Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1908-03-25
Regulation, Not Prohibition
tBY THE PRESS COMMITTEE OF THE


iANTI-PROHIBITION LEAGUE.I
The Louisville Courier-Journal
Henry Watterson's paper is strongly
against prohibition and in a recent
editorial, expressed its views as fol
lows:
'Extremism leads ever to excess,
and excess is the parent of all forms
of intemperance The prohibition idea
has tried its hand in Spain quite 60
years, to write failure on the statute
books, along the highways and by
ways, and in the hearts of the people
The wave of hysteria relating to drink
which is sweeping over the south has
been largely impeIled by the purpose
tC keep liquor out of the reach of the
negro; but both as an economic and
moral proposition it is fake politics
and fake religion If it be not checked
it will lead to such conditions of per-
fdy and pharisaism in public and pri-
vate life as will recall the days of
Philip the Second in Spain, and Cot
ton Mather, in New England, assail-
ing personal liberty first in the sa-
loon and then in the home to culmin-
ate i'll clericalism at war with pro-
gressive thought and free institutions.
In the final equation will come the
reaction against purism which invaria-
bly, leads to riotous abandon. violent
abuse of law and rank infidelity.
THE true temperance agency is not
to be found in sumptuary legislation
but in regulative license and reason
able restriction.
Human nature is at eternal war
with prohibition. Human freedom
should not and will not endure it, The
whole constitutional system under
which We live is a protest against it
as one of the survivals of intolerant
ciericalism and despotic feudality. He
| who advocates it thinking it can be
achieved flies in the face alike of au-
| thenticated doctrine and historic ex-
perience. No nation on earth has
ever established it except the Turks,
and their Mohammedan Suzeranties,
and with these drink has been re-
placed by deleterious drugs two-fold
| more harmful than drink. From
every point of view it is a movement
aimed at the foundation of our re-
publican fabric. our religious fabric
and our moral fabric.
"The spasmodic wave of sentiment
against the sale of beer and spirituous
liquors which has shown itself par
ticularly in the action of Georgia and
Alabama by the enactment of prohibi-
ton laws, and as to other states by
similar restriction in counties by local
option laws, has awakened the more
intelligent brewers, as well as the dis
tillers and liquor dealers, to the ne
cessity of some well-devised plan OF
reforming the license system 50 as to
correct the abuses in the liquor traffic
which have contributed to these hos
tile demonstrations. Those who have
made the matter a study think that
the evils complained of are due to the
readiness with which the existing Ii
i cense system is abused or violated
and claim that they can be remedied
by judicious amendments so as to re
lstrain the evils of intemperance faI
more effectively than by prohibitory
laws, which do not necessarily lessen
the consumption of intoxicating drinks
however much they may aim to pro
hibit their sale. The mere effort tC
control the appetite for drink by pro
hibitive law tends, as one of its i'm
mediate effects, to arouse certain
resentment against the infringement
of ones inherent rights which leads
many, who would not otherwise drink
to excess, to evade the law, and re
suits in an increase instead of dim
mutton of intemperance.
1.-THE Courier-Journal entertains this
view. We believe that temperance car
be much better promoted by. judi
cious license system through the elm
nation of. the defects of that now il
forcd and that the puhlic health ant
morals can be better projected through
that means than by prohibitory law:
patterned after the Maine liquor law
PRESS COMMITTEE ANTLPROHE
i, BITION LEAGUE.