The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1909-03-27

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following:
Wrong in Principle. 8
Prohibition is fundamentally and
profoundly. wrong as q governmental
policy, and in country where the
largest measure of freedom of action
is accorded the individual it becomes
intolerable.
For a state, through its lawmaking
power, to attempt to control what the
people shall eat and drink and wear
except to see that they are projected
from impositio4-is tyranny and not
liberty. Any attempt by legislation to
abolish the manufacture and sale of
liquor is abortive, in that it does not
accomplish the result hoped for, AND
AGAIN THAT IT VIOLATES THE
PLAINEsT AND MOST OBVIOUS
RULE ON INDIVIDUAL ACTION
AND PERSONAL FREEDOM.
In the scheme of human government
man may make laws which forbid, and
he may be punished if he breaks those
laws, but to remove temptation by
law or to make men good by law is an
assumption of authority as unjustified
by reason as it is useless in practice
T.. r., T.: Only Real Remedy. i.
It is a misnomer to call a law by the
state seeking to abolish the manufac-
ture and sale OF liquor a prohibition
law. The only law the state could
enact, which could properly he called
a prohibition law, or that could posi-
bly, reach the end said to be desired,
n a y1oo - ~
would be one which would make the
use a crime ,."
. If such g law should be proposed,
however, absurd it might be. it would
bring the question. up directly. to the
people, and It s~reA1d her Be etenr how
1nuch *$of sincerity or ypocrtay iaKAs
behind a movement which proposed to
abolish the manufacture and sale OF
liquor in our own state, while the peo-
pie are left free to get all they want
and drink as much as they please
from other states. e"
Open Saloons or Illicit Sellers.
1t is often intolerantly urged that
all who are opposed to statewide pro-
hibition, so-called are in league with
the saloon and the abuses which are
often connected Herewith.
It is just as fair to charge all who
are in favor Of prohibition to be In
favor OF the secret dive or the boot
logger who plies his trade in unfre-
q1tented places, for when the legal sa-
looms are gone the illegal sellers begin.
The theory upon which the legal sale
Of liquor is to be forbidden by law is
based upon the false promise that the
sale Of liquor can be e. olfshed by law.
The very opposite is true, as in in
variably shown by the STATE where
prohibition prevails, and even in To-
calities where it prevails by consent
of the people.
In my opinion the choice which is
logically and inevitably presented is
between regulation and control by law
Of the liquor traffic, and secret or open
violation of the law.
It ds the choice between openness
and evasion, between fairness and hyp-
ocrisy, between real temptation and it's
counterfeit.
Not 4 Temperance Measure.
A law that will brew lying and de-
ceit in the people is not a temperance
measure but an n'intemperance measure
A man who buys liquor in a public
place recognized by law, may be do
ing himself and family an injustice,
but II he obtains It in the illegal club,
or from the express agent under a
fictitious name, or from bootlegger.
he certainly does the same amount Of
damage, and has the added load to
bear that he has been a partner in
deceit and the laws. evasion.
Convinced, as have always been,
and now more than ever, that prohibi-
ton laws are a failure and breed more