East Oregonian : E.O. (Pendleton, OR) 1888-current, 1908-05-21
Is PROHIBITION GOOD
FOR THE STATE?
Experience of Many States and Com
munities to the Contrary.

Experience of Many States and Com
munities to the Contrary.
Editor Des Morgen Journal:
You have proposed to us the ques-
ton, "Is prohibition good for the
atate?"
In the light of common sense and
human experience there can be but
one answer: No.
Someone has defined history as
philosophy teaching by example.
Surely there has been no lack Of such
teaching as TO the effects and conse-
quences of prohibition wherever tried
in this country.
Among the states which have made
a more or less disastrous trial Of pro-
hibition and have abandoned it for
license, I may name Vermont, Con-
necticut, Rhode Island, New Hamp-
shire, Michigan, Iowa, Illinois, Ne
braska, Pennsylvania and South Da-
kota.
These members of our common
wealth have, az different times bun
with almost equal emphasis, answered
the question prOpounded above: They
have replied that prohibition was not
good for them.
But why was prohibition not good
for them? I turn the question this
way in order, within the narrow linn
its affodred me, to throw some light
on the problem
Prohibition did not benefit the
states named, and cannot benefit any
state, for certain moral and material
Q reasons. On the contrary, it did thers
great and positive harm.
Let US first barely glance at the
moral evils wrought by prohibition
evils which it must always produce, as
the tree beareth fruit according to its
kind.
Prohibition refuses to recognize nat
ural laws, and it has therefore failed
even where every condition and cir
cumstance seemed to favor 1T.
Prohibition is the parent of Illicit
traffic, which enormously aggravates
the drink evil. 1t is a violation of the
American spirit and a contradiction of
.nur theory Of government.
1t is an axiom that laws which are
not founded in right and reason can
never be enforced. The habitual dis
regard for prohibitory statutes wher-
ever they are presumed to be in force,
tends to create and foster disrespect
for all law.
On this very point the committee Of
fifty (haded by such men as Presi-
dent Eliot of Harvard, Bishop Potter,
Seth Low, Hon. Carroll D. Wright,
Hon. Chas. ]. Bonaparte, DR.. Felix
Adler, Prof. w. o. Atwater and Rich
ard Watson Glider has made
searching report in which they say:
There has been concurrent evil OF
prOhibitory legislation. The efforts to
enforce 1t during forty years have had
some unlocked for effects on public
respect for courts, judicial proceed
ngs, oaths and laws I'm general, and
for officers of the law, Legislators and
public servants"
The committee goes on to point out
that "the public has seen law defied,
a whole generation OF habftual law
breakers schooled in evasion and
shamelessness, courts Ineffective
through fluctuations of policy delays,
perjuries negligences and other mis-
carriages Of Justice, officers Of the law
double faced and mercenary, legisla-
tors tmid and insincere, candidates
for office hypocritical and trucking.
and officeholders unfaithful to pledges
and reasonable public expectation.
Through an agitation which has al
ways had a moral end, these immor-
siities have been developed and made |
conspicuous"
Finally this eminent and unim-
peachable committee reaches these