety extend it to others. AT
the last annual meeting of the National
Liquor Dealers association COM
mandatory resolution indorsing Bishop
Potter and welcoming him as fellow
worker was passed. Since the world
began drunkard makers were never
known to commend their enemies.
Moral suasion, used by total abstain
ers, is good as far as it goes, but 1t
doesn't go far enough to solve the IL
quor problem. 1t has been tried in
England for 400 years, and In this
country for more than two centuries,
but 1t has utterly failed as a remedy
for the drink evil. 1t has been as
powerless as high license, the Gothen-
burg plan, or any other side issue. Reg
ulation of any kind fails to strike at
the root of the evil. We don't try by
license or moral suasion to regulate
murder, robbery or any other crime,
except drunkard making, but we pro-
hibit these crimes by law.
While the legalized dram shop hurls
multiplied thousands into the stream
that leads to poverty, disgrace and
dedtn Ine HlVrdl SuaueA iSSN"SS PoS-
sibly one in ten thousand. at least
very small per cent, Men like Potter
make drunkards. and it comes with
poor grace for them to prate about the
efficacy of moral suasion. The mis-
sion Of true men is not so much to
save their fellows from the saloon as
1t is to remove the temptation from
them, so that 1t may. in the language
OF Gladstone, be easy for them to do
right and hard to do wrong. For this
purpose are governments instituted
amongst men. The first duty OF govern
ment is to protect society and its mem
bers and guard community against
pauperism and crime. which it cannot
do under the legalized saloon.
STEPHEN BOWERS.